[DnD] Tomb of Horrors (GFF D&D Adventure X)

The Five fell many of the skeletons, but the remaining legionnaires draw javelins once again as Beefi makes his plea for sanity. The magus raises his hand in a gesture of restraint, however, and responds to Beefi in a new and civil tone.

"A goose, you say. Truly, I could no more wound an innocent creature than I could allow your intrusion into my tomb to go unchallenged. How do you propose we resolve our conflict, then? I cannot simply let you go without testing your mettle, having delved so far as to disturb my eternal resting place. How should we resolve our conflict, stranger? As you are both outnumbered and, I daresay, outmatched: I leave the choice of contest to you."

Slim isn't his own ally (lol rules) so I healed Garold instead

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

10 Dice Rolls Magus arcana

The majority of the Five present excellent verse, and Slim's pure physical intensity is more than adequate to convey the emotional turmoil of his feelings. No one in the room doubts his enthusiasm for beefcake.

Beefi 36, GFZ 36, Slim 56, Sam 43, Garold 55; Furious Five Total 226

The Magus seems impressed with the unexpected show of talent, and confers with four of his minions. It's Paolo that steps forward first.

Dry
Tomb air
A spear trap!
It has pierced my
lungs.

A second skeleton steps forward.

Here stand the bones of Arthur Slag
'twas slaughtered by an ooze
Hid all the treasures in his bag
And surely paid his dues
'tis in the nature of a thief
To take more than his score
But Arthur's but a fallen leaf
And robs no one anymore.

And a third steps forward, perhaps a bit shorter and stockier than the rest.

Axefist's crew were the best
The finest swords in the west
Down came the stones
and shattered their bones
Here's Axe at the end of his quest.

A fourth, slightly taller than the rest and still clad in a few rags of his mortal clothing.

Bard
paid well
to observe
to see and sing
of the victories
of the dwarf Axefist.
Seven we were, and bold
Separated by portals
Axefist triggered a juggernaut!
Mowed down underneath, I and the rest
I find no rest, and the lich pays nothing.

The magus smiles, his leathery hands pattering together in a dry clap for his troupe.

Never tarry
in a tomb
For what is buried
spells your doom
Cursed you are
and hexed, and pox'd
If doors unbar
If opened locks
Yet all will come
for greed, for glory
My tomb, the end
to all their stories.

The magus pauses briefly before finishing, taking a long drag from a pipe of his own. The smoke trickles freely out of the many holes in his torso.

Burma Shave.

Skeleton 1 33, Skeleton 2 49, Skeleton 3 36, Skeleton 4 29, Magus 63; Magus Troupe Total 210

Despite the fine poetry of the dead, Howard remains firmly in place atop Beefi's pack. The goose has clearly chosen a winner in this contest. The magus snarls and retires to his couch.

"Goose, I disagree strongly with your assessment but the terms were clear. Stand down, my legions. These fools may go about their business with no further interference from us."

"I blame the bard", mutters Axefist, already collapsing back into the bone pile. "What was that bullshit, you poncy elf? It didn't even rhyme!" The bard just sighs.

Victory! 2150 XP (430 each)

"What?!" shouts the mace, practically rattling around in Beefi's grip. "Rather than crush evil, you talk it to sleep?! Cowardice, friend, pure cowardice."

Mace concordance -2

"I just want you guys to know", Murray interjects, "that was the fruitiest goddamn thing I've ever seen. And I once worked for a druid who made golems entirely out of strawberries."

I was speaking idiomatically.

5 Dice Rolls Uxig - Tumbledown track

The immediate danger at an end, Slim promptly collapses to the floor for a well-earned rest and most of the Five follow his lead (Sam carefully keeping Murray well away from the skeletons). Beefi takes a moment to peruse the room while its guardians were in a dormant state. Many of the deceased adventurers now in the employ of the magus still had some small treasures in their possession, though it's now a tricky business trying to pry them out of the jumble of bones.

Beefi leaves the question of whether it would be best to take the items 'til he's rested, and the Five spend an uncomfortable night aside the bones. As they break camp the next morning, many of their ailments seem to have cleared up — though the halfling still seems a touch red and sweaty.

Found: 2 vials Battle Mind potion, 1 vial Psychic Resistance potion, 450 GP, bag of ritual scrolls (Remove Affliction, Steal The Voice, Skull Watch, Aces High. Will detail the effects & etc later.)

