Against the Giants: Sessions six and seven.
I was a little late for the next session, so when I got there the party was exploring a room filled with sarcophagi. A hole in the wall was found, with Valxian, Rhonda, and Kenneth exploring it, as the hole was too small for characters with armor to go through. Tovena'ar was with Great Scott next to the double doors when a small party of humans and black skinned elves appear. "Who are you? What are you doing in our lair?" I turn to Burl: "Black skinned Elves, eh? Tovena'ar has studied many races of elves with his father. Can he tell which type of elf it is?"An intelligence check is rolled. All I have to do is roll less than 18 on a twenty sided die. Should be easy, right?
I roll a twenty, which in every other circumstance is the best roll one can have.
Maybe these are just regular elves who've spent too much in a volcano, right? Right?
Right...
They attack, and it is immediately apparent that the elves are more than they seem. They wield extraordinary swords that cut through Scott's defenses with ease, and cast several spells, including an ice storm that takes Tovena'ar down, leaving him bruised and bloodied. Coleth charges one black-skinned elf, and, amazingly, kills him in a single hit. All the others wink out. Just one elf, with a mirror image, it seems.
His weapons and armor are non magical, but are made of an unfamiliar black metal. A broach with an electrum javelin inscribed upon it is also found.
Elsewhere in the tunnels Kenneth, Rhonda and Valxian take several minutes dealing with a handful of giant spiders. Meta-gaming wise it is a grim foretelling of what will come, because the Rangers could hardly deal any double-digit damage with their bows. Without the plusses awarded to them attacking giants, they took far too long to deal with these creatures. As later session proved, our party is far weaker when dealing with non-giantish foes.
After looting the bodies and some discussion, the party moves out. We come to a many-pathed fork, branching off into several corridors. The din of a blacksmith is heard, and, investigating, we surprise two trolls and a fire giant working a bellows next to a magma stream. The giant is quickly killed by arrows, and thehe trolls are pushed into the magma. Oaklock has some skill in weapons forging, and Great Scott is a master of many types of weapons. Together they inspect the weapon. It is a huge black mace, made of an unknown metal. We toss it in the black hole of holding and take another corridor, which is shown to be a prisoners block. The guards are quickly killed and we start exploring cells. At the end of the corridor a chained fire giant is found. Larf, a fighter we found outside the volcano (hunting giants, it seems, with his cleric hireling. New players) without further warning swings his sword and cuts down the helpless giant. I sit there flabbergasted, and attempt a bit of talk with him.
While Tovena'ar may not like giants, he sees no need to mercilessly slaughter those that are helpless. This one was likely an enemy of the currant anti-human king, no? We might have used him and then sent in on his way out into the surrounding mountains. At least, that was my reasoning as I argued with him about killing helpless giants. (Tovena'ar is lawful neutral) It was then that the DM stepped in, saying that the sword came to life of it's own accord, and was now at Tovena'ars throat. With a menacing air, it spoke:
"I am a foe to all giants, helpless or not, and woe to he that dares halt me from slaying the foul breed" With that the sword was lowered, and Mort turned away. Oaklock explained. Apparently a sword he had taken from the Hill Giant's lair turned out to be intelligent, and as constantly pushing him into combat. While usually Oaklock's willpower was usually enough to contain the sword's ego, during combat he had to constantly concentrate on it, or else he would be motivated to charge straight in. This would not do, having only 32 HP. So he turned it over to Larf. As it turns out, it was a mighty blade indeed, a giant slayer. Yet it has a mind of its own, an ethos that conflicts with Mort's own ideas (Chaotic neutral sword versus Lawful Good Mort) Since Larf does not have the willpower to effectively control the sword, he struck a bargain with it: Larf would use that sword exclusively, and would kill any giant seen, even if it was not necessarily evil. As long as he did that, he would otherwise have complete control over himself.
This bargain was tested in the next few minutes as, one by one, we freed many prisoners, including a female thief and a Titan. Larf’s sword immediately goes nuts, attempting to wrest control to kill the Titan. This is a "bad idea", considering Cared used a Heal on him and we armed him with the mace we found. Fortunately Mort retains control, and the sword must content itself with telepathic screaming.
