Chapter 14: Dome Off, Game On

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Session Number: 37
Date: Sunday 21 February 2010
Venue: Alain's
PCs & Players:

Enok Rgr6 (Alain) (kills: 1 arachtria)
Rowaine Pal6 (Craig) (kills: nearly 1 matre)
Troll Wiz6 (Densial) (kills: 1 arachtria)

XP Awarded: TBC

Troll continues to run, heading up the hill. Arachtria are in pursuit but sound like they are falling behind. Rowaine heads towards where she thinks Troll is. Enok's wolf makes a beeline for the invisible elf. Troll can now see the blue dome over Kharag. Just as he reaches the top of the hill, the dome flickers off.

Oh crap.

Kharag's alarm bell sounds. There are some arachtria in between us and the monastery. A number are stationary. Ro sees some of them standing up.

"Powering on" - they were on standby!

Enok hears the bell and turns towards monastery at full speed. Ro calls out for Troll but he doesn't answer. Troll casts Summon Monster III, summoning a celestial hippogriff. He commands it to head away, making as much noise as possible.

Craigo and Alain figure out that we don't need Troll any more as the rest of the party can now drive the tower :-)

Ro parallels the arachtria's path. The hippogriff runs off while Troll quietly stands by. Rowaine doesn't notice the hippogriff. Instead, she sees the monastery's inhabitants streaming towards the temple of Moradin. Troll sees the 3 arachtria follow the hippogriff for a few moments. The arachtria scream, break off and head towards Kharag. Troll pulls out his bow. Ro and her wolf make best speed towards the monastery. Troll casts Mage Armour upon himself. Enok continues running towards Kharag. Troll casts Fiery Burst directly up, despite the risk of starting a forest fire, wanting to get Rowaine's attention. He doesn't get it, but Enok sees the display and heads towards the source of the Burst. Troll cimbs a tree. Everyone is still pouring towards the temple. Rowaine looks around; all arachtria seem to be heading towards Kharag. Troll hears his hippogriff and recalls it.

We are utterly divided!

Troll hears a crashing in the bushes beneath him, coming towards his tree. He draws his bow and soon sees a wolf run under the tree. Troll says "tweet tweet" and rejoins with Enok and his wolf. They all hustle towards Kharag.

Ro sees everyone in the monasyery's grounds make the relative safety of the temple. She notices that the temple has had modifications; the windows appear to have been barricaded.

The arachtria are hacking their way through an outer gate. Rowaine flies over the temple, circumnavigating it. Troll and Enok hear arachtria in front. They continue on and lay eyes upon ten.

Rowaine circumnavigates the temple, yelling "Rowaine Kharag is here! Open the doors!" One of the gates is breached. She lands and dismounts. "Open the door!" Sounds of the door being unbarred. It opens and a teacher peeks out. "That's a Stone Wolf." "It won't be a stone wolf for long! Open the door!" The teacher casts a spell, and shortly after he opens the door. Rowaine and her unusual mount enter. The door closes and is barred; moments later something hammers on it. The windows now have stone reinforcement fittings.

Troll & Enok try to detour past the arachtria in front. The arachtria parallel their course towards Kharag. They outpace the spiders.

Rowaine considers where to deploy the portal to Elondel, deciding that it would be best in the room beneath the temple. She finds Sir Veketh, alive and well.

"Sir Kharag, I'm back!"

"Indeed… You have brought a rather unusual friend."

"More about that later… Tactical report. There are large numbers of arachtria outside, they've breached one of the outer gates… What happened to the barrier?" Her stress interferes with the delivery of a succinct SitRep.

"10 days was always an estimate, and it has lasted until now."

"We have another way out…" Rowaine fills in some blanks. She describes Troll's tower, his lineage and shows Sir Kharag her backpack portal. She seeks permission to begin to deploy the portal in the chamber beneath, and Sir Kharag promptly agrees. Rowaine gestures to the stone wolf to stay and try not to break anything; she then goes downstairs and begins the deployment process in a wall adjacent to the existing bolthole portal. While she is doing it, a canine face pushes through the wall right beside, surprising her. The wolf pushes fully through. Rowaine comes back upstairs. The wolf follows up the narrow stairway, various parts of her passing through the surrounding stone. She finds Sir Veketh and tells him that the deployment process is under way, and that Troll and Enok are somewhere outside.