Diseases: All cured save Sam's Filth Fever.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Uxig returns to the now-open secret room, looking at it in conditions other than pitch darkness for the first time. Most of the group follows (Gra-fa-zut is a heavy sleeper, and the group is hesitant to interrupt his unconscious mutterings about rare umbrellas).

This hidden chamber is by far the messiest so far of the tomb. Two tables are strewn with a dizzying array of alchemical tools, reagents, and manuals — much of the glassware, however, has been shattered on the floor. In the south of the room stand three massive cauldrons, the one nearest to the door still bubbling away though no source of heat is immediately apparent. The contents are yellow and somewhat curdled — this is probably the source of the appetizing cheese scent.

In the north of the room stands a table apparently dedicated to some form of war planning. Tiny tin ramparts have been erected over a sheet of green wool, and an assortment of little iron soldiers are on the attack. An impossibly thick manual lies open next to the miniatures, but the war planners evidently left in a hurry; all the chairs by this table are smashed upon the floor.

In the northeast corner of the room, a half-butchered corpse lies in a pool of blood next to a bucket full of its viscera. The entirety of the poor man's skin seems to be absent.

The secret door remains in hiding in the room's northwest, doing its absolute best to be inconspicuous.

FELIPE NO

1 Die Roll ha ha you ate tomb food

Remembering a throne being present in the hall of the corpse magus, Beefi wanders back in that direction. But there never was a throne there; merely a couch. It's a very nice couch, festooned with gold and jewels, but it is decidedly not a throne. Moreover, the magus (pretending to be asleep) clearly has one eye open and is giving Beefi a dirty look.

Uxig jumps as high as he can to reach the lip of the cauldron, attempting to get a handful of the delicious-smelling cheesy goop. He doesn't notice anything untoward from his slightly-higher vantage point. The goo does indeed taste like it smells; a fine sharp cheddar. Despite being a liquid, however, the cheese is only slightly warm to the touch. There is a brief gassy sensation in Slim's gut after a moment, but it passes.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Garold examines the miniature war-game, but learns little. It scarcely seems like a battle worth planning for — if the schemers expected to be on the attack, it would surely be a simple matter; their numbers dwarfed the two defenders remaining within. If they themselves were the defenders, no amount of planning would save their hides. They'd be better off fleeing for their lives rather than plotting some doomed scheme to hold what looked to be a largely empty fort.

Hoping for more insight, Garold leafs through the heavy manual. The bulk of its hundreds of pages are dedicated to an absurd variety of incoherent charts on exceeding petty or preposterous subjects. Garold snorts at chart 239-D; Likely Locations of Arrow Wounds. An arrow, the chart informed him, was roughly as likely to hit someone in the arm as in the leg, and scarcely ever hit anyone in the head. Garold knew better, of course: arrows largely wounded whatever part of the body an archer happened to be aiming at. On a lark, he supposes that this theoretical arrow hits an enemy in the hand, and 239-D advises him to see chart 239-J; Severity of Hand Wounds Via Arrow. There was a 5% chance, it seemed, that firing an arrow into someone's hand would either cause it to explode or simply to make the enemy drop his weapon. The second result, Garold supposed, was an inevitable consequence of the first, and not worth mentioning twice.

Several sheets of loose paper are tucked into the manual, all of them adorned with small, hand-drawn portraits of burly, under-dressed men. Each of these men are identified with little labels above their portraits; they bear names like "Bob the Fighter" and "Zappo II, Son of Zappo". Beneath the portraits, each sheet is crowded with another generous array of charts and statistics.

Arching an eyebrow, Garold carefully shuts the book to get a good look at the cover. A tiny but quite detailed little scene has been painted onto the front of the tome; several of the burly men from the looseleaf sheets were engaged in battle with an army of orcs. The book identifies itself as follows:

CALL OF BROTHERLY HONOUR
A game for dwarves from thirty years of age to three hundred and fifty,
or that smarter sort of human or elf who enjoys dwarven games

Jam it back in, in the dark.

1 Die Roll Love doing your rolls for you

Slim approaches the eviscerated corpse, leaving Gra-fa-zut rocking back and forth on his heels. Other than its sorry state, there's nothing particularly remarkable about the corpse. It is still awfully fresh, Slim supposes, relative to the dusty, abandoned mess that is the rest of the room. An extremely dull silver longknife (a shortsword, really, by Slim's standards) is tucked beneath the dead man's skinless arse.

