Spires of Xin-Shalast 25
The previous session of the campaign had ended in the middle of a battle between our heroes and the giants that had been protecting the Champion of Greed. Though the giants had been killed, a new threat had arrived – a Marilith and a Yeti, the former of which had split the throne room in two with a blade barrier.
Esheiri drops a Greater Dispel Magic on the Marilith, taking down some of her magical defences. She responds by slithering closer to the throne room, her unholy aura starting back up again, and casting a second blade barrier down the middle of the room, catching two of the Tyrannosaurs and creating a corridor too narrow for them to fit down. The other T-Rex is slain when the yeti sends a swarm of magic missiles at it.
Grodok runs out of the room and up the corridor towards the Marilith, landing a blow on her but suffering strength drain from her unholy aura.
Serena and the remaining Zushin tries to dispel the blade barriers before they chop one of the Tyrannosaurs to pieces, but fail. It is then that one of the doors to the throne room opens and a Rune Giant comes in, but finds her way blocked by pillars and blade barriers.
Whilst Grodok is hacking at the Marilith, Solassar sneaks in and kill steals – taking her down. It is then that the yeti tries a finger of death on Grodok, but Serena is able to counter it. Both Grodok and Solassar close with the yeti, and Solassar notices that a change comes over its face – as if some presence has left it. It looks confused, and then enraged, and then dies as the two flank it and take it down. Seeing that the body had outlived its usefulness, Khalib had decided to cancel the magic jar spell he had been using to possess the yeti.
Meanwhile, the Rune Giant had tried a mass charm monster on Esheiri and the remaining Tyrannosaur – she wasn’t expecting to get the sorceress, but she hoped to get the dinosaur and she would have been a nice bonus. She failed. Unable to get multiple people in range for her fire breath, she waded into hand to hand with the Tyrannosaur and took it down, but then found herself at the receiving end of Esheiri’s enemy hammer, which picked her up and threw her through the two blade barriers. Unable to keep control of herself, she was ultimately diced and sliced into a messy pulp.
Thinking that everything was over, and wanting to retreat, Serena and Solassar began heading for the exit – it was then that Grodok noticed another lamia priestess coming from the opposite directly, soon to be followed by giants and the apprentice Khalib himself.
It had taken Khalib a while to get from his room to here, and from a game point of view I wanted a continuous stream of enemies rather than having everything turn up at once. The latter is hard to manage, and they tend to get in each other’s way as well – especially when they consist of a mixture of huge and gigantic creatures.
Grodok runs towards them, and is intercepted by the Lamias who try to drain his wisdom. As they party converge on the new threat, Khalib tries a death clutch on Grodok, but is resisted. Probably not the best person to try it on, but he was the only one in range at the time, and if it had worked it would have been really effective. It was around now that Serena decides that summoning more Zushin is probably useful, especially since Esheiri had been hit hard by a storm giant and was in need of healing.
As the priestesses and giants are taken down, Esheiri gets a line of sight on Khalib and drops a maximised horrid wilting on him – taking him down with a single spell.
All is not over yet though, since there is a the sound of wet, flapping flesh, as two huge swollen mounds of flesh drag themselves out of the throne room the party had vacated only 30 seconds before.
With the death of Khalib though, and a new threat presenting itself, it was time to call it an evening. The fight had gone reasonably well for the party. No-one had really come close to death, and though quite a few spells had been used, they’d definitely made considerable progress.
