Shattered Star: Four Rooms

Game Date: 5/14/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 54
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

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

The Session:
After finishing off last week's Bythos Aeon, we took a closer look at the contraption being held by a statue.  It was a Timeglass, which Gustav used to look into the past.  He saw civilized-looking troll, with whom he could only communicate one way.  Gustav tried to give the troll a bit of insider info about the future, and the troll wrote it down.  This troll was a seer who had given us a prophecy many, many sessions ago, and Gustav just completed a stable time loop.  Science!

Right now we're in a series of rooms that can only be reached by teleporting.  The next room contained seven crystal statues of Runelords.  A couple of them were holding large hunks of black metal ore, and each one had a halberd at their side.  As we approached, some of them knelt as if offering tribute.  Being genre savvy enough to know there was going to be a fight, we started grabbing the halberds to get them away from our future enemies.  We didn't get far before the battle started.

One of the statues was inhabited by the spirit of Xin.  It was the only one casting spells, so we tried to keep a zone of Silence around it.  Gustav used a spell to animate some of the halberds, making them attack the Runelords.  We found that the halberds did full damage the statues, while our own weapons did not, so our melee characters started switching to the halberds.  At one point Xin used Prismatic Spray which hurt a lot of us.

Gustav managed to do huge amounts of damage with his undead followers' Magic Missiles, and a well-cast Chain Lightning finished off Xin.  Then Gustav got knocked out for a few rounds.  Meruca and Slancio both used more Lightning attacks to wear down our opponents.  Then Gustav got up and cast Fireball on a few.  Bjertha killed two statues in one turn, and Gustav finished off the final Runelord statue.

We took a short rest and teleported to the next room. There was a massive cauldron and lot of liquid metal in this room.  A pair of humanoids formed from the metal in the cauldron, coalescing into the shape of Xin.  They spoke to us in Thassalonian, which only Gustav spoke.  They asked us about the progress of their army.  Gustav bluffed okay, but then they asked Bjertha a question.  Gustav quickly slipped her the tongue cast a "Tongues" spell on her so she could speak Thassalonian.  Deception is one of Bjertha's worst skills, but she rolled a 20 and we avoided a fight.  We teleported again.

In the next room we saw two insubstantial Dread Wraths guarding a fancy scimitar.  They had the ability to reduce your CON and lower your max HP.  This could have been a bad fight, but our party necromancer managed to dominate one of them right at the beginning.  Their attacks were necromancy based, so they couldn't actually hurt each other, but Gustav had the dominated one pick up the scimitar (a "Ghost Touch" weapon), to attack the other.  Some Magic Missiles finished it off.

With that one gone, we had to decide what to do with the dominated one.  It turned out she couldn't leave this room, so there was no reason to keep her with us.  Gustav asked her for any information she could give us, and then we destroyed her.  We teleported again.  In the next room there were two Crystal Guardians, and a lot of weapons on the walls.  The weapons were designed to do extra damage versus constructs, so some of us went right for them.

The Guardians had a breath weapon which could turn people into crystal.  The good news is that you get to save again at the end of your turn, so the effect usually wore off quickly.  They also did bleed damage.  Gustav animated some of the weapons on the walls, and the battle was over pretty quickly.  Fellany finished off the final Guardian.

We ended the session there, ready to teleport again.