Beefi peers into the other two cauldrons. The green stuff, to all appearances, is just more algae-clotted brackish water. The blue goo is of more uncertain provenance. The texture looks vaguely like jelly, if it were not for the relative unlikelihood of such a thing being blue. Unfortunately, the nostril-searing acidic stink that comes off the sludge fairly rules out its being edible.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Science is, indeed, not Beefi's strong suit. All the broken glassware and spilled chemicals are very fascinating in the abstract, but Beefi hasn't the faintest idea what any of them were for.

Secret doors, if any, continue to be infuriatingly non-obvious — save for the one hiding in the northwest corner of the room. Arguably one could stroll over to that and open it again, but it's hard to say what that might accomplish.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Despite the evident fact that the recently-secret door was not in fact part of the wall it was cowering against, Beefi gives it a hearty shove anyway (ignoring the door's pitiful attempts to cower away). There is an odd sizzling sound as the door opens through a wall that was 100% solid a moment ago; the stone in the way is just being vaporized.

The room beyond is in an even worse state than the laboratory in which the Five currently stand. Splintered and shattered furniture is strewn over the entire floor, save a bilious green rug in the center of the room and a small clearing which the door swept aside in opening. Every inch of the room looks damp and clammy; even the bare stone floors are sporting an impressive crop of green mold. Five tapestries hang on the walls, depicting quiescent scenes of undersea fauna; despite the damp, these seem to be in pristine condition.

The secret-door-thing whimpers.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

1 Dice Roll *5 DEX checks

Beefi rolls up the green carpet, revealing what looks to be a drainage grating hidden beneath. The same green mold infests the walls of the pit beneath. The pit below is only 15 feet deep or so, and has the same look of being sort of damp without actually containing standing water. Meanwhile, Garold examines the tapestries more carefully. None of the creatures depicted are particularly obscure.

On the west wall, a small basking shark lies dead in a shallow tide pool. A pair of hooved legs are immersed in the pool as well, but the angle of the image makes it hard to say what manner of creature the legs belong to.

Along the north wall are three scenes involving a kraken, possibly related: Garold has never encountered a kraken personally, so he's not sure if the same kraken appears in all three tapestries or they all more or less look the same. On the left, a kraken seems to be holding court with a clan of kuo-toa, or sea devils; they're presenting it with a group of sea elves in chains. In the center tapestry, a kraken lurks in the darkness beneath a ship's hull. In the third tapestry, a bruised and battered kraken broods in an undersea cavern; the broken bodies of a dozen or so kuo-toa litter the cave floor.

On the east wall there's a lovely picture of some dolphins providing an unconscious (and unaccountably nude) dwarf with an escort to the surface. Well, mostly lovely. There are some parts of the tapestry Garold could do without. Very small parts.

Beefi glances behind each of the tapestries in turn, only for them all to melt into heaps of foul-smelling orange sludge. The slimes, unaccountably, do not leap to the attack; they seem weak and listless, undulating pathetically on the floor.

"THAT'S what I was forgetting!" Murray suddenly remarks. "Feed the slimes! And that explains why there were so many extra rats in the rat pit, too! Damn, I'd forget my own head if it wasn't atta—" Murray cuts himself off mid-sentence.

On the upside, the dissolution of the tapestries has revealed an exit to the north; a narrow tunnel of rough-hewn rock about 60 feet long, then making a sharp turn to the east. The accessibility of said tunnel, however, is in doubt; the ex-tapestry that was blocking it off is still doing so now that it's resumed its natural shape. Weak, yes, but even a dead slime would be unpleasant to wade through.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Uxig's enthusiastically splashed oil is enough to make the fire spread to the rest of alarmingly-flammable slimes — and then the heaps of shattered furniture underfoot. The four of them flee the room to escape incineration. After the smoke clears, nothing is left within save scorch marks on the floor and a refreshing citrus scent.

Also, a small pile of gems and gold that was exposed by the incineration of the debris.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

A few sharp tugs on the grate produce some gratifying groans from the metal — it may be possible to pry it free. But Slim's darkvision easily allows him to see clear to the bottom of the pit; there doesn't look to be anything worth worrying about down there unless he really needs to resupply on dead fish.

Sam picks up 2,500 gold in treasure for himself since no one else much cares!

The foursome squeeze down the dark passageway, stumbling at last into a wider chamber. To the south, the angular corridors of the tomb are harshly interrupted by a natural cave. The cavern is utterly clotted with silvery mists — even with the sunrod, it is difficult to see much in the way of detail. A ring of heavy stones lies far within, and beyond that the light penetrates no further.

