Friday's Session: We successfully resurrected the captain before returning to the ruins to check out what the lich wanted. In the gigantic room the lich was to enter were two iron colossi (golems on epic steroids). We found the control amulets to the colossi, but one was broken and we didn't want to risk trying to work the other. The flash of light when the lich died had, however, revealed something much nastier: an (unsure of spelling) Abucai Macabre, an ancient and very evil artifact-warship crewed by Demon Hearts and capable of taking down entire fleets of airships. This one however, has been disabled long ago by an airship that had been lucky enough to get in a crippling ramming attack with its mithril prow. Those in the party knowledgeable about such things insisted that we destroy it entirely. So we infiltrated it (not too hard, as the Demon Hearts appeared nonfunctional) until we reached the doors surrounding the core. The first one was heavily warded, but there was a stone tube leading through the wall which proved rather easy to destroy. Koslov (our wizard) sent another one of his constructs to pick the lock on the extremely heavily-warded inner door, and it was promptly fried by electricity (this happens a lot with hi constructs, which are growing more and more fearful of assignments). Obelix (our factotum--a skill-oriented do-anything type) managed to disarm the traps and open the door (dodging one last trap with a backflip that, due to being underwater, was in enforced slow motion) to the core of the ship. We placed a delayed shatter bomb on the elemental cores and beat a hasty retreat. One explosion and massive collapse later, the Abucai was destroyed. I brought the remaining colossus amulet to the captain, and that was destroyed too. We then agreed to his request to finish scouring the region of this undead plague.
Today's Session Prelude: The DM had informed me that we would be making greater use of our crew and that I, as their commanding officer, may want to stat them (to his guidelines, of course). I have officially become the go-to guy for rules and stat blocks, but I like the statting process. The marines were built to be absolutely vicious with the proper teamwork, and sergeant Meteledes, despite ranking below me, is more competent than I am in every way except killing stuff. Go figure.
Today's Session: Five main sources of necromantic energy were identified. Exploration of the first was rather uneventful. We found four evil-radiating vases in a shipwreck, which were placed in stasis chests, and we recovered a magical, food-spawning cabinet. The second required a trek into snowy mountains, and we brought the marines and Meteledes with us. Partway along, we were attacked by a half-dozen trolls, three of which were unusually large. Between the marines doing their job well and our archivist blasting them with a fire storm, we killed all the trolls without suffering a scratch. farther along, we came to three massive statues, where we were confronted by...a second lich. The lich wasted little time in dispelling the flesh to stone on the statues, revealing them to be three (weakened) titans. Koslov managed to put two of them to sleep immediately, and Aleistair took the fight to the lich, discovering the hard way that it was wearing a retributive amulet (reflecting half of Aleistair's damage). A mix of grappling from Koslovs constructs and his telekinesis and Aleistair's efforts brought the lich down to a more convenient range than atop a titan's head, and he and Obelix destroyed the amulet before resuming full attack on the lich. In the meantime, the marines and I saw signs of latent necrotic bombs in the sleeping titans and dispatched them while Meteledes (played by me) tried to convince the last titan (still recovering) to aid us against the lich. Long story short, we destroyed it without any deaths...except one: Zerin's (our cleric's) griffon. That poor thing was killed by a lich spell, incinerated by a flame strike, animated as a hellfire-covered zombie that attacked and carried Koslov into the air, turned into a live cat by Koslov, incinerated by its own hellfire, turned back into a griffon upon death, and dropped 80 feet to splatter on the ground. The two titans we killed were zombified along with the griffon, but they were easily re-killed. We saved the last titan and got some information about what had happened to it. We also found a similar box as the last one among the lich's remains. This time the commander promptly doused it with holy acid.
Upon returning to the ship (and leveling up some more), we were informed that the necromantic auras in the region were starting to converge on site #3. Cue the lock and load montage, with lich loot being identified and distributed, and the casters preparing a new round of spells for the upcoming conflict. Archivist Missinget, having access to more and higher-level divine spells than our cleric, blanketed the party in enchantments to protect against and aid in the destruction of legions of undead of all shapes and sizes (as well as some area nukes), Koslov loaded up on various destructive and debilitating spells, and Zerin managed to cast a miracle to summon a solar, the most powerful class of angel there is and theoretically more powerful than any of us by a considerable margin. Once prepared, we flew to the mouth of the cave we were to besiege, the party, marines, and golems loaded into the scout ship (as the main ship couldn't get inside). The welcoming party of some four dozen zombie windghosts was wiped out by the solar's storm of vengeance. Just outside the cave we saw another giant statue (and knew of more inside, as well as the general layout). The solar insisted that all the giants be freed and restored this one. It promptly proved to be an eldritch giant (an evil) kind which blasted the party and crew with a powerful necromantic energy attack. The DM's cackling was cut short, however, when he realized that Missinget's spells absorbed the spell completely. The solar then shot the giant with an arrow of slaying, but it survived. This is where the dice started to break: the crew of the main ship unloaded their ballistas at the giant, and I swear every single attack was either a Natural 1 or a Natural 20. Our own scout ship was shot twice and the giant took three ballista bolts to the head. That killed it. Entering the cave complex proper, we found two more statues. Now wary, we asked the solar to use some divinations, and it determined one of the petrified giants to be evil. The golems smashed it.
