Shattered Star: The Dancing Giant

Game Date: 5/21/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 55
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Fellany Mertien (Gary) - Human Fighter
Gustav Greycastle (Matt, subbing for Graham) - Human Necromancer
Maruca (Daniel) - Elf Ranger/Cleric/Rogue
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard

The Session:

We left off still teleporting through a series of rooms.  Today's first room contained a black crystal shelf holding some silver bars, and a 15-foot tall statue of Xin.  Of course the statue came to life and fought us, that's just what statues do.  If Bjertha ever rules Magnimaar, the first thing she's going to do is throw all sculptors in jail. This statue was difficult to hit due to being obscured, and only certain weapons could harm it.  It had heat and cold powers, and the room itself also kept running hot and cold on us.

When the room would go cold, it got difficult to walk. When it got hot, we took damage.  We finally wore it down, and Fellany made the final hit.  The room continued to get hot and cold after the statue died, so we didn't stay long.  We gathered up the silver bars (which were skymetal) and teleported again.

The next room was full of poison gas. We held our breath when we could, but it we knew we had to get through this one quickly.  We met a Marilith named Belmedra.  Slancio flirted with her a bit, and she revealed that she wished to be released.  The two were really hitting it off until she noticed Maruca opening the exit door.  Fighting ensued.

The door led to a long hallway, and the more vulnerable party members headed there while our tanks held off Belmedra.  Surprise, she can teleport!  She reappeared in the hallway next to Slancio and Gustav.  With six quick sword attacks, she did a massive amount of damage to Slancio.  But despite her multiple attacks, she wasn't that tough, and we quickly finished her off.  We took a short rest and opened the door on the other end of the hallway.

The next room was filled with gears and golem parts.  We were almost disappointed that nothing tried to kill us.  Gustav used his Orrery to see visions of the past.  He saw scenes of Xin working with gears and building an army of clockwork soldiers.  When we were done looking around, we proceeded through another door.

The next room had crumbling walls, and was filled with a smoky haze.  On the ground was the body of a 40 foot giant. Gustav got a vision of Xin, who had just finished building a war machine.  A giant appeared behind Xin and attacked him.  With his last bit of strength, Xin killed the giant with an explosive spell.  Once the vision was over, Gustav wanted to revive the giant's body for his undead horde, but the giant was one step ahead of him.  It started climbing to its feet.

Gustav tried talking to the giant in Thassalonian, arguing that the enemy of our enemy is our friend.  The giant replied that he had to kill us because he had a contract.  Fight!  Slancio started things off by casting an "Irresistible Dance" spell on the giant.  This kept him dancing for several rounds, which helped us out tremendously.  Plus it was a funny mental image.  Gustav tried using Command Undead on him, but he saved.

The giant was immune to fire, cold, lightning, and probably a few other things we didn't try.  He had gems embedded in his skin that would sometimes explode with bursts of sparks.  At one point he used a powerful "Hellfire Orb" spell.  We hit him with a lot of powerful attacks, Bjertha's Undead Bane longsword coming in especially handy.  In the end, though, Gustav finished him off with a cherry-tapping Magic Missile.

We ended the session there.  Gustav might still raise the giant for his army.  We reached level 17 with 228,030 XP.  We're going to take a long rest here to level up.