Night Below

Chat Summary for 6 July, 2001

Battle with the Servitor Derro, rounds 6 and 7

While we didn’t have a full crew, we had enough players last Friday to make it worth our while, so we played a couple of rounds. This summary will be by character rather than chronological.

Amber had a nice, relaxing evening (well, not really <g>). She is in the rear, keeping an eye on the wall of stone that Ari has put up. She did down a potion of CLW to try and boost her up a bit.

Ariessus was also ready to handle the derro when they finally broke through her wall.

Bohica cast two spells on himself, Shield and Invisibility. He also moved back away from the Wall of Force.

Castinar ran forward, then use a Soften Earth and Stone spell to try and work his way around the Wall of Force.

Diana held back, waiting for Castinar to tunnel through the rock and get around the Wall of Force. She then readied a Magic Missile spell, just in case something came through the opening before the party was ready.

Katrina maintained her perch up on the wall. She saw the illithid come out from around a corner, so she fired three Dessy’s surprise arrows at him, hitting him solidly once and splashing both the flayer and the derro leader. She then had to move up to get out of a stinking cloud spell. Finally she hit the derro leader’s spider mount several times, almost killing it.

K’harn moved up next to Castinar as well, and helped him to soften the stone. Her second spell (in the same area as Castinar’s) turned the rock to a soft mud, which then sloughed away from the wall, creating the opening the party wanted.

Matar ran forward and attacked the derro that had dispelled several of the spells on him. The derro survived long enough to cast Stoneskin on himself, but Matar took him out in the second round. Matar also killed the spider that the derro savant was about to mount up on, and then flew up to threaten another savant.

Nikki spent her first round ready to counter any spell cast by one of the derro. Then she threw a fireball where she was able to hit two savants and their spiders.

Shadow remained in the rear with Ari and Amber, watching the stone wall.

And finally, Thengal spent his first round making sure that the Wall of Force did seal the tunnel. He then flew down to wait for Castinar and K’harn clear an opening in the rock wall.

As for the bad guys, here’s what some of the key events were.

The derro leader moved away from Matar, chugged down a potion, and then mounted up on a spider. The illithid tried to <fwop> Matar, then moved away, right into Kat’s line of fire. He then batted out the flames still burning on his clothing and moved back out of Kat’s line of fire.

The derro savants obviously cast a lot of spells. A couple in particular were of note. First, there is a cloud of greenish-yellow fog right up against the Wall of Force. The party will have to pass through it (or otherwise deal with it) before they will be able to move deeper into the derro lair. Two lightning bolt spells were cast, although neither had the desired effect. The first was swallowed up by Amber’s Protection from Lightning on Matar. The second was more interesting. Nikki and Kat had just lost contact through the Combat Empathy spell. A moment later a derro cast a lightning bolt at Nikki. The bolt hit an invisible hemispherical shell a few feet in front of Nikki. The electricity danced across the hemisphere (giving Nikki a rough idea of the outline) and then faded away, doing Nikki no harm.

The battle is still up for grabs. One of the savants has been killed, but many of the other savants have vanished. They also seem to be coming aware of the invisible party members. The party is still split up, but is getting closer to reuniting.

On the mud wall, the whole area is now quite slippery with thick mud. Those who are flying (like Thengal) will be able to fly through the gap above the mud and avoid getting all messy. As things stand right now there is only room for one person to move through at a time. The mudfall has created a slick slope. It will take a move-equivalent action to get through, and will also require a balance check with a DC of 12. If you miss the check you will fall, which will probably mean you can stand back up in the same spot (another move-equivalent action), but will then be blocking the gap for the rest of the round, and will have to make another balance check next round to get through.

The party’s other option is to scoop the mud out of the way. This can be done with magic (I’ll leave it up to you to figure out a way to do it) or labor. To clear the gap enough that a single person could fit through it without a balance check will take six man-rounds. You can get up to two people working to scoop the mud away on each side, although you do have that nasty looking cloud to deal with on the other side.

I do have intentions for next round from several people already. I’ll be putting those together with the intentions of the derro and sending them out later tonight.

Map and Grid are both updated.

Saif