EvilParty: Baroness Bastien and the Bridge

We approach the tavern where we believe the Baroness Bastien is hiding. After a considerable amount of preparation, Jenny the Barbarian is currently an armed and armored stone giant, immune to mind control and a couple of other things; she is also invisible. So is our iron golem, Durest the necromancer, and Chuck. Chuck has cast Haste on thge whole group. 

We reach the tavern, and Chuck adds Displacement to the effects on Jenny. Durest drops Align Weapon to make Jenny’s oversized spiked chain evil, as well as magical. The wraiths are swirling overhead, waiting until we have the Solari busy so they can go after the baroness. 

There’s a guy on the porch, watching Bob the Frost Giant Skeleton stride up the porch. Chuck throws a fireball in the window, and there are screams and the smell of burning flesh. Jenny does not see the fireball, but she hears it and moves into the room to begin the murdering. The room is full of what appears to be commoners, and they are looking towards the kitchen with expressions of horror. Jenny moves to the middle of the room and starts swinging the chain around; everyone in reach dies. 

Bob follows Jenny inside and kills a couple of more commoners. Screaming and chaos fill the taven. Ferroustopher the iron golem charges through the inn and busts into the outhouse – invisibly, mind you – and surprises a fellow in the middle of his business; he smashes the guy straight down into the cesspool below. Chuck diverts to check the stables, but finds nothing besides a drunk sleeping in the hay. 

Durest looks over at the barkeep, in the midst of the carnage. “Och! Lassie! Save those drinks for us and duck, and you’ll live!” He glances around, and then points: “Stairs!” There is indeed a staircase going down in one corner of the building, probably to where the baroness is hiding. 

We hear a sound from the stairwell as if someone is casting a spell. Also from downstairs is the sound of a chain uncurling and something solid hitting the wooden floor. We’ve come in on the second level, and obviously there’s a level below us. Jenny rages, and then smashes down through the floor, dropping herself onto the lower level. She lands in some sort of cellar. 

A planetar angel appears next to her and casts Implosion on her. It utterly fails to affect her. The angel looks slightly alarmed. Jenny: “Is okay! Happens to most men sooner or later. One in six, hy am told.”

An astral Diva also appears next to her and attacks her, hitting her once despite her various protections. The angels can obviously see invisible things. 

Durest calls for the wraiths to descend, staying close to the walls so they don’t get sucked into combat. Bob heads for the stairs and comes out at the bottom, but isn’t in a position to attack yet. Ferrous positions himself to jump down after Jenny. 

Chuck uses Dimension Door to join us inside the inn, discovering a bunch of corpses and a hole in the floor, with fighting below. Durest follows Bob down the stairs. A wizard appears on the far side of room and casts Hold Monster on Jenny, and then looks shocked when Durest’s protection prevents it from affecting her. Apparently all these guys can see invisible things. The ogre appears with his very large flail, rages, and power attacks. He does an impressive amount of damage, but Jenny steps aside show he isn’t flanking her. She attacks, hitting critically twice and landing every other attack. As a stone giant and a barbarian, her damage output is ridonkulous, and the ogre dies on the spot. 

The planetar attempts to implode Durest, but he also manages to shrug it off. The planetar drops a Blade Barrier on top of Jenny, doing… some damage. The wraiths attempt to go through the two doors but find the way blocked. 

Bob attacks the diva and does some damage; Ferrous jumps down through the hole and uses his breath weapon on the angels, who are unfortunately immune to poisonous gas. Chuck spider climbs through the hole onto the ceiling, and dangles there while he casts Feeblemind on the wizard. The Wizard fails to shrug it off, and begins blithering helplessly. She’s pretty well out of it. Durest drops Flame Strike on the angels, doing some damage but not as much as he’d like. 

Jenny lashes out with her chain and attacks the Astral Deva. The Deva goes down and she continues laying into the Planetar, and takes him out as well. Which pretty well means that everybody is dead. Chuck vampirizes the wizard, placing her under his control. “Okay, so how do we get to the Baroness?” The wizard tries to resist, but hands over a key. She threatens revenge and tells us that we won’t get away with it; evidence suggests otherwise. The baroness is through the south door. 

The key has some magic on it and is clearly attuned to some sort of safe room; we open the door and find the Baroness and her kids. Chuck forces his new slave sorceress to drink with him, and before long the rulership of Flowerhedge is dead. There are piles of papers on her desk, and they clearly were written and organized by a very intelligent woman with a strict system of codes. None of us are that smart. The only thing that’s really obvious to us is that the Baroness was working closely with the Solari here, and they’re going to notice if they don’t hear from her. 

None of us a smart enough or skilled enough to forge something to put them off. Fortunately, we know somebody who is. So we gather the whole collection of papers and take it John of the Dark Knives, under the theory that this is all valuable information and getting a bit of forgery will basically pay for itself. John… is very definitely our friend now. 

He gets back to us a couple of hours later, and he’s forged some orders to basically just keep everything going and prevent the Solari from getting suspicious. That gives us a chance to rest and recover our resources before we assault the bridge… and we are definitely going to assault the bridge. 

