The Acts of the Lords of Rannick, LX

Jesus.

This idea to drink Manhattans was great and all, but it doesn’t really help with record keeping. I hope everyone swerved home okay.

1) Stir: 50ml Canadian or American Rye Whisky, 20ml Sweet Red Vermouth, Dash of bitters, ice

2) Strain into a glass with a maraschino cherry

3) Forget everything that happened at D&D

4) Resolve to drink a lot of tea on Thursdays from now on.

Okay, so everyone backtracked to the entrance hall, the one where they had fought the Iron Golem. somehow Arradin was there. It doesn’t matter how, that isn’t that type of campaign. Halvard did a bit of checking what their purpose was: they knew where Karzoug was (Mhar Massif) and how to hurt him when they got there (Runeforged Weapons, using magic soaked items from the wings of Lust and Pride), but that was about it for now. They also knew that there was an exit from Runeforge hidden somewhere in the Halls of Wrath.

After recuperating, they returned to the practice room that the Evokers had been using, with its practice dummies and sparring gear. Halvard and Albedon, again felt at home, whereas Dagfinn felt a bit off. Not much, but a bit off his game.

Investigating the long practice hall, they found that the room opposite their entrance point was set up to host battlefield simulations. All sorts of tiny metal men were placed on lifelike terrain pieces because these guys had 10,000 years which is how long it will take me to ever build decent scenery for 40k. And as alien as this place feels to Dagfinn, it should be noted that none of the miniatures were painted. Anyway, this appears to have been a briefing room/tactical simulation room for the mages who lived here.

The other open chambers on the side of the hall led to more rune portals. After examining the functional but unadorned cells that lined the room, they picked one of those at random and travelled through.

They found themselves in a seven sided room, with six sides being stone that held glowing weapons and the seventh side being a billowing wall of black smoke. They did not linger in this room, with the exception of Albedon who stayed behind to buff himself appropriately. When everyone else stepped through the billowing curtain of smoke, they found themselves in another weird room.

Highlady Athroxis: Its funny because we had just been talking about Grace Jones.

Cathedral-like, it was a long hall lined with red pillars and roofed with roiling flame. 3/4 of the way down the hall, another massive runeportal lay on the floor, ringed in flames, astride which a striking woman awaited them. As soon as they appeared through the smoke she pumped her fist and gave a triumphant yell and then summoned some nasty stuff.

When you do a google search for this demon after too many Manhattans it is very easy to type Shameasian. DO NOT GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH Shameasian.

And then that guy summoned these guys.

Vrock

So Tersplink summoned these guys:

Sup?

This would have been a great battle to have miniatures for…

As it was, the bottle caps littered the drawing of the cathedral and everyone got stuck in.

Athroxis started off by casting a Delayed Blast Fireball to split up the backline, but with Albedon still in the room and Tersplink and Kerplak being mobile, there wasn’t really a backline to disrupt. Also she wouldn’t be alive when it finally went off.

The rhino charge lasted a reasonably long time, in as much as magical celestial rhinos can be reasonable anything. That helped chew up the Shemhazian’s time and allowed Arradin to scoot by them to get to Athroxis.

Halvard, Ron and Dagfinn rushed in to get at the Vrocks and after taking them down, they moved on to the Shemhazian. Round about this point Albedon emerged as this guy:

Woo! Things were exciting.

Halvard’s strategy of blasting demons with negative energy was going well and Ron’s Axiomatic quarterstaff seemed to be doing well too. Kerplak began trying to line up sneak attack shots, which, when they paid off were pretty amazing. Rogue is one of those classes that people like to multiclass in so when you see a straight-up rogue sneak attack someone, it is always pretty impressive.

But if straight-up Rogues are impressive, straight up Fighters are frightening. After nearly decapitating the Shemhazian, Arradin moved on to Athroxis, letting others tackle the crazy spider-bear demon. Finally presented with that which she had desired her entire life – a worthy opponent – Athroxis set about Arradin with glee, deaf to the clever but ineffective attempts at détente made by the Ron and Dagfinn. It should be noted that diplomatic overtures usually work best when they are not punctuated by crossbow bolts.

Eventually, the Vrocks were destroyed on this plane of existence, as were the celestial rhinos and finally Athroxis and the Shemhazian. As Athroxis slid to the ground the mark of Wrath, a glowing tattoo that had adorned her forehead now sprang to life on her slayer’s forehead. Arradin was aware of something being different and everyone else noticed the tattoo appear. Whether or not they want to start referring to her as Highlady Arradin is entirely up to them. She now has the ability to surround herself in magical fire, however, so you may want to give it serious thought. That was an awesome drop and I’m so glad Arradin got it.

After dusting themselves down they briefly looked at the Runeportal (much bigger, silver and an exit only). Then got to looting the body. That fancy armour turned out to be really good (+4 Mithril Breastplate) and she had an amulet of natural armour which is always good to have around.

That’s where we sort of ended, as at that point we were pretty drenched in manhattans.

Next time… I predict more monkeying around with portals!

One Comment on “The Acts of the Lords of Rannick, LX

  1. One might even say that that… Now we’re thinking with portals.

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