Shattered Star: Gustav Gets Stoned

Game Date: 4/30/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 53
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:

We're still exploring every room in Xin's tower.  Last week we opened a few doors and fought a few monsters.  There was one room in particular that we thought we'd cleared, but apparently not.  Gustav went inside alone for a better look, and was promptly attacked by a "Retriever" construct.  The rest of us were occupied elsewhere, and didn't notice he was in trouble for a couple of rounds. 

Gustav fled the room while sending his zombies against the Retriever.  The enemy then used a power on Gustav that turned him to stone.  The rest of us saw Gustav's statue and joined the battle.  Meruca also got petrified, but luckily for both of them the effect was only temporary.  It was a tough monster because it had several elemental beam attacks, and we had disadvantage on most attacks against it.  Bjertha dealt the final blow.

In another room we found a lot of floating flotsam, including coins and a magic rod.  Bjertha went in to grab the rod, and four crystals started moving towards her.  Bjertha left the room as Gustav ordered his zombie dragon to attack the crystals.  The crystals did a high damage attack on the dragon, turning it into crystal statue.  Our crystalline opponents were immune to slashing and piercing damage, but it turned out they were highly vulnerable to bashing.  Bjertha and Fellany blocked the doorway, using shield bashes and punches to damage them.  Bjertha killed two of them, Fellany destroyed one, and Meruca finished off the final crystal.

The rod turned out to be a valuable magic implement... for Warlocks.  Oh well, it's still probably worth some money.  We couldn't heal the dragon, so we attempted to teleport it back to town.  Due to some wards in the tower, our attempt shattered the dragon.  Gustav stored the pieces in his portable hole for later.

In another room we found a silvery chair with a rune-etched disc floating above it.  We'd seen one of these before, it's allows Wizards to access every spell for a specific school of magic.  We went back out into the hallway and went through the door at the end.  There we saw another spell chair.  Gustav is very happy to have access to all these spells. 

On the far end of the room was an archway entrance covered in crystals.  Gustav touched a crystal, and a spectral hand reached through the crystal barrier and grappled him.  Crystal daggers fired from the walls and damaged all of us.  Slancio cast Freedom of Movement to free Gustav, and the rest of us bashed the crystals to pieces. 

We went through the archway and entered a round room.  The walls were pitch black and absorbed light.  In the center, on the floor, there was a teleportation circle.  We decided not to go through yet, as there was still one more room on this level we hadn't seen.  We took a long rest and checked out the final door.  It was another round room, with the remains of clockwork musicians.  We saw another crystal hand appear, but we didn't see a point in fighting this one.  We went back to the teleportation room.

The teleporter sent us to a square room with coppery walls, covered in murals depicting Xin.  On one end there was a statue of Xin holding some sort of contraption.  Before we could investigate, we were hit by a Slow spell with a high save DC.  A "Bythos Aeon" (a sort of four-armed tornado-looking monster) attacked us.  The Aeon started the fight by hitting all of us with a "Circle of Death" spell... which wasn't nearly as scary as it sounded.

Deciding turnabout was fair play, Gustav cast slow on the Aeon.  Our party members gradually saved against our slow effect (Bjertha was last).  The Aeon attempted to cast Mass Inflict Wounds, but Slancio counterspelled it.  Meruca finished off the Aeon and we ended the session.

Reminder:
There is no game on 5/7.  Our next game will be 5/14.