To the east, the chamber bends northward.

FELIPE NO

Turning the corner, Slim encounters an unusual sight indeed. 20 feet ahead, the floor rises abruptly to a jagged ledge perhaps three feet above the rest of the floor. An enormous padlock, easily twice the size of Slim's entire body, sits atop the center of the ledge. Three extremely heavy chains secure the padlock to the surrounding walls.

A proportionally large keyhole is evident in the face of the padlock.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Garold approaches the giant lock more closely, attempting to determine its function. It's only then that the the ledge jumps a few inches, straining at the heavy chains. The lock isn't there to hold the walls. It's there to hold the floor.

Carefully exploring the misty cavern, Beefi gets close enough to the circle of stones to see it more clearly. A young elven girl is standing inside the circle, only her head visible above the tops of the stones.

"Oh, good sir!", she deadpans, sounding as bored as she possibly can. "The evil lich has chained me to these rocks, that a monstrous dragon may devour me. I cannot hope to free myself! Hurry and untie me, that we may escape before the dragon returns!"

The elf girl stifles a yawn.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

"YEEEEAAAARRRRGH I'm dead", the elf blithely remarks, rapidly melting away like a candle despite the damp mists of the cave. Within a few moments nothing is left of the prisoner save a greasy smudge on the cave floor.

"Well done, little man!" shouts the mace, ignoring Beefi's horror. "The test of fire always reveals a witch. Had she been a true maiden, she would not have burned! It's very logical if you don't think about it."

How ya doing, buddy?

7 Dice Rolls geonids init

Gra-fa-zut staggers into the cave at last, discovering the rest of the group standing awkwardly around a small heap of ashes. Why was it so foggy here? Wasn't cold or anything. Like there was some kind of big animal just breathing on them. Gross. The distinctive stink of necrotic magic hung in the air, but that didn't make much sense. Dead things didn't breathe on you, usually.

Slim ponders the theological significance of tying up a witch inside a foggy cave, but can't really think of anything. It was a spooky place, but so far as he could tell it was spooky in a strictly secular fashion.

"High five? Wouldn't try it, friend. If your hand was to collide with me at high speed, I'd probably reduce your arm to a gory pile of meat rope. It's nothing personal, my particular enchantments are just remarkably unsubtle."

"Yes, in the way that a rock is an unsubtle form of diplomacy", sneers Murray.

Garold peered into the darkness, his eyes straining against the fog. Even the shifter's remarkably sharp vision could scarcely pick anything out in the deep mist. There was some kind of dark shape back there, but it was probably just another boulder. Unless — no, wait. Whatever it is, it's breathing. And it's huge.

Beefi continues picking along the cave wall, barely able to see his hand in front of his face. At length, he bumps into some kind of large clammy thing. It lifts its head and yawns, blowing away the mists within a small radius. The rotting carcass of a dragon peers down at Beefi blearily, as motes of dancing flame flicker to life inside the corpse's empty eyesockets.

"What the hell, Elaine. You leave dinner in the rocks like I told you, you don't have to drag it over to me every time. We've been over —"

The fires in the dragon's skull flare to a sudden brightness, glaring hatefully at the mace dangling from Beefi's hand.

"YOU!", the dragon screams, spraying Beefi's face with coagulated saliva and bits of rotting meat.

"Yes, me", retorts the mace, the smugness practically palpable in its voice.

"Honk", Howard thoughtfully adds.

"SEAL THE EXIT!", the dragon roars, and the boulders encircling the elf girl's unfortunate remains rise to unsteady life — unfolding into humanoid shapes of glossy purple crystal beneath their smooth grey exteriors.

"That should hold off anyone else you've brought along on your little quest. It's just you and me now. Well, no. You, me, and this minotaur. Damn. You, me, this minotaur, and a goose. But that's it! And I don't think the goose is going to be much help!"

Defenses
Dracolich AC 26 Fort 26 Ref 24 Will 24
Geonids AC 20 Fort 18 Ref 17 Will 17

Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20, Beefi 17, Geonids 15, Dracolich 14, Sam 13, Garold 6

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

8 Dice Rolls sam's future knowledge 2

Gra-fa-zut stares blankly at the dracolich for a long moment, then abruptly pivots to the right and marches directly into the wall.

48 hours; sorry chief

Slim barrels forward, swinging his heavy maul with enough force to send even the stone-skinned geonid flying backward into the mob with a satisfying crunch.

