Week 18 - Zyrxog and his strange family. And yet more breadcrumbs.

Hi everyone! Back from christmas break. It's good to have a break, but even better to be back continuing wih the campaign.

As expected, an enormous session this week. As in "Say, what time is it?", "Quarter past twelve", "Oh. That explains it." A five-hour session is good going. Andrew in particular was badly faded, hustling us out of his home as soon as we were done. But it's all good. We finished the module.

Kudos to Steve/Tom, who took out the bad guy with the help of some buffs and more than a little luck. Commiserations to Andrew/Flash, who spent most of the final encounter stunned. And to Chris/Arn, who was not present but if he were would have spent the session sidelined with Andrew.

The rest of this description is kindly porvided by Steve (Tom's alter-ego), with the occasional comment from me.

In the last session the party had wiped out Zyrxog's dolgaunts and dolgrim cronies with an impressive display of Tom's cleavage and now the way was clear, the party dealt with what appeared to be a prison room. Just behind the bars are four corpses standing to attention. After a couple of experiments, the party determines that they are zombies, but that they do not appear to be attacking. With a wave of his holy symbol Frith turns the pathetic undead. Toward the rear of the cave a are five cowering prisoners, evidently Zyrxog's larder. They are grateful to be released, and play no further part in the adventure.

Oops. Forgot to mention the glowing glyph n the floor on game night. Ah well.

The party moved on through the cave system with the sneaky rogue Jericho in the lead concentrating more on being quiet than being careful he set of a an arcane trap that exploded with a shower of acid but being fleet of foot Jericho dodged the blast. Moving on the party entered and open cavern, Jericho hugged the wall but failed to notice three cephalopod forms hiding in the shadows of the cavern ceiling. As the party moves into the cavern Zyrxog's creations move to attack. The three octopin each target a player, Jericho felt the pain of one's rending tentacles, Arn and Tom were slowed by the others malevolent stares. Much battering later the three tentacled terrors were so much calamari and the party could proceed.

Jericho discovered the well crafted door in the cavern wall was barred from the other side, but that presented little problem for Flash who knew a little trick called 'knock'. With a clang the way was unbarred and the party thinking this was the big battle buffed up with Protection from Evil spells.

A circular room were a suspicious pulsating stone purple veined brain sat on a plinth. Jericho and Frith then did not enter the room, did not fail to fight off the mental onslaught and then they definitely did not retreat to rethink their actions. All that stuff didn't actually happen. Instead they looked to the brains of the outfit to think of a plan so Tom saved the day by stoning the evil brain from the safety of the the cavern.

I have ruled that Tom may carry 6 rocks of suitable flinging size as standard equipment. Suitable flinging size for a half-ogre war hulk is pretty big.

Onward once again Jericho proceeded past the cracked brain into a well crafted alien hallway, the walls were decorated with a repeating tentacle pattern fascinated by the wondrous architecture Jericho thought he'd examine further when he spotted an opening in the hallway which appeared to be a laboratory.

The most alarming feature of this room was the fact that Zyrxog's latest creation was staring back at Jericho from a massive cylindrical glass tank. Looking like its smaller cousins this behemoth was only half cooked but none the less it was quick on it's tentacles, faster than you could say 'pasta marinara' it jumped out of the tank and scampered up to our sneaky thief and gave him the old 1,2. In shock and dismay Jericho fled and called for muscle. Arm and Tom ran to his rescue and intercepted the beast, Flash fired of a Ray of Dizziness spell at the monster slowing enough that it couldn't engage the two fighter effectively and was summarily dispatched.

At this point the spell casters began to whine about their lack of spells and how they should tactically withdraw and rest, but the fighters knew it was because Matlock and Murder She Wrote were playing back to back on the tavern cable. After a light supper and a comfy bed the party made their way back to the mind flayers lair not concerned with the possibility that their foe could rearmed traps, call reinforcements or had moved to extradition-free Xen'drik. Knowing that their expectant adversary was dying to monologue before the final battle our heroes prepared again.

Now, Zyrxog will not leave his complex ... but I had to do something about this. Otherwise it can get silly - the party leaving and healing up after each battle. So in the interregnum, I had Zyrxog go off for a bit and find a couple of more minions for the final battle. Not Octopins - as they have to be bred - so just a couple of dolgaunts.

Further down the corridor the party discovered a room of wonders where spell book/treasure filled shelves lined the walls and a hideous huge demonic bird-man statue keeping with the theme of the place was on a plinth, Flash peered into to the room detecting magic but thought hmmm 'kill first, loot later' showing excellent restraint or was it the gut feeling he had, which may had been the previous night's undigested octopus surprise stew. Jericho closed the door to the 'library of not-so-tempting wonders' and the heroes elected to open the single door the led further in the complex.