The party and Meteledes the entered the side cave near which the now-smashed giant stood. One of Koslov's iron ants, scouting ahead, uncovered yet another box like the ones we had found on the liches. Koslov put an antimagic field on his ant to suppress its wards, and I used my pick to break apart the box. The instant it was destroyed, four colossal tentacles shot out of an adjacent chasm, two of which grabbed me. Another grabbed Aleistar until he teleported away, and the last one grabbed the solar, which rolled unbelievably badly on its grapple check and was pinned. The party managed to damage the tentacles rather nastily, and Zerin sealed off the chasm with a blade barrier. Unfortunately, the blades barrier started dicing the solar as well as the tentacles. The solar tried to get off a disintegrate on a tentacle, but rolled a Natural 1 and hit Aleistair. Fortunately, Aleistair resisted the worst of it. Once it got to my turn, I finally got to show off what I could do with my pick in this campaign and rolled some berserk totals for attack and damage despite being grappled. Missinget blew apart the tentacle holding me with a destruction, and Koslove rendered the whole beast catatonic with a ray of stupidity. As it slid back into the chasm, Aleistair made it explode with fire...waking up those still below. Cue eight more tentacles shooting out of the chasm, although I managed to intercept and destroy three of them as they emerged, and the blades sliced the others considerably. The tentacles? Grabbed the solar again and dragged him down through the blades. Koslov used a limited wish to retrieve the solar, and when the tentacles pursued they finally shredded themselves against the blades. The solar's reaction? "I hate this world."
Further exploring that particular section of cave, we found a room containing three larger tanks and some cabinets full of alchemical items, which pleased Aleistair. Cue us being attacked by three lightning-throwing brains in jars in the tanks. Koslov proposed filling the room with a fireball and that we clear out. We did so, although Missinget lingered to carry out some of the alchemical containers on Aleistair's request (he didn't have time to do so himself). Cut the three maximized empowered fireball traps going off. Aleistair, being a devil, was immune, and Koslov and Obelix managed to evade the blasts entirely, but Zerin, Missinget, and I took a lot of fire damage, the flasks and whatnot exploded, nearly killing Missinget, the solar was knocked unconscious, and Meteledes botched all of his Reflex saves and was reduced to a neat pile of ash. Seconds later, we learned whether or not the first box we had destroyed was, in fact, the lich's phylactery. The answer: No. The lich, surprisingly, didn't attack immediately, started questioning us about or motives and actions. Not wanting to provoke it, we gave safe answers while Missinget and Zerin surreptitiously healed themselves and the solar. We then learned why the lich was engaging in conversation: it was stalling for its buddies to arrive. Total arrivals: 2 liches and a ghost.
Allistair charged the first lich, discovering yet another retributive amulet. I tried to sunder the amulet and got my pick's enhancements temporarily dispelled. The solar revived Meteledes, Missignet and Koslov used spells to little effect, and Obelix asked the ghost if it was friendly. The ghost responded by waving jauntily and throwing a disintegrate at Lich 1, but rolled a Natural 1 and hit Aleistair, who again saved. Koslov took a critical hit from a disintegrate but was saved by a healing contingency (note: My bad on anticipating our foes. I advised Missinget's player on her spell selection, and I was envisioning that we would be taking on armies of zombies, wraiths, etcetera, not a few liches. Thus, no spells were prepared to stop disintegrates.) Over the next couple of rounds, the ghost vanished, Zerin tried and failed to turn the liches, Koslov tried to hit a lich with an antimagic ray and had it bounce back at him (he resisted it), and he was hit by two more disintegrates. The first one he survived outright. The second one did enough damage to kill him, but half of it was diverted to his primary construct (the one the blew up against the zombie army, now revived), which promptly disintegrated. The solar was wholly worthless, getting knocked out again, and I'm pretty sure we rolled another few Natural 1s in those rounds. Missignet used a miracle duplicating an extremely enhanced holy word, which paralyzed the liches. The one next to Aleistair and me threw up a reflexive cube of force, but we didn't mind being trapped in an enclosed space with a paralyzed creature not known for physical resilience...until both liches switched their bodies with random skeletons and vanished, leaving behind the cube (Aleistair teleported out, but I was stuck until Koslov dispelled it) and a blanket of magical silence. Now, with my character struck mute and trapped behind an invisible wall, I could not resist the urge to do a mime impression. I got slapped for that.
Now the battle was over...until a ghost-possessed Meteledes blasted Koslov with a fourth disintegrate, finally turning him into a pile of dust (I'm rather surprised that it took this long to lose a PC, considering what we've been fighting). Aleistair attacked Meteledes, as due to Missinget's buffs he could simultaneously attack the ghost. The ghost failed against a disruption effect, and Meteledes suffered a crit: both were promptly killed. The solar revived Meteledes (again), but couldn't revive Koslov. I suppose we will learn why next time. Our characters reboarded the ship and decided to fall back and regroup, although I was strongly in favor of collapsing the whole complex with a miracle-enhanced earthquake. Back in the real world, we nearly killed the DM for hitting an 18th-level party with what was revealed upon interrogation to be a level 29 encounter (the solar was meant to even the odds, and then it ended up rolling so hideously we banned the DM from using his online dice roller). For some perspective, had he been playing the two liches and the ghost to their full lethal potential, they would likely have TPK'd (Total Party Kill) a party capable of taking on creatures likely to TPK us.
Lessons learned today:
- Prepare spell immunity (disintegrate).
- Invest in more divinations.
- Kill first, talk later.
- Prepare resistances to all energy types, not just necromantic stuff.
- Check enemies for amulets and destroy those first.
- Trust nothing jaunty.
- Trust nothing, period.
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