Beefi lunges forward in a rage, rending strips of rotten meat from the dragon's face.

"Thank you, that's quite helpful. I've been trying to scrape off all that extra baggage for a while now, but there are just so many places I can't reach with these huge, nightmarish talons. Say, you gonna eat that goose? I could go for a little foie gras. I got this great ritual, speeds up the whole process."

One of the geonids lunges at Slim, grappling him in its rocky claws and practically crushing his ribs. The rest do their best to do as the dracolich had commanded, blocking off any route between Beefi and his companions. Their best, happily, leaves much to be desired.

18 damage to Slim; grabbed by Geonid B

The dracolich lashes into Beefi with the aforementioned huge, nightmarish talons; Beefi is significantly less sanguine about the huge chunks of himself that are suddenly missing. Knocked off balance, the minotaur staggers backward and tries to ignore the absolutely massive puddle of blood before him.

Sam 13, Garold 6, Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20, Beefi 17, Geonids 15, Dracolich 14

54 damage to Beefi; bloodied, knocked back 2

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

20 Dice Rolls STAND BY FOR MIND CONTROL

Beefi was too slow to stop the rending claw that sent him flying backward, but even as the dragon's talons smash him aside he brings the mace down in a hemmer blow. The nearest of the huge claws splinters like dry tinder under the weapon, scattering little shards of dragon toenail on the floor. Beefi comes to the ground in a defensive crouch, vowing not to be so easily caught off guard again.

Sam approaches the melee cautiously, in no hurry to get himself involved in what already looked to be a deeply unpleasant confrontation. He scarcely knew anything about foes of this sort; the dragon was clearly undead, and the others were certainly elementals of some kind. Beyond that, he was in the dark.

Garold's fabulous buffalo smash through the geonids before dissolving into the mist, tearing through their defensive line. The elementals were far from defeated, but their ability to prevent assistance to Beefi was temporarily broken. None of Garold's study of the natural world had taught him anything about such creatures, alas.

Snapping into action, Gra-fa-zut starts tearing through the geonids with his flashing sword. No need to worry about the geonid line; the elementals may form a physical barrier, but they did nothing to hinder the occasional teleport. Garold abruptly finds himself much closer to the dragon then he might have really preferred.

Gra-fa-zut was no expert on dragons, but many of them were infamous enough. Aside from the expected threats of its fangs, its claws, and its necrotic breath, lich dragons were also rumored to dabble in mind control. If the battle were to turn against it, the dracolich would not hesitate to enslave their minds and turn them against one another.

Geonid A bloodied; A, B, and D marked.

Slim breaks free from the geonid mob, charging the dragon at top speed. Only a glancing blow is scored, but the dragon snarls at an unexpected pain. It seemed this rotting thing was agonized by even a tiny fragment of the sun's radiant power.

10 bonus damage — undead things are Vulnerable to Radiant damage

While Uxig has the thing distracted, Beefi wipes the blood from his mouth and goes charging in — leading with his horns, he knocks the dragon to the stones with the force of his rage. The opportunity does not pass him by; while the dead thing is momentarily helpless, he rains blows upon it like a man possessed.

The geonids mill about for a moment, disorganized. Within seconds, they'd failed at their orders to keep the rest of the Five away from the dragon — now the intruders were scattering in every direction. Many of the elementals decide to focus their efforts on the swordmage; he is no direct threat to the master, but he suddenly seems important somehow. They pummel Gra-fa-zut with their rocky fists, fruitlessly trying to grapple him. They did have him completely surrounded, which diminished his pride somewhat.

Even as Garold tries to get his post-teleport bearings a geonid blindsides him, crushing him in an unyielding grip. The last of them trundles off in pursuit on Uxig, its bulky form and stubby legs giving it little chance of catching the kobold anytime soon.

33 damage to GFZ
18 damage to Garold; Garold grabbed

The dragon gets to its feet with a snarl, rotten meat sloughing off of it in sheets. The foul jaws open wide, as if preparing to bite Beefi clean in half — but then the dracolich seems to think better of risking another brush with the mace.

"That's the problem with artifacts", hisses the dragon. "They don't digest properly."

The dracolich favors Beefi with a quick, almost casual swipe of a claw, and whirls around to confront Slim. The blood loss is too much for the barbarian, and he politely slumps to the ground, ignored. The dragon's second claw rips a gouge through Slim's chest, and the kobold is too busy flying through the air and smashing into rocks to even notice the blood.