The corridor led to another round room with a pool of glowing blue water waited for the hesitant party. Unknown to the heroes this pool was for scrying and had the party looked into it they would see that it was focussed on Telakin's audience chamber. Frith cast spider climb on everyone and they goaded Tom into the scrying room. Tom sneaking across the ceiling thinking to himself very clever having avoided one of Zyrxog's devilish traps. the corridor continued past the pool room and appeared to open up into a large chamber, without exposing himself (hard to do for an upside-down half ogre) Tom reported his finding to the party so everyone buffed (haste, spider climb, Protection from Evil, bless yadda yadda) and prepared to enter what they suspected to be Zyrxog's lair.

The massive domed chamber was eerily lit by the green glowing glyphs on a mighty black stone pillar, the floors main feature was a large pool of illithids spawn. The party rushed into the chamber spider climbing on the walls and spreading themselves out as much as possible. Zyrxog's telepathic peal of laughter filled the party's minds (wind whistled through Tom's) and like every stereotypical villain he commenced the dreaded monologue. An invisible Jericho darted left and Tom darted right, Flash fired off a dispel magic, negating Zyrxog's displacement, Frith fired off Assay resistance followed by dimensional anchor, Tom and Arn threw their mighty weapons causing Zyrxog to to retaliate this the dreaded Mind Blast.

Screwed this up. The Dispel Magic would have been caught by Zyrxog's Ring of Counterspells. Also, the boys would not have been able to throw weapons while spider climbing, because you need to use your hands. Ah well. To continue ...

With awesome power the cone of mental energy rushed over our champions, Arn and Flash collapsed and consequently fell from the wall to where two dolgaunts minions guarding another door ran to take advantage. Jericho still invisible was set upon by a pair of octopins, he retreated out of their range and maneuvered himself to help the fallen comrades. Frith attempted to lure the octopins into the corridor where he could engage them manually. At this point the spider climbing and hasted Tom had scurried across the ceiling directly above the nasty tentacle face where he dive bombed the baddie and commenced to grapple with Zyrxog. Jericho hidden with Improved Invisibility eviscerated the dolgaunts who had trouble penetrating the armor of the stricken dwarf even though he was stunned. The octopins moved into the fracas and was joined by a mace wielding Frith. Tom and Zyrxog grappled furiously in mid air, the powerful mind flayer managed to retrieve a spell component but the sheer muscle of Tom was strong enough to keep the Illithid from latching on with its tentacles and firing its mind blast at him.

A mind-flayer's mind blast is a cone shape. We ruled that it therefore needs to point its head in the direction the blast is to go (like dolphin sonar blast), and so was unable to direct its blast while being grappled in mid-air. The spell component was a lump of pigfat, for a Grease spell.

A few more seconds and the half ogre had the creature pinned and that was when Zyrxog felt Tom's armor spikes. Below the furious battle to save Arn from being rent was beginning to turn to the heroes advantage what appeared to be a disaster only a few rounds before now looked like a victory. As Tom squeezed the last life from Zyrxog the levitation that kept them aloft began to fail Tom activated his feather fall and touched down in the shallow pool. As Arn and Flash were shaking of the last of the mind blast effects the rest of the party mopped up the doomed octopins.

Finally there was much rejoicing and the hunt for loot began. (melee types disappointed by slim pickings, but that was to be expected) A letter was found that appeared addressed to Zyrxog about an arrangement that mentioned the party and payment of something called the "Apostolic scrolls" The library was also mentioned it appeared that Zyrxog was involved in the handling of evil / cursed items and the treasure contained within the library was that very thing. The letter had a mysterious but beautifully embossed seal with a sword and the letters LR.

And so, the denouement falls to me to describe.

The party elects not to loot the museum full of cursed objects, instead returning back to their inn now that their would-be assassins were dead.

A few days later, Eligos invites them back. He is very concerned about the party's story and returns their items. However, he does not tell the party anything specific about the Age of Worms - his communication is to Allustan and his colleagues.

As the party return to the inn, the streets are bustling with posters posting posters. The Champions Games are on again! Tom is very interested, as his father was a gladiator, and brings these posters to the party's attention. The posters are large, colourful (some would say "lurid"), and embossed at the bottom with a familiar-looking seal. They now know who the mysterious L R is - Loris Raknian, director of the Champion's Games.

Well! The trail leads on, but still the question is unanswered. Telakin was retained by Zyrxog, and Zyrgog by this Raknian dude ... but why the heck is he after them? And what about the worms. Stay tuned! All may or may not be revealed!