Good!party: The Tower, the Minions, and the Dragon

Tavros announces to the court that it’s time to attack the Dark Army and finish them once and for all. Atrix the White -- one of the master wizards that we rescued some months ago -- enters the planning session with his white beard and also all the evil books we retrieved from Welfort. 

“This,” he announces, “is a fascinating book. Evil, but fascinating. Truly there has never been a tome more full of knowledge – and evil!” 

We are understandably worried by this, and Tavros tries Detect Evil on Atrix but he comes up as Neutral. We all kind of study him, though, because there’s magic that could disguise that…

Most of us think he’s just a weird old man; Leira immediately concludes that he’s trying to get between her and Sacha. She immediately goes to check on Sacha and finds him alone in their bedroom. 

He explains the ritual that we’re going to need to find Vecna. We’re going to need to paint our naked bodies with sacred oils, and drink a bit of dryad’s blood. We must sound a horn of blasting. Then we must sprinkle powdered black pearl over a cursed rune. Then three of the most powerful spellcasters to cast one of their most powerful spells. Then they must smear their own blood over the crown, which will sap their life force. If we mess up, then we have to buy all the reagents again and also get the blood again, for one point of Con drain. 

We buy three scrolls of True Resurrection, and a bunch of Cure Light Wounds wands. We also upgrade the rest of our equipment. Leira, um, spends some time with her husband. We take a boat out to the center of Mar Dentro, which roughly corresponds to the center of the swamp in Fanaxia. This… takes about a month. It’s late December, near the end of the year. 

In the distance we see the same fog-shrouded ghost tower that we glimpsed in Fanaxia. Leira and Martini both activate False Life. We put Death Ward on everybody. We drop Freedom of Movement on everybody. Marshall adds Spell Immunity for Fireball, Hold Person, Phantasmal Killer and Enervation. We load Protection from Acid on everybody except Tavros, who has Universal Energy Resistance from his ring. 

Leira, Geddy, and Marshall spread their blood on the crown. They each take a point of Constitution drain. 

The words of power are keyword/response combos. 

Leira:
Igneo = Valaam
Librio = Umbrum
Corpreo= Sorum

Geddy:
Omnio = Avam
Diablo = Malum
Incipio = serpem

Marshall
Sigilo = Balum
Abyssio = Tenebrum
Voco = Damium

We manage to get through the call and response by a fucking miracle, and then the ghost tower suddenly becomes clearer, and closer, and then it’s right beside us. There are harpies on the rocks around the edge of the tower, which is about 250’ tall. There’s lightning and thunder swirling in a sudden bank of clouds overhead. This was once Sandorn castle, where the Archmagister of Fanaxia lived. The bottom level was basically a garage, with about a sixty foot ceiling; the doors are long gone. There are bits of the dark army – relatively minor minions, mostly – still hanging around. Harpies, Girallons, Ogre clan chiefs, some Vecna cultists, another T-rex. This is all stuff that we would have very threatening, previously. Now, well...

The boat drifts closer. Ruin looses a barrage of arrows with his shiny new very expensive bow, putting five arrows in the Harpy Clan Leader. Geddy starts singing. Eva breathes a cone of fire, clearing out a big chunk of the entry. Martini dimension doors to the ceiling above the T-Rex and begins to study it. Marshall turns into a snake and flies over. Tavros moves up and starts looking for a way to cross from the boat to the tower. Leira casts Time Stop and then lays down a series of delayed blast fireballs and clears out most of the center of the room. “Surprise!”

The boat moves forward a little bit. Ruin fires off more arrows, and Geddy activates Airwolf and flies over above the barbarians. Eva casts Fireball; the Barbarians avoid the worst of it, and Geddy is immune. Martini casts greater invisibility and continues her study. Marshall casts Holy Aura and Quickened Divine Favor. Tavros charges across Marshall and arrives on the tower. The T-rex charges him and utterly fails to bite him. 

The ogre chieftains emerge and charge. They’re raging, but not enough to actually hit anything. Then the Vecna cultists pour out of a side room, and spread out. Then they drop a succession of fireballs all over us. The dust clears and we’re all just standing there. 

Ruin fires off a bunch of arrows at the t-rex. Geddy plays a tune so tragic that it damages everybody in a sixty-foot cone in front of him. He hits the ogres, the t-rex, and two of the cultists (who die). Eva adds a Fireball to that, and there is screaming. The T-rex dies as well. 

Martini drops from the ceiling. The t-rex is no longer under her and anyways it’s dead, so she comes down – invisibly – behind the cultists. Marshall eats one of the ogres. Tavros charges the other three of them and kills two. Leira dimension doors over to the tower, and hides behind the wall. The remaining ogre hits Tavros, doing a bit of damage. 