Slim inadvertently makes eye contact with the lich; the thing's glowing eyes are all-too-visible even through the cloying mists. The dragon's voice is suddenly ringing in his ears, even though its mouth doesn't seem to be moving.

Why do you assault me, little kobold? You cannot hope to win. Here I am, glorious in fang and claw, and you assail me with a flaming stick. But it is meaningless to slay you. Behold, I have already slain 400 pounds of buffalo, and can only carry 300 back to the larder. And you are no more than an appetizer, regardless. Walk away. Persuade your friends to do likewise. You know how to... persuade people, don't you?

Slim's hand tightened around the grip of his maul, his eyes fixed blankly ahead as he turns away from the dracolich. It made sense. He should leave, now. They should all leave. He would persuade them.

20 damage to Beefi; unconscious, dying
24 damage to Slim (knocked back 2)
Slim DOMINATED (save ends)

Sam 13, Garold 6, Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20 (DOMINATED), Beefi 17, Geonids 15, Dracolich 14

I was speaking idiomatically.

16 Dice Rolls well if you insist

While the rest of the Five tear a swath through the geonids to hurry to his rescue, Beefi's condition only worsens.

Geonid A killed. Geonids B and F bloodied.
Beefi fails first death save.

The geonids stagger to and fro, blinded by the bolts in their... did they even have eyes, exactly? Regardless, one of them manages to stumble clumsily into Uxig; the jagged stone edges of the creature are enough to wound the kobold, even if the geonid doesn't know what it's bumped into.

The geonid grappling with Garold is panicked by the sudden disorganization of its clutch. The creature swiftly folds back into a defensive boulder shape, dragging the protesting Garold into its hollow interior.

The rest of the blinded rock beasts flail ineffectually at Sam, dimly aware that a significant thread must be in that general direction. None of their clumsy swings come close to harming him.

The last geonid swings its huge fists at Uxig with bone-shattering force. It was a strike that would have pulped the organs of anyone over 4 feet tall, but for Slim it's just a refreshing breeze.

13 damage to Uxig.
Geonid C is in rock form. It gains a +5 to all defenses, and Garold has line of sight only to Geonid C and vice versa. Escape from the grab is still possible (against the +5 defenses, of course).

The dragon sighs, advancing on Uxig.

"Didn't I ask you to leave? I meant now, not after you murder everyone in sight. But then, when all you have is a hammer..."

The dragon's jaws fly upon, and torrent of corrosive black filth sprays out. The geonids, with their rocky hides, seem unharmed; Slim promptly collapses from dozens of fresh wounds, and the swordmage hardly fares much better, visibly unsteady on his feet.

The dragon shouts something to Sam over the din of the battle, but he pays it no attention; dragons rarely told you anything you'd really want to hear.

28 damage to Uxig (unconscious, dying)
28 damage to GFZ (bloodied), weakened (save ends)

Sam 13, Garold 6, Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20 (KO), Beefi 17 (KO), Geonids 15, Dracolich 14

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

7 Dice Rolls mesmerize... fuck it, Beefi

Beefi springs to his feet with a fury, hurtling into the dragon once more. Without all that extra blood weighing him down he catches the beast by surprise, sending it sprawling into its nearest lackey. The geonid is smashed into pebbles; at the opposite end of the melee, Sam's rapier cuts another geonid cleanly in half.

Geonids B & F killed

The surviving geonids converge on Gra-Fa-Zut, shocked and appalled by his sudden vulgar outburst. Like most creature of elemental earth, geonids tend to be old-fashioned and conservative; there was only one place for that kind of language, and, well — if there was a marriage today, they hadn't been invited, so it was still upsetting.

Geonid C Tentacle: 9 damage to Gra-Fa-Zut

The dracolich clumsily gets to its feet once again, stomping north toward Sam while casually addressing Beefi over its shoulder.

"Mr. Cow! I'm so glad you're all right. I didn't know if you'd survive, after this awful halfling shot you in the face — not just once, but three times, with bolts he spit on because he hates you so much. Also, he murdered your parents. He told me over brunch last week. I promised to keep it a secret but our friendship is too important to me, Mr. Cow!"

Beefi hadn't known Sam long, but the halfling clearly had a violent streak and an affinity for sharp things. It was entirely possible that he was the culprit!

