GoCorral

This session was attended by Jamie, Ben, and Will. It was done over Google Hangouts as usual.
Some of you gentle readers may have noticed that a large spat of Alliance Sessions. That’s for a couple reasons. The players liked the high level power more. Will had started DMing his own campaign as well, we get a lot of our low level kicks there. Additionally, the Rebellion campaign spent a lot of in-game time travelling. The Alliance campaign was still a few weeks behind the Rebellion campaign in game time.

Terroc’s Truth

The party talked a little more about what to do with the sword. They decided the best thing to do was just to bring the sword to the Alliance Council in Bradel Fields and have them decide what to do with it. They left the tomb and the teleportation warded box canyon around it. Upon reaching the mountain pass outside the canyon they held hands and prepared to teleport away. Terroc cast the spell and only he and Torin popped out of existence. Tagenadi and Aldarian exchanged looks and realized that something must have gone wrong with the teleportation spell. They knew Terroc prepared several teleports per day, so they decided to wait for his return.

Terroc and Torin popped into existence one hundred feet above the sea, a mile away from Lordodo. Terroc grinned at Torin as he said, “Know how to swim?” Terroc let go of Torin and the dwarf plummeted into the sea. As he fell Torin quickly cast animate objects on his armor and his spear. Terroc floated above the water on his overland fly spell.

Terroc summoned a giant fiendish octopus and shouted, “Die you insufferable cleric!” The beast plunged into the water after Torin. Torin ordered his armor to begin unstrapping itself so that he could swim. His spear attacked the octopus, but was unable to penetrate its infernal armor. Torin grappled with the beast, but could not overcome its many tentacles. His spells left him as the water muffled his verbal components and the octopus ruined his somatic ones. The armor eventually unstrapped itself and sank down into the sea, but it was too late for Torin. The octopus overcame him. The dwarf’s last breath of air left him as he wondered why Terroc had betrayed him and the Alliance.

Terroc floated down to the octopus and ensured that Torin was dead. He cast a greater invisibility spell. The mage teleported back to the pass with the octopus and Torin’s body coming along for the ride. Tagenadi saw the octopus and Torin’s armorless corpse materialize one hundred feet above the pass. Both bodies fell to the ground and got a little mulched. The octopus slowly began to desiccate.

Tagenadi and Aldarian rushed up to Torin’s body to see if life was still within him. Tagenadi felt his pulse and knew that the dwarf was dead. Their invisible attacker cast acid fog centered on the living pair. While Aldarian and Tagenadi fought their way out of the fog, Terroc summoned a dire tiger on both sides of the fog. He summoned a huge air elemental to attack whichever side the pair emerged from. With his final action before they left the fog, Terroc cast true strike.

Tagenadi and Aldarian came out of the fog face to face with a dire tiger. In the fog Aldarian had once again mysteriously burst into flames that did not harm him or his belongings. Additionally, Aldarian had brought out his pilfered spellbook and Tagenadi, his kusari-gama. Tagenadi engaged the tiger. The air elemental and the tiger attacked. Terroc blasted Tagenadi with a disintegrate. Aldarian flipped through the spellbook and found the perfect escape spell, dimension door. He cast it on himself and Tagenadi. The blinked to the mountainous cliffs above the pass and to the east.

Terroc cast his gaze around the area and saw Tagenadi and Aldarian to the east. The pair, unaware that they had already been spotted, used Tagenadi’s celestial armor to fly further to the east. Terroc used a dimension door of his own to catch up with them. He dispelled the flight enchantment on Tagenadi before throwing down another acid fog. While they escaped the fog once again, Terroc brought his first air elemental up from the pass and summoned another to aid it. During their time in the fog, the fire on Aldarian guttered out into nothing.

Tagenadi came out first and kept the two air elementals away from Aldarian. Aldarian searched through the spellbook for more spells. He tried invisibility failed due to his ineptitude with magic. One of the elementals moved past Tagenadi and hit Aldarian. The damage was too much for the elf and he fell to the ground dead. As his body touched the ground, it began to glow. Red and orange light emitted from Aldarian’s fingers, toes, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The shining lights grew brighter and brighter and his body began to burn. He and all his equipment were turned into ash. A great pillar of fire shot up from his body and then down onto the air elemental that slew him. From the pillar, Aldarian emerged with a new body and new equipment matching that of his old.