The remaining cultists – Thoughts of Vecna – cast Phantasmal Killer on Tavros. We’re immune to that one, because we prepared for it.

Ruin: “I think we just woke up a rather large dragon at the back of the room!” He transports himself from the boat to the tower. Geddy kills more cultists; Eva moves past and incinerates the rest of the cultists. She too shouts, “Dragon!” 

Martini turns around and sees an enormous dragon rising silently up from the back of the room. We remember him: it’s Meowdeus! … And he’s looking right at her. 

She uses Dimension Door to jump behind him. 

Marshall flies over us and plants himself in front of the dragon, with the full intention of eating him. (He is nominally a cleric -- formerly human and now one of the lizard folk -- but he gained the ability to change into a ridiculously giant serpent due to his faith in Artem-hiss.) 

Tavros looks at the remaining ogre chieftain, and says, “Surrender, and I’ll see that you’re well treated!” The ogre snarls, and Tavros slays him. (But hey, he had to try...)

Leira throws ice meteors at Meowdeus, who is vulnerable to cold and takes a ton of damage. He had just drawn breath to monologue, and then the meteorites hit him. “Foolish mortals! You dare attack me here?!” He looks at Marshall and casts a quickened Freedom of Movement, because he does not want to get grappled by the giant snake. 

Meowdeus then moves up and casts sleep at a bunch of us; Geddy falls asleep on his Obsidian Fly. The rest of us resist the effect. Ruin fires off some arrows at him, but they fail to connect; he’s got protective spells up, and something about this place allows him to move more quickly; he attacks again, touching Marshall and setting him to dancing. 

Eva casts Magic Missile… on Geddy, and wakes him up. Martini continues studying Meowdeus and casts Destruction, which fails to kill him but does some damage. Tavros charges, taking some damage on the way in, and does just a bit more damage than he takes. Something about this place has empowered the evil brass dragon, and this fight is turning out to be a lot tougher than we expected. 

Leira drops an intensified icy meteor swarm on Meowdeus and does just a ridiculous amount of damage. That really pissed him off. She follows up with three quickened frozen fireballs, two of them intensified. Both the intensified ones make it past spell resistance, and while Meowdeus avoids the worst of it that kind of balances out against the fact that he’s vulnerable to cold. 

He casts a quickened dimension door and pops out beside Leira. He then attacks, attempting to rip her apart. He completely ignores Ruin, who is standing right there with his bow still in hand. Leira dies and gets eaten, so we can’t immediately resurrect her. Ruin drops his bow and draws his sword; Meowdeus tries to attack him but misses. Ruin hits him once, doing a bit of damage. 

Geddy follows up with a power chord, which slams into Meowdeus like the end of the world. Meowdeus does this ridiculous double-take. Geddy takes advantage of the moment to ride his magical fly back out to the boat. 

Martini uses dimension door to get behind the dragon again, and hides. Tavros charges and attacks, hitting but failing to kill Meowdeus outright. (He can do that with a particularly successful hit.) The dragon casts a quickened Displacement in response, then tries to disintegrate Geddy. He fails, but Geddy still takes some damage. Eva is sharing damage with Geddy, so she takes half of it. Ruin attacks but misses. 

Meowdeus tries Irresistible Dance on Tavros, who apparently knows how to jive and has never admitted this fact to anybody. He then drops a quickened Mirror Image. Geddy flies up over the dragon, about thirty-five feet above his head. He then casts Mordenkainen’s Disjunction from a scroll that we picked up earlier. The positioning is important here, because he wants to strip Meowdeus of his magics but not catch any of us in the spell's effect, which might disenchant a bunch of our equipment.

Eva moves in to attack physically, but misses. Meowdeus hits her on the way in, doing a bit of damage. Martini slides up behind Meowdeus and tries to stab him but misses. Marshall quits dancing, and drops Mass Heal before slithering into attack range. That snaps Tavros out of his dancing. 

Meowdeus casts a quickened freedom of movement and then tries Finger of Death on Geddy, but we prepared with Death Ward and Geddy ignores it. Ruin rages, attacks, and finally does some real damage. 

Meowdeus tries a quickened Feeblemind on Geddy, but he resists this as well and Meowdeus looks furious about it. He speaks a Power Word Stun, so Geddy is out of it for four rounds. Ava goes full catfight on him, and hits with claws, wings, bite, tail… she really rips him up. 

Martini stabs him from behind. 

He dies. 

...

...

Then he explodes.

None of us actually die. But... Ouch. That was not a small explosion. It does, however, allow us to get Leira's body back. Ruin pulls himself back upright, looks around, and says: "Good. If we keep being quiet like this, we can take them by surprise." This is irony.

We resurrect Leira, and prepare to heal up and move on.