Good!Party: The Colossus In The Tower

We take advantage of this post-explosion moment to loot the ground level. We start with the Ogre Chieftain room.

This used to be stables; we find valuables worth 17,000 gp. Martini heads for the locked room and checks for traps: there are traps. She disables the traps, then opens the door. There’s a big pile of treasure. She checks it for traps. She promptly claims a linked pair of traps: Mass Hold Monster and Incendiary Cloud. This appears to be Maodeus’ treasure hold. There’s a ring of wizardry and a manual of gainful exercise; we keep the manual and sell the rest, for a total of A Lot. So what was that pile of treasure the Maodeus was sitting on? Fake treasure. On the other side, we find a bunkhouse for the bodyguards; 12,000 GP there. On the right hand side was a desecrated temple from a long time back – there were altars to various gods, but they’re screwed over now. Finally we find a training room with ancient formorian weapons, with six magic missile rifles and six fire swords. There’s a side-room; it’s trapped, and locked. Martini unlocks it and we have stairs up to the next level.

We use the wand of Lesser Restoration to cure the Con damage that a couple of us have taken. Then we restore our buffs: Haste, Death Ward, False Life, and like that. We head up the stairs, with Ruin slipping up in the lead. He hears six people moving around on the far side of the door at the top of the stairs. So it’s probably a large, cavernous room with big things in it. Martini follows Ruin and casts Greater Invisibility; she positions herself behind him, but on the ceiling. Eva resumes human form, and Geddy checks for magic; there’s a circle of magic far above us, and various others; he thinks our big problem area is going to be inside the door and to the right. Marshall moves up and casts Freedom of Movement on Tavros; Leira moves up and takes a position. We also cast Light on Tavros’ armor so people can see. Ruin uses Clairvoyance and sees a large statue with scaffolding around it and tools scattered around; Martini looks in and sees blood on the floor; she tells Tavros. We hear a voice from the next room: “Please come in, we’ve been expecting you. My name is Cardinal Laroche.”

We’re coming out under a balcony that runs around the edge of a very large room with a statue in the center of it. There’s a workshop where the Dark One created horrible things, and the balcony level overlooking it. Dominating the room is an enormous, mostly-finished statue of a woman, presumably the Dark One herself. Eva slips in past us and enters the room; she spots six Nightwalkers in there.

Geddy walks in and starts playing music: Call Me Alice, to be specific. It gives us a +4 to attack, damage, and saving throws.

Two nightwalkers move in and attack Eva, doing a chunk of damage. Four more appear, and… Tavros has sword out, so they’re immune to fear at least. Tavros attacks the nightwalker in front of him and rends it to nothing; he steps out beside Geddy.

Leira uses Disintegrate. Marshall casts Holy Aura, giving us all spell resistance. He follows up with two instances of Searing Light at the first nightwalker he sees. Ruin charges and attacks the same nightwalker, doing it some damage. Martini finishes another one. Up on the balcony, priests of Vecna assemble to fuck us up; they move around the balcony, trying to get an angle of attack. They drop seven fireballs, and immediately hit our spell resistance. One gets through on Leira; one gets through on Geddy. The Vecna-ites exchange thoroughly nonplussed glances. A higher-level spellcaster attempts Dominate Monster on Eva, but fails… barely. Dominate person on Tavros fails also. Cardinal Laroche casts Implode on Geddy, gets past spell resistance, and succeeds; Geddy implodes. “Start the apparatus!” he yells.

Eva takes to the air and uses her breath weapon to spew fire all over the Vecna-ites. They follow up with a bunch of cones of cold. Tavros completely ignores this. Ruin basically does too. (OOC: He takes 1 point of damage.) Marshall takes a chunk of damage, and Leira takes some damage as well.

Tavros finishes off two more Nightwalkers. Leira looks at the nghtwalker next to her and drops a quickened Magic Missile, and finishes him as well. Then she calls an acid meteor swarm on the balcony and the mages up there. They… don’t have spell resistance. That’s going to be a difficulty for them. There are suddenly a lot fewer Vecna-worshippers on the balcony.