Stand up
Action point to move
Beefi dominated (save ends)

Sam 13, Garold 6, Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20 (KO), Beefi 17 (Dominated), Geonids 15, Dracolich 14

FELIPE NO

11 Dice Rolls sam save

The Five pull back from the brink of disaster. Working together, the group disperses and destroys most of the geonids threatening Gra-fa-zut, while Slim's journey to the last of the dead is interrupted by a SPOOKY GHOST DOG. Opening his eyes to behold a NIGHTMARISH HOUND FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD, Slim immediately springs to his feet and barfs fire pretty much everywhere. It's pretty horrible. Let's never speak of it again.

Laughing manically, Sam dances easily around the dracolich, draining what little blood the creature has left.

"M-my blood! He cut out all my blood! Wait, wait. I don't actually need blood. False alarm."

A tiny trickle of some kind of black ichor oozes slowly out of one of the dragon's more grievous wounds, but it pays no attention.

Lunging at the halfling, Beefi only travels a few feet before nearly colliding head-on with Garold. The shifter instinctively ducks the mace swing Beefi levels at his head, and the barbarian snaps out of it, shaking his head in confusion.

All geonids except D killed; D bloodied
Beefi freed from domination

With no other geonids left to aid him, the last of the troupe does what it can to preserve itself. Shifting behind Gra-fa-zut, it seizes him by the neck, using him as a shield between itself and the intruders to the south.

14 damage to Gra-fa-zut; grabbed

Snarling, the dracolich seizes Sam in its filthy jaws, shaking him like a rag doll until Sam escapes the jagged fangs. Landing back on the floor, he scowls worriedly at a ragged gash on his arm. Some kind of infection was already taking root.

Satisfied that the halfling would cease to be a problem soon enough, the lich turns its attention on the lycanthropic thing that had stopped the pet barbarian in its tracks. Surely this one would be a worthwhile servant.

"Did you know? The kobold once cut down 20 trees for no reason! And then he dragged them all the way down a mineshaft so the decaying logs couldn't even fertilize the beautiful soil of the forest! It's obscene, really."

Slim shot a glance at Garold. He had done that, but only to piss off a druid. That wasn't the same as "no reason". The druid in question hadn't had a spear and a sudden case of the crazy eyes, of course.

"They were only small trees, not important ones! Little babies!"

This only seems to make Garold angrier, for some dumb reason.

20 damage to Sam; ongoing 10 necrotic damage (save ends)
Garold dominated (save ends)

Sam 13, Garold 6 (Dominated), Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20, Beefi 17, Geonids 15, Dracolich 14

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

3 Dice Rolls snap out of it?

Furious, Garold flings his spear at the little kobold. But the weapon goes right over his head, slicing into Gra-fa-zut's leg some distance away before hurtling right back to the seeker's hand. A cluster of writhing vines sprouts from the cave floor, their thorns dripping with toxins.

Sam makes his save vs. ongoing
Thorn Cloud Shot vs GFZ
12 damage to GFZ; 3x3 area surrounding him filled with poisonous thorn vines.
Garold fails his save vs. domination

Gra-fa-zut 25, Uxig 20, Beefi 17, Geonids 15, Dracolich 14, Sam 13, Garold 6 (Dominated)

How ya doing, buddy?

13 Dice Rolls GFZ's death save

Uxig flings the fuel tank at the dragon, lighting the fuse and tossing the tank with all his strength in a single motion. Alas, he has a little too much strength; the tank flies completely over the lich's head, smashing into the cave ceiling and exploding harmlessly in midair. An assortment of lovely stalactites rain down, however, pelting the dragon's bony hide.

22 damage to dracolich

Staggering on its feet, the last of the geonids looks around for an easy target. With a low grunt, it lunges at Sam with a clumsy haymaker. The rogue dodges easily.

Heaving its great bulk away from the minotaur, the dracolich looses another blast of necrotic filth from its rotting maw. Catching a face full of bile, Gra-fa-zut faints dead away — depriving Slim of the cover he was deriving from the taller man. The kobold was drenched in corrosive sludge, barely finding the strength to hold his maul up.

Confused by Garold's strange change of loyalties, Sam prepares to knock some sense back into the shifter. He'd need his crossbow, first. It's all he can do, though, to sheathe his rapier and stand there baffled for a moment. He feels so conflicted. Maybe this wasn't the best idea; the seeker would come to his senses without the need for further infighting.

Producing a buzzing hornet's nest from out of the thin air, Garold angrily smashes it over Slim's head. Already battered, it's all Slim can do to fight off the insects and maintain consciousness.