All three of the combatants were shocked that, “Aldarian is a phoenix,” but being battle hardened veterans the combat continued without pause. Aldarian tried to cast blink, but couldn’t quite get it to work. Tagenadi hammered into the air elementals, but couldn’t do much damage. Terroc tried a few other spells, dominate person being a favorite, but the obstinate pair continued to resist. One of his air elementals’ duration expired. Frustrated, Terroc had the remaining elemental grapple Aldarian. It flew him up into the sky to two hundred feet before dropping him. Aldarian tried to cast fly while he fell, but failed. His body crunched into the ground, but he managed to barely survive by rolling with it. Terroc wouldn’t allow that. He aimed a disintegrate at Aldarian and ended him.

A Knight’s Burial

Tagenadi realized that it was better to run away to fight another day. He fled into the mountains and found a cave. Terroc followed and first ensured that Tagenadi was indeed in the cave by sending in a summoned celestial puppy to die. A standoff ensued where neither party was willing to engage. With Terroc’s invisibility spells running dry (He’d renewed the greater invisibility twice during the combat), he took a different approach. Terroc cast limited wish and wished that the rock surrounding Tagenadi’s cave would turn to mud. The whole mountain around Tagenadi collapsed. Terroc waited around to see if ex-Xorian would swim out through the mud.

After a few minutes, he was sure that Tagenadi was dead. Terroc looted Aldarian’s dust and Torin’s corpse. He summoned a fire elemental to burn Torin’s body. The mage then teleported back to Bradel Fields. He collected his family and belongings before teleporting to the Xorian camp at Phoenix to claim his reward for betraying the Alliance.

Tagenadi was not dead. A small amount of air had been trapped within the cave. Tagenadi hid out in there for four hours, before coming out to look for the bodies of his friends. He found no trace of Aldarian, and only a dwarven skeleton. He rested for one night. On the next day Tagenadi hoisted the skeleton and marched down the pass, hoping to shelter with the hobgoblins in the nearby valley for a few days.

On the way down the pass, Tagenadi encountered a hobgoblin patrol. A language barrier prevented any peaceful contact. The hobgoblins attacked and Tagenadi easily defeated them. Three fell unconscious and two fled. The brave knight tried to reason with one of those he knocked out, but was unable to. He carried the three unconscious (One newly restored to this condition) down the pass using his ring of enlarge person.

In the valley Tagenadi ran into a large contingent of hobgoblins led by a chief. None of them spoke a common language, so peaceful contact was once again impossible. Tagenadi easily scared them off by Ancient Mountain Hammering the ground. He walked into the village, but was met with only pointed spears. The hobgoblins made it clear, they didn’t want a human in their village, even if they couldn’t take him in a fight. Tagenadi sighed and left. Knowing that a journey through the desert surrounding the valley would be dangerous, he decided to camp by the lake until someone from the Alliance scried him to find out why the away team had been gone for so long.

A few days later a wizard from the Alliance showed up and teleported Tagenadi back to Bradel Fields. Grave events had happened to the Alliance rank and file during their time apart as well. A revolt in Bradel Fields had been put down!

But more on that next session!

I feel I should explain a bit more about why Terroc betrayed the party. When I originally designed the campaign I thought Ben would not be playing. He was busier than most of us and could only show up for an occasional session. I felt I could do what I wanted with his old character Terroc. I decided that Terroc would be a spy on the Alliance Council. He has been feeding the Xorians information throughout the whole campaign. In return, he’ll be granted dragovinian status and high power within the Xorian regime. Ben said he was fine with that when he rejoined the campaign more permanently.

To my delight, Trajan said he wanted to play a spy as well. I loved knowing that they were both independent spies with no knowledge of each other. They were also both spying for very different reasons, one for love and the other for power.

Terroc chose to fully betray the Alliance at this point because he was in possession of the sword of Kruk-Ma-Kali. That artifact is now going to be used by the Xorians in some way. Let’s hope the Alliance can survive it.

Terroc’s betrayal also resulted in pretty much a TPK. Terroc will now become an NPC under my control. Ben said he will be playing a similar build with his next character. I don’t know how we’ll work that summoner in story-wise, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. Will mentioned that he’s not so sure that Torin would accept a resurrection if offered one. He may be building a new character as well. Trajan wasn’t at the session, so we don’t know what he wants to do yet. He may continue with Aldarian, he may pressure the party to go rescue Amalius from his soul prison, or he may create a new character.