The giant statue in the middle of the room turns and attacks Eva, doing a bunch of damage.

Marshall drops a Mass Heal, healing us and damaging the last remaining Nightwalker.

Further magical fuckery occurs. Ruin resists.Cardinal Laroche casts Time Stop, then casts True Seeing and Spell Immunity vs Meteor Shower, Disintegrate, Fireball, and Destruction. He follows up with a quickened Inflict Serious on Martini, but she evades it.

The statue attacks Ruin and does a bunch of damage, despite his damage resistance. Eva has been possessed and attacks Ruin; nicking him. The one remaining Nightwalker throws a Cone of Cold.

Tavros moves in, taking a hit from the colossus, and finishes the nightwalker. Leira moves up and opens the door, revealing… another workshop.

Marshall considers the statue, and decides to cast Miracle. He plans to use it to attempt a Temporal Stasis to freeze the thing in place. Ruin has a vision of trying to freeze a golem and yells out a warning; Marshall changes his mind and drops True Resurrection on Geddy instead. He follows it up with a couple of Searing Lights at Cardinal Laroche.

Ruin passes through the door and across another old workshop, then opens another door and finds stairs leading up. Martini walks up the wall, though she can tell that Laroche can see her now. Martini murders another Vecna-ite; the others cast Magic Missile at Tavros, who is definitely hurting. Somebody on the balcony targets Leira with Disintegrate. She takes a bunch of damage, but is still on her feet.

Cardinal Laroche laughs. “Fools!” He casts Implosion at Martini and gets past her spell resistance. Martini implodes.

Marshall: “For fuck’s sake!”

The colossus goes to smash Tavros, but he’s still on his feet. Eva attacks him, and does a bit of damage. Geddy, freshly resurrected, casts Song of Freedom; Eva shakes off the control and looks embarrassed to have her teeth in Tavros.

Tavros races away from the colossus. He takes a bit of damage, but gets clear. Leira also steps out of its range, and drops some acid balls on the two spellcasters on the balcony. She follows Ruin towards the stairs. Marshall Mercy casts Mass Heal, restoring the bunch of us – except for Martini.

Ruin notes that whoever’s controlling the colossus will attack anybody on the ledge; Ruin races across the ledge and throws some Martini-bits down to Marshall. There’s a Cassadia up here somewhere, and she tries another disintegrate on Geddy. He takes some damage, but doesn’t disintegrate.

Laroche tries to implode Ruin, but doesn’t get past his spell resistance. He drops a quickened Cure Critical Wounds on himself. The colossus attacks Ruin, hitting for a bunch of damage but not taking him down. Tavros charges the Colossus but fails to connect. It misses him, also.

Leira drops a Time Stop, and goes up to Laroche. She drops a Mordenkainen’s Sword next to the colossus, then shields herself, and then prepares to drop a Wail of the Banshee. Cardinal Laroche doesn’t die, but Cassadia does. Marshall resurrects Martini.

Ruin charges Laroche, and the Colossus smacks him on the way. Ruin attacks LaRoche and backs it with Vampiric Touch, doing extra damage and giving himself some temporary hit points. Martini double-moves to get over beside Laroche. Laroche drops another Time Stop, and takes advantage of the opportunity to disappear -- and likely heal himself as well, though it doesn't look like he had time for anything more than that.

Laroche is suddenly gone, and the stone colossus smacks Tavros a couple of times. Tavros carves some chunks off the colossus, which is suicidal but at this point so is trying to run away. Leira makes herself invisible. Marshall moves in help Tavros, and Heals him.

Will our heroes triumph? Will they be reduced to a fine paste on the walls of Castle Fanax? Will we find Cardinal Laroche? And what about whoever is controlling the colossus? How much bloodshed will we face before we cut loose and bring the whole tower down?