Session 0053 - More Emerald Claw

Roster

List of characters who's player was in attendance

Player characters who's player is attending the game start with 1 Hero Point, and can get more during the session.

Absent

List of characters who's player was absent

Player characters for missing players do not start the session with a hero point, and can not get any more during the session.

Session Log

After the combat with the apes the party have fully explored that level of the complex. They take a brief look out onto the easter balcony, which affords an impressive view of the area. The balcony is some 150-feet above the ground.
From here they have a couple of options. They could take the massive spiral stairs up to the next floor where Arkaban has told them Garrow and the remainder of the soldiers are, or they could go back to the terrace below and take the western steps up to where Arkaban says there is a large double stone door they could not open. The last he remembers there were guards there trying to open it.
The party choose to try the later option first, so they all head back down to the terrace and head to the west side of the complex. On the south end of the terrace they can see a large pile of dirt, and they have not explored there yet. They opt instead to go around on the north side of the compex, past the partially open door to the room they have been using to camp out in.
Indeed, they do find a western staircase heading up. It is very similar to the one on the east side with a small man-sized set of stairs on the right and massive giant-size steps on the left. This staircase only appears to ascend about 50-feet or so, just above the ceiling of the terrace.
They all cautiously head up, and for the most part the group is quite stealthy in their approach thanks to being aided by the party expert in stealth, Eriana. Everyone with the exception of Eriana decide to take the human-sized staircase, but she remembers the boulder trap and opts to take the more difficult giant-sized steps. Both Hrovard and Arkaban are the least quite in their ascent. They may have made enough noise to partially alert those above, as they find they do not completely surprise the group of 10 emerald claw guards they spot when they reach the top of the stairs.
They see flickering torches in a massive chamber 40-feet across and 80-feet wide. There are impressive double stone doors directly opposite the staircase on the far wall with some kind of mechanism arrayed against it in an apparent attempt to pry the doors open.
Emerald Claw soldiers have all gathered to the north and south ends of the room with weapons drawn and shields in hand.
Not waiting to parley, Eriana rushes into the room towards the group on the south side of the chamber, tumbling past the nearest guard who she hits critically with her kukri, burying it in his chest and killing him outright.
Harbek follows immediately, moving around the corner to the south and lines up three other guards and unleashes a Grim Tendrils spell on them. The spell seriously injures one of the guards and damages the other two.
The guards respond after this, and start moving to try and block off the staircase and prevent more characters from ascending into the chamber.
Rebar is quick to react, casting a Grease spell across the floor in front of several guards on the north end of the chamber. The guards do not seem to notice the sudden appearance of the greasy floor in their eagerness to reach the party. However, all but one guard who rushes across the patch of floor manage to keep their balance. The one guard who does not, falls and ends up spending a round getting back to his feet before he can reach the combat.
As the guards move forward, Arkaban casts a spell and vanishes. The party loose track of him at this point.
Before the rest of the party are able to get into the room the guards do form an effective line just above the stairs to block them off. Ferdinand tumbled past one of the guards to flank him with Hrovard and injures him badly with his rapier.
Hrovard still has a broken axe, so he resorts to his back-up weapon, a mace. He ends up spending most of the rest of the combat fighting off two guards from his position at the top of the steps.
Meanwhile, there are five four soldiers remaining in the south end of the chamber. They see Eriana and Harbek and attack them, only to discover shortly afterwards that Arkaban suddenly appears from the south west corner of the room and attacks them with magic.
The fight starts badly, as Harbek is attacked by two soldiers and hurt badly. Eriana also finds herself up against two soldiers, and takes a few hits.
At the stairs, Ferdinand quickly finds himself in trouble, taking a critical hit and reeling from his wounds. Alicia joins the fray and critically misses, having her crossbow ricochet off Hrovard and rebound into her face temporarily blinding her!
Muroni manages to rush in and help at the front line with Hrovard.
In melee a couple more guards go down, but Harbek is critically hit and knocked unconscious. Eriana is reeling from her wounds but is aided by Arkaban who moves in to physically attack the guards. Muroni also manages to get into the room and help in that fight when they realize the dwarf has fallen.
Unfortunately, right after this happens Ferdinand is critically hit and knocked unconscious.
Things look pretty bad at this point with the active party members still outnumbered and two of their own down. The tides do turn a bit at this point, however.
Alicia recovers her vision and rushes into heal Ferdinand with her Lay-on-Hands ability, getting hit by a nearby guard for her efforts. At the same time, being relieved in melee by Arkaban allows Eriana to move over to Harbek and force a healing potion into the dwarf. (This was well timed, as Harbek had failed a check to stabilize and was one step closer to death with three failed death checks.)
While the move to help Eriana worked to free her up, it proved costly to Arkaban. The guards recognize him and shouted at him in anger as a "traitor". He takes multiple hits, including two critical hits as he tries to fend off two guards. Yet the sorcerer seems very sturdy, and remains standing.
Meanwhile, at the stairs the party begin to make a bit of progress. Three guards are down, but at least one seems intent on killing Alicia. She is hit multiple times, but remains standing.
All this time, Hrovard remains at the top steps fighting off two guards and slowly getting injured as he takes multiple hits. He struggles to hit with his mace, but does also land blows that begin to wear down the guards.
At one point in the combat, Rebar fumbles with a spell that creates a wild effect that causes one of the guards fighting Hrovard to enlarge, towering over everyone else. This area was built for giants, so he still has plenty of room to maneuver.
Revived, Harbek begins by healing himself and using his magic to help out in the combat. He notices the now enlarged soldier and unleashes a Spiritual Weapon again him. Unfortunately this spell proves not to be terribly useful as it only lands one hit during the rest of the combat.
Still, the party slowly take out the rest of the soldiers without having anyone else knocked out. They take out the enlarged soldier, and a few more until only one soldier remains.
It seemed intent on killing Arkaban the "traitor", and came very close. The only reason it did not succeed was that the sorcerer put a Blur spell on himself which made the potentially fatal blow miss.
That last soldier managed to fend off an entire round of attacks from the party before finally being felled by the only attack where the Spiritual Weapon hit.
Combat ends with everyone in the party drained of resourced and injured. Only Rebar managed to finish the fight without being hit.
The session also ends at this point, with the party likely to focus on recovery next session.
Note: the melee results in 160 xp going to the 3rd level party members (Hrovard, Harbek, Rebar) and 130 xp going to the 4th level party members (Eriana, Ferdinand, Alicia).