Good!Party: The Dead Things In The Library

We have reached the library, and the undead have emerged to kill us for Kas Luthien.In doing so, they have set off the traps that we attached to the library doors.

Ruin attacks the Held dread wraith beside him, but the damned thing is intangible and the magics that would let the falchion hit it anyway are inactive. He misses completely. Geddy whips out a Flame Blade and attacks the hulking corpse behind him, hitting easily. The fire sword takes him down. Tavros cuts down another hulking corpse

Martini moves around the balcony. The dread wraith shakes off the Hold effect. He attacks Ruin and hits, draining his constitution. The Devourer tries to trap Marshall’s essence and suck him into its belly, but fails. The angel of decay emits a rotting aura, and Marshall is nauseated and damage. He’s just sure that’s from all this walking around on his actual feet. The morg tongues Marshall, who ignores the bad-nasty effect. Then it attacks him and hits, and tries to grab him… Marshall shoves him back. “Ah do not consent, Sir!”

More morgs mover out of the room. A second one tries to tongue Marshall but misses; the third one tries it on Geddy, and paralyzes him. Marshall is busy being nauseated. Leira pulls her own Flame Blade and attacks the wraith. Ruin follows up and kills it.

Tavros races past them on the way to assist Geddy and Marshall. The trap we set on the far side goes off, catching a devourer and a hulking corpse. The other devourer attacks Marshall again, but he shakes off the effects. The morg that paralyzed Geddy claws him up and then grabs him. Morg #2 tries to tongue Marshall; so does #3. He does not get paralyzed, but he does take a bit of damage from being punched in the face.

Marshall whips out a Flame Blade and attacks the devourer, hitting it three times. Leira switches to the magic missile launcher and fires one off, Ruin races up behind Tavros and swings at a Morg, but misses. Tavros kills it and moves to block the doorway.

The devourer tries to claw Marshall, but misses. He still takes damage from the angel’s rotting aura. The morg who grabbed Geddy is just trying to eat him. Another morg attacks Tavros, but he shakes it off; the angel of decay’s aura hits him, but he shakes off most of it. Marshall flame blades the devourer, and Ruin pulls the morg off of Geddy. Tavros cuts down the morg and the devourer, clearing the doorway, and steps into the library.

Martini continues around the outside balcony, away from the fighting. The angel of decay’s aura is doing bad things to us; the angel of decay steps up and hits Tavros with two claws and a wing. The morg tries to break free of Ruin, but fails; another morg is approaching. Marshall steps up and flame blades the angel of decay. Ruin throws one morg off the side, and then steps between Geddy (still paralyzed) and the incoming morg.

Martini steps in and attacks the morg. Marshall and Tavros are still being affected by the angel of decay. The morg licks Martini, and paralyzes her. “Meat!” He claws her and then grapples her.

Marshall again goes after the angel of decay, doing some damage. Ruin pulls the morg off Martini. Tavros vomits and then lays into the angel of decay, and kills it.

Marshall spots the other devourer, which is still Held by the trap that Martini put on the door. Leira shoots the morg that Ruin’s holding, and Ruin throws it off the tower. He then moves into the library, spotting the devourer and heading for it. Tavros moves with him. Marshall follows, gasping for breath at all the unaccustomed exercise. Ruin scrambles over a bookshelf to flank the thing, and Tavros attacks it. He cuts it apart and then moves to the doorway. The hulking corpse on the far side is still held.

Marshall moves outside and puts his Flame Blade in the hulking corpse.  Ruin moves over next to it and grabs it: “I have an idea.” Tavros comes up on the other side, and they throw the thing off the edge.

We haul Geddy and Martini into the library and wait for them to recover from the paralysis, and take the opportunity to heal everybody up… except for Ruin, who is still weakened from constitution drain. Ruin steps into the map room and grabs the giant, detailed map of Fanaxia from the wall. He looks around, but doesn’t see anything else of interest. Martini checks out a reading room and finds some old, unique religious tomes that are Fanaxian and possibly heretical. We decide to sell those later. She finds an old map and ring of animal friendship in another room; we decide to sell that as well.

We move around the room, opening doors and collecting treasures: 85,000 GP worth of art, a Formorian crossbow that does 4d4 acid damage and has 20 shots per day (ranged touch attack). Geddy climbs up the book ladder, and it’s… extensive. There are also miscellaneous scrolls and books of magic… all of it would be worth quite a bit of money, if we had working bags of holding. We’ll come back for it, we hope.

