ToEE: Adios Ashira

Game Date: 4/23/2011
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Ashira (Jesse): Dragonborn Battlemind
Durbin (Jesse): Dwarf Battlerager Fighter
Jerry (Nick): Human Cleric
Kossack (Nick [Cliff]): Minotaur Fighter
Krusk (Matt/Jesse [Rick]): Half-Orc Monk
Kryla Bloodfang (Matt): Dragonborn Cosmic Sorcerer
Nyx (Leigha [Bryan]): Halfling Thief
Pixie (Leigha): Gnome Wizard

The Session:
We ended the last session in a column-filled room, after killing a bunch of Ghouls. After a short rest, we explored the area.  We opened the door to the North (A), and fought four more Ghouls.  Then we went West, then South, and found a room with a pair of Ghasts (B).

Early in the battle, Ashira fumbled, then got hit hard by both Ghasts.  In a single round, she was killed by massive damage.  The battle was a bit harder without Ashira (one of the Ghasts made three crits that encounter), but eventually we managed to defeat them.  Afterward, we found a secret passage to the East that took us back into the room with the columns.

While Jesse ran off to build a new character, the party retreated from the temple and headed back to Nulb.  We wanted to get rid of some of the treasure we'd found.  First we spoke to the smithy, who seemed like a nice guy.  He told us to be careful who we spoke to about clearing the temple.  Then he suggested we go to see a hag named Mother Screng.

We went to see Screng, but she didn't have enough cash on hand to buy our loot.  Jerry pissed her off trying to haggle for more money, so we left her alone and headed for the inn.  We saw the smithy again at the bar, but he pretended not to know us.  After we booked some rooms for the night, we started looking around the inn for potential party members... we weren't liking our odds of getting much further without Ashira.

There we met a burly-looking Dwarf named Durbin (Jesse).  He claimed he was looking for action, so we let him in on our quest.  The next morning we set out for the temple once again.  We went back in the same way as before.  After descending the stairs, we encountered four Ghouls at the first intersection (C).  We had to chase one of them a bit down a hall, but we finally killed all four of them.

Then we went North to the next intersection (D), then headed West.  At the next side hall (E), we were hit by a couple of crossbow bolts coming from the North (F).  At the end of the hallway, a hatch kept opening up, and more crossbow bolts kept hitting us.  Kossack charged the wall and whacked it with one of his powers.  Nick: "...And I push the wall  one square and knock it prone."  DM: "No, you don't."  He did, however, damage the hatch.

There were doors to the East and West.  We opened the West door, and found a room with five Gnolls and a Bugbear (G).  Thinking the two rooms were connected, and wanting to surprise them from the other direction, Kossack opened the East door.  Unfortunately the rooms were not connected, and he now faced five Bandit Soldiers (H).

So now we basically had two encounters going on at once.  Kossack and Kryla worked on the East room while the rest of the party fought the West.  Nyx made a bad fumble on this encounter, giving him a penalty to ranged attacks for a while.  An Arbalaster (a walking crossbow construct, which is what was shooting us through the hatch) came out of an alcove (I) and joined the fun.

Pixie used Fountain of Flame in the West room, while Kryla used Blazing Starfall in the East, making some nice controlling zones.  One Bandit Soldier ran away down the hall.  We didn't want anyone escaping who might come back with reinforcements, so Kryla chased after him.  She followed him down a hallway, until he took refuge in a room full of his friends (J).  Well, crap.

In an effort to keep them from charging her, Kryla threw down a Blazing Starfall, then spent an action point to place a second Blazing Starfall in a different area.  Blazing Starfall creates a zone that damages enemies if they try to leave it.  Since most of the enemies were minions, they were inclined to stay put.  But Kryla knew she was still in trouble, because her enemies all had crossbows.

On her next turn, Kryla had planned to lay down another Blazing Starfall (the zones only last one turn), then hide around the corner so she wouldn't be hit by all those bolts.  Unfortunately, one of her attack rolls fumbled.  She drew a fumble card which caused her to teleport to a space adjacent to her enemy.  She had to use her move action to teleport (Spatial Trip) a few squares away, but she was still too close for safety.  She used her minor action to draw a healing potion, but couldn't drink it yet.  On the Bandits' turn, they took her down with a few bolts.

Kossack ran down the hallway to aid Kryla, but they took him down as well.  Kryla & Kossack spent the rest of the battle on the ground.  Kryla rolled very well on her death saves.  Out of 7 or 8 saves, she only failed one.  Though it still would have been nice to get a 20 in there somewhere.

As the fight against the West party gradually took out the Gnolls, the Bandits (who no longer considered Kryla and Kossack a threat) started running in to join the battle.  Pixie fumbled an attack on a Bandit, and drew her fumble card, but Rusty vetoed it because it would have drawn out the battle even longer.  The original fumble card would have summoned some mirror images of the Bandit.  Instead, Rusty had her draw another card.  This one had Pixie's spell going off in her face, hitting herself with a critical.  That's fine, she was at full health, she could survive a crit.  But it was a crit, so she drew a critical card... and it caused her to summon a mirror image to attack her.  Some things were just meant to be.

It took a long time (the battle took nearly 3 hours in real time), but our party finally killed off everyone, and managed to get to their fallen teammates before it was too late.  They killed the last cowering minion, fed Kryla her healing potion, and we called it a night.