The bashing at the door continues. After a few minutes it briefly stops, only to be replaced by a much greater force that shakes the temple. "That'll be the matre - one of the larger ones," explains Rowaine. She quickly tells Sir Veketh about the relationship between the matre and the arachtria. The large bangs cease. Rowaine pulls out her share of the imithrium equipment - 2 battleaxes and 2 suits of chain mail armour, giving it all to Sir Veketh, discussing their effects as she does so. Sir Veketh then urges Rowaine to help her party members. She figures her best exit option is the bolthole, and goes back downstairs, beckoning to her wolf. The wolf submerges through the floor. Rowaine wonders whether she can do the same thing when she is upon the beast. She mounts and they slowly merge with the stone - a decidedly unnerving experience for the first time!

Rowaine cannot see or feel anything when she is "Earth Flying" upon her mount; it resembles sensory deprivation. The wolf's senses operate just fine. The wolf communicates something of her senses to Rowaine via the empathic link, but that's it. What might happen if she fell off?

The empathic link can convey a desire to move in a certain direction.

Rowaine asks the wolf to "run" towards the bolthole exit.

Enok and Troll get to the monastery walls unopposed. Enok cannot see a way to climb it. They head to the nearest tower. Troll Spider Climbs to the top and drops a rope for Enok to follow. They pull up the rope. Troll hurls gobs of acid to destroy the tower's stairwell. It takes about five minutes.

Apparently you can hold pure sulphuric acid in your hands - as long as there is no water present!

Troll sees 1 matre, seemingly doing something to itself. Around 30 arachtria are within the monastery walls.

Rowaine thinks she is within the vicinity of the bolthole and surfaces. She finds the building but there is no sign of her friends. She makes a beeline for the monastery, scanning left and right. She sees a few arachtria entering a ruined gate into the monastery grounds, and the matre. The large creature seem to be making some modification to its body. The arachtria see Rowaine and the stone wolf, and scream. The matre turns her way. It appears to have mounted some sort of tube onto itself. Three small spiders are still hacking at the temple door. They have made some progress. Strangely, of the 50 or so arachtria now within the compound, the three slashing away at the door are the only ones in motion.

Enok and Troll fire imithrium arrows at the matre. The wizard hits, the ranger doesn't. The matre flinches at the stinging arrow. Several arachtria near the arrow's flightpath scream in alarm. The matre moves behind the temple for cover. Several arachtria scuttle towards the arrow's source. Troll fires again at a closing arachtria, but misses. Enok shoots two at two arachtria slashing at the door. One hits, badly damaging but not neutralising it.

Rowaine readies her lance and takes a bead on the matre.

Arachtria have now reached the bottom of the tower housing Enok and Troll and are searching for a way up. Troll catches two of them in a Fiery Burst.

The matre rises from a squatting position and aligns itself upon Rowaine and her wolf. Rowaine Detects Evil - the matre reeks of it. A flash of red appears from the matre and some form of projectile flashes past her.

Enok fires two more arrows at separate arachtria. An arachtria at the tower is very badly damaged.

Rowaine stays the course and charges the matre with her imithrium lance, adding Smite Evil. The lance strikes true - 29 damage. The matre is looking hurt.

It is decided that the stone flyer cannot bite while its rider is using it to charge - the wolf is aiming to ride past the target.

Troll Fiery Bursts three arachtria at the base of the tower. They are looking pretty badly damaged.

The matre hacks at Rowaine twice, missing both times.

Enok sights his bow on two arachtria, one at the temple door and one at the tower base. He hits and kills one at the temple door. Another one takes its place.

Rowaine attacks again with her lance for 11 more damage.

Five of the arachtria move towards the matre. Troll looses another Fiery Burst at the arachtria beneath him. One of them drops.

The matre now has a 10' circumference of arachtria around her. It moves away, towards the gate. Its cylinder belches another bullet towards Rowaine which misses.

Enok sees the matre break towards the gate. He looses two arrows at it, both of which hit (19 damage). The matre is now moving faster than its protective cordon.

Rowaine sees the matre running and decides that the objective is met. She heads back to the temple. Troll fires an arrow at the matre and misses. The matre claws its way through the gate and continues on.

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