The next door has movement on the other side. Tavros and Ruin move to guard it.  Martini moves on and finds a bunch more art, and also an Evil Pop-Up Book with a portable hole in the back. There are also four powerful scrolls: Mass Charm Monster, Maze x2, and Greater Shadow Invocation. We decide to sell them.

Another reading room has a desk with a locked drawer. There’s a scroll of Wish in there; we keep that one.

She checks the opposite door, and from the sounds inside she concludes that there are probably four morgs inside.

We set up outside the door with the half-dozen things moving around on the other side of it, attempting to come up quietly enough to surprise them. Geddy opens the door.

Hunched on the desks among the books are a bunch of Blasphemes and two entropic reapers. Tavros takes advantage of surprise and attacks one of the entropic reaper. Martini steps in and beheads a blaspheme. The entropic reaper attacks Tavros, hitting him with a scythe and doing some damage. Marshall moves around to engage the other entropic reaper and smacks it with his scythe. The blaspheme behind Marshall tries to bite him and misses. Another assaults Martini, damaging her.

Ruin moves in and cuts into that Blaspheme, and Leira hits it with an acid bolt. Geddy steps back and fires his crossbow at the entropic reaper next to Marshall. Tavros takes out the entropic reaper next to him and moves to assist Marshall. Martini attacks the blaspheme that bit her. The other entropic reaper attacks Marshall and hits him, doing some damage but not inflicting its entropic damage. A blaspheme attacks Martini and damages her. Another one bites Ruin, dazing him and sucking away his strength. Marshall is similarly stricken.

On the far side of the main  room, we can hear things throwing themselves at the door that Martini blocked.

Leira fires off another bolt, and Geddy starts shooting at the remaining entropic reaper. Tavros moves behind the blasphemes and attacks them across the table, killing one and very nearly killing the one beside it. Martini finishes it. Ruin carves into the remaining blaspheme for a fair amount of damage. The remaining entropic reaper hits Marshall again, and this time does entropic damage: he is now in agony as his form twists and mutates horribly.

Leira shoots the blaspheme with her crossbow, adding a bit more damage. Geddy shoots the blaspheme, hitting it once. Tavros takes a step and finishes the remaining blaspheme, and Martini throws her dagger at the entropic reaper and hits it. Martin turns and walks out the door. The reaper continues tearing up Marshall. Marshall is still dazed. Ruin and Leira attack the entropic reaper, doing more damage. Geddy fires off a couple of crossbow bolts at it, then Tavros steps in and finishes it.

Martini retrieves her dagger. Marshall climbs back to his feet and heals himself with the wand. Ruin and Tavros head for the door on the far side, and Martini reluctantly follows. The door sounds like it’s about to come down, but it holds and Ruin and Tavros get into position. Marshall and Geddy follow, healing Marshall along the way. They make it into position too.

It takes the better part of a minute for the door to give way. It finally gives way, and the morgs charge out. We attack them as they emerge, doing quite a bit of damage.

Geddy fires off more bolts with his crossbow. Tavros cuts one down, steps forward, and finishes another. Martini throws her dagger again. Marshall cuts into more morgs with his scythe, and it tries to tongue him in return, then hits him. It then grabs him. Geddy shoots at Marshall, or rather at the Morg that’s grappling him. Regardless, he puts a couple of crossbow bolts in Marshall. Tavros kills the Morg in the doorway, and Martini puts a magic missile into the Morg holding Marshall. She manages to stab it twice, and Marshall once.

Marshall: “Why is everybody shootin’ me? This seems to unfair.” He tries to reverse the grapple despite his strength loss, and succeeds. The morg immediately reverses it again. RUin hesitates; Leira fires off the crossbow and hits Marshall. Geddy waits, and Tavros pulls the thing off Marshall and promptly throws him off the balcony.

We start searching rooms. The west wing yields a book of Charisma+5, and also a voice that calls for Martini’s attention. It appears to be coming from a rock named Oliver, which is being held by a statue. He claims to be a lucky stone, and it can cast Shocking Grasp, Cause Fear, and Rage. He’s also a leftover Vecna experiment, so his magical effects work. Martini claims him.

The east room has a bunch of miscellaneous books, a bag of 2,200 PP, plus five scrolls: Freedom, Dominate Monsters, Shades, Mass Hold Monster, Energy Drain – all at level 9. Martini proceeds to check for hidden doors, and finds one in the art room. Beyond it she finds a +5 stat book and a Book of Infinite Spells,

We decide to stop and rest, because despite our victory we’re in pretty rough shape. We open the Nine Halls and take advantage of actual beds, then use the wands to bring us back up to full health. (A full night's sleep will take care of the stat damage.)