Suddenly, Garold snaps out of it. Glancing at confusion at the broken nest fragment in his hand, he guiltily tosses it away into the mists and shrugs.

Shift 1 east
Breath weapon vs. Slim and GFZ
32 damage to both; Slim bloodied/weakened, GFZ unconscious/dying
Sam dominated (ahaha I forgot he had melee out, waste of a domination there)
Sam saves vs domination
Biting Swarm vs Slim: 8 damage, -2 to attacks on Slim's next turn
Garold saves vs domination

Uxig 20, Beefi 17, Geonids 15, Dracolich 14, Sam 13, Garold 6, Gra-fa-zut 25 (KO)

There's nowhere I can't reach.

9 Dice Rolls geez sorry chanic

Slim charges into the dragon, the momentum hurling his maul upward into the beast's ribs. The lich issues a series of gagging sounds, extremely discomfited by his collapsed airway despite a lack of any real need to breathe.

"I think you've clogged something in there, green fella. Good job with the —"

"HURK. HURK. HURRRRRRRRRRRRGH—"

"DUCK!"

But the mace's warning was too late. Slim is engulfed in a point-blank torrent of sludge exploding out of the dragon's jaws. The kobold topples to the floor, his body a patchwork of vicious wounds. For a long moment it seems he may have been slain.

Just as the dragon turns to gloat, the kobold's motionless body draws in a ragged breath — his unbridled fury alone was slowly knitting his many injuries, but it was still a struggle.

"I really thought he was dead there for a minute. He's still mostly dead, I suppose."

"It's not so bad, being dead" Murray chimes in. "You save a lot on groceries. Pretty much all my bills are for the haberdashery, these days. Remind me to show you guys my collection."

Dragon bloodied, triggering Bloodied Breath
Slim fucking DIES from dragon breath
Triggers an interrupt healing surge from Phoenix Rage
+3 regen
Ends turn at -14, unconscious and dying
Against helpless GFZ lying on the floor I roll a natural 1, bwaaaa.

With the lich distracted by Uxig's stubborn refusal to die properly, Beefi takes the chance to strike a lasting blow. With a vicious overhead swing, the barbarian brings down the mace with all his strength on the dragon's flank. A violent shockwave rips through the thing's bony form and its fragile wings abruptly snap off and tumble to the cave floor, exploding into a heap of ancient dust and bone shards with the lich's necromantic magic to protect them.

"I... I wasn't using those anyway", the lich mutters, doing a poor job of masking the worry on its face. "What the — HOW AM I ON FIRE AGAIN?"

With the ridiculous spectacle going on before him, Sam doesn't notice the geonid taking another swing at him. That rocky fist would leave a bruise, but it was nothing to worry about. He'd had worse in bar fights. Really pointless bar fights. With pixies. He wasn't using the sugar packets but that didn't mean you could just take them without asking!

10 damage to Sam from bein' facepunched

"I left you dying on the floor, cow. The shifter gives you an opportunity to leave, and you continue tickling me with that little club of yours. This time you'll stay down."

The lich vomits another storm of toxic goo onto the minotaur, who just stands there looking unimpressed.

"Soon. That was... a warning shot. Yes. Your friend the shifter will finish you off! Not because I can't, or anything. Just for... irony. Or something. I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING."

29 damage to Beefi from dragon breath; weakened (save ends)
Garold dominated again (save ends) (sorry!)

Sam 13, Garold 6 (DOM), Gra-fa-zut 25 (KO), Uxig 20 (KO), Beefi 17 (WEAK), Geonid 15, Dracolich 14

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

4 Dice Rolls uxig wake up?

"This guy says you suck! I'm not sayin' it. He's saying it. I'm just, you know, passing it on, seein' as he's a little busy an' all."

Garold takes leave of his wits again, flinging his spear across the cave at Beefi. The throw goes wide, but on the upside a lovely strain of ivy takes root on the otherwise-austere cave walls. Really livens up the place.

The shifter snaps awake to find his spear flying through the air toward his hand. He grabs it reflexively, glad to see that the dragon seemed to be in worse shape every time he snapped out of these fugues. His sleepwalking self must be kicking some real ass. All the same he'd better pay another visit to that chemist after this was over. The fits were getting to be unbearably frequent.

"You want something done right..."

Beefi 17 (WEAK), Geonid 15, Dracolich 14, Sam 13, Garold 6, Gra-fa-zut 25 (KO), Uxig 20 (KO)

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?