We move along the cell block, finding many more elves, including one who claims to be a princess of the wood elves. She says she will send a gift to the party when she gets back home, but where will she send it? There is great debate as it has been a while since we were at a town, and we don't really have a home base to speak of. Eventually we just decide that she will keep it, and wait for us to come get it. (Might be a future plot hook, maybe?)
The centaurs are sent upstairs with the princess and her elven retinue, and the session ends with us trying to open a secret door in one of the prison cells. Oaklock brightens up as he has an idea: he possesses the spell Passwall, which allows the caster plus several companions to literally pass through a wall or floor through a magical tunnel. The spell is cast and Oaklock and Hwonalon step through first…
They are surprised to find that the spell has not gone as planned; they shift in and out of physical form, and the light at the end of the tunnel seems to recede faster and faster. Suddenly a ghostly whisper is heard, a long, low growl interspersed with yips and barks. Oaklock is startled, for he recognizes the language of the gnolls. He looks about him and recognizes the elemental plane of shadow.
“Who is there?”
He calls out in the same tongue.
“I am here” said the voice.
“Who?” replied Oaklock.
“Edd” said the voice, and suddenly its owner was revealed from the darkness. A large, furry, scruffy, digitigraded gnoll. With a small growl it summons a gauntlet of flame that flickers about its fingers, and illuminates its features. Hwonalon and Oaklock clutch their own weapons in response, but the gnoll speaks before they can do anything:
“I was trapped here some time ago in a great battle with black elves… I wish to escape. Take me with you, and I will serve you.”
Caught at a strange time, the two agree, and Edd utters a few cantrips to strengthen Oaklock’s spell, which finally sees them through the wall, to a small, cramped cell about five feet by five feet by five feet. He magically calls out to prince Coleth, who leads the rest on through. Whilst the party is streaming in Oaklock finds a secret door hidden on the far wall. With a touch he opens it, and, gesturing to a few, he steps through…
Only to be greeted by several black-skinned elves, three of them with some sort of rod that has tentacles on the end. A fight ensues, and Coleth is hit pretty badly by the rods, rendered paralyzed two rounds in. Fortunately Cared and Hwonalon are more or less unhurt, and quickly deal with these black elves. Upon their bodies are found more strange weapons and armor, as well as several rods. These are all stored, and we press on.
The next room leads us into a circle into one of the corridors we've been before. We backtrack and move down another corridor, where we find a whole mess of gnolls and trolls. The battle lines are drawn, and Tovena'ar works his magic. Spectral forces imitates some fire spells, shutting down several trolls before they could gang up on us. However as the spell goes off a few of the front-liners are directly into my line of fire (I think the spell description I gave the GM was something akin to a mini fireball with a blast radius of fifteen feet.) After the blast ash and fog roll in, causing more burn damage and obscuring vision. I had originally intended for this effect to split up the group of gnolls we were already fighting and the gigantic (I think it ended up being two dozen) mob of trolls headed our way. The 'command' for the spectral forces to make the ash and heat cloud as given, and a few moments after that Altru the cleric dropped a blanket over Tovena'ars head.
The DM ruled that this had the effect of causing the ash cloud to continue going for three rounds (the length of time the spells stays after concentration). I could not do anything, so this had the opposite effect of causing more damage to the party, since I could not change the spell.
All in all, some damage was given to Larf, Edd, Leia, and Cared. Not a lot, but enough to annoy the party, especially the clerics. But we decided that we were still strong, and after dispatching the trolls we kept going.
We entered a large room stuffed with weapons and sleeping pallets. More trolls were encountered in a room north of this one, and after another fight (made longer by the mages tossing most of their spells previously) we decided to rest.
After all was said and done, I think the most damage this session was done by Tovena'ars illusions. I should know better by now to try and communicate my intentions to my party members. A lot of people were annoyed at me this session, damage which I attempted to repair by some goodwill in the next few sessions after this.