We go all in again, beefing up Jenny on the spells and the rest of us as well. We attack at nightfall.  

Burhaea, Chuck’s vampire slave, teleports herself, Chuck, and Ferroustopher across to the south end of the bridge. Durest, Jenny, and Bob stroll up on the north end. The plan – such as it is – is to meet in the middle. 

Ferrous uses his breath weapon on the rogue closest to Chuck & co. He follows up by slamming the rogue twice, and takes him down. A couple of the clerics drop Invisibility Purge to cover most of the bridge. An orc barbarian rages and rushes charges Ferrous, only to be met with a fist to the face from the iron golem; he attacks anyway, but misses. Another orc moves in as well, avoiding the cloud of poison gas, and with things clearly happening at the south end of the bridge the barbarians all start moving that way. Durest causes a wizard to implode. 

Burhaea is visible down at the south end of the bridge. A bunch of the sorcerers start firing off scorching rays, hoping to take out Chuck (and in some cases Burhaea as well – as a former Solari, her presence causes a bit of confusion). They don’t quite manage to take him out, but he’s very badly burned. Another one throws a fireball at Bob, incidentally catching Jenny and Durest as well. 

A monk moves in on Ferrous, and three charge Bob; Bob hits one of them as they come in. Jenny attacks as well, savagely mauling them as they approach. The monks survive and attack Bob, damaging him further. 

A couple of guys with axes also move in to attack Bob, and Jenny gets a shot at them as well. A couple attack Ferrous (over on the far end of the bridge) but fail to injure him. The guys with axes also survive, and manage to attack Bob (who is definitely feeling it). Bob collapses into loose bones. Jenny steps into the space where Bob was standing, and wipes out a wounded guy; she immediately attacks the monk next to him. She cuts through the Solari that were around Bob, and wipes them out. 

Jenny as an enhanced Stone Giant is an absolute monster. 

Chuck uses Dimension Door to get clear of the Invisibility Purge. Burhaea uses Power Word Stun to disable a cleric. Ferrous attacks one of the barbarians, and injures him further. 

Over at the north end of the bridge, the cleric with invisibility purge moves closer to where Jenny is standing; she drops Flame Strike now that she can see us. The archers and the rogues can see us too, and now they move on Jenny (mostly). A rain of arrows falls on her and does… almost nothing. Jenny brushes a couple of arrows out of her hair, shakes her hair out, and winks. 

The orcs decide that they need to take out the sorceress, and step in; Ferrous clips one as they pass. They attack her with mauls and axes, injuring her but failing to kill her. Another or charges Ferrous and power attacks, damaging the iron golem. 

Durest tried to implode the cleric but fails, then drops a quickened Cure Serious Wounds on Jenny – who probably doesn’t need it, but it seems better not to wait. 

Two of the sorcerers finish off Buraea, who turns to gaseous form and returns to her coffin (actually a crate from beneath the tavern). Jenny moves forward and attacks a rogue, damaging him but failing to kill him. He runs away, and a bunch of the other archers and rogues start moving back from Jenny. 

Chuck drops a Fireball on Ferroustopher and everyone around him. Ferrous is an iron golem, so fire heals him. Everybody else takes fire damage. Ferrous then attacks one of the more badly injured barbarians, striking him twice and finishing him off. The cleric with the invisibility purge (who’s flying around on an ebony fly) moves to get out of Jenny’s range and then drops a Flame Strike on Durest. 

Ferrous goes down under a swarm of Solari, who have basically rendered him down for parts. 

Durest calls for a fire storm and lays it along the south half of the bridge, lighting up a huge chunk of the solari. Then he drops a quicked Cure Serious Wounds on himself, right before he takes a bit more damage from a fireball. 

Having cleared (as far as they can see) the south end of the bridge, the monks and the barbarians move north; Jenny steps to the edge of the bridge and slaughters the flying cleric. 

The archers do a bit of damage to Jenny; another rogue just runs away. The others form up, trying to make a kill box for Jenny. Chuck drops a fireball on a couple of the flying enemies. The remaining cleric moves up, taking her Invisibility Purge with her to make us visible, but doesn’t get close enough this round. She casts Flame Strike on Jenny. 

Durest drops another Fire Storm, this time where people are forming up at the center of the bridge, and wipes out three of the rogues and a couple of the guys with greataxes. 

The survivors respond with a barrage of fireballs. Durest goes down, though he’s not dead yet. Jenny moves up and wipes out most of the kill box. Three monks remain. They spread out and attack her, doing a bit of damage. Chuck attempts to Feeblmind the cleric, but fails; another rogue flees. The archers take another shot at Jenny, again to no good effect. The cleric throws another flame strike at Jenny. 

The sorcerers throw more fireballs at Durest, who dies fully. 

The monks valiantly attack Jenny; Jenny turns and wipes them out. 

 

There are still a handful of enemy Solari around, and we’re not in good shape either, but we have definite proof-of-concept for Stone Giant Jenny. (And, OOC, DEAREST GODS the expression on the DM's face...)