That Battle for Burrowdale continues

Dennis flies to the tree and uses it to dimension door to Nautiloid 2. Then he starts to beat the shit out of it. At one point, the Mind Flayers try to stop him hitting by Silvery Barbing him. The first time they did that, he still hit. The second time they did it, he criticalled. They didn’t Silvery Barbs him again after that. Horus gets a ranged attack on Nautiloid 2 as a reaction because of that critical, but before he can use it The Captain, valiantly fighting off the Mind Flayers that are attempting to retake the bridge of Nautiloid 1, spins the hyperdrives up to ramming speed and smashes it into Nautiloid 2.

This was super effective in destroying both Nautiloids, and all the Minds Flayers aboard them. It wasn’t so great for Dennis, who was standing on top of Nautiloid 2 when Nautiloid 1 rammed it from above. That hurt a bit.

Horus still had that reaction attack, so he used it to rescue some villagers in peril.

At this point the party notices a huge Nautiloid driving a crystal spike into the intersection of ley lines to the south of the town centre. This is weird, and we are reliably informed that it’s bad. Rusty and Horus go off to bombard it with fireballs, which is going OK, until it blasts us with 100-odd points of force damage with a reaction, then another 100-odd with its attack. Rusty and Horus drop.

In the meantime, Louie and Raymond beat up a lone intellect devourer without any effort at all, then decide that this justifies them jumping - alone - into the middle of 2 Nautiloids and 5 Mind Flayers. I think they managed to kill one Mind Flayer, before they were both killed and Louie had his brain sucked out.

Dennis, from 300-odd feet away, notices Louie’s brain being tossed into the air, and a Mind Flayer about to catch it in its mouth. He uses his tree action to Dimension Door to just where the brain is, and catches it in a fly-by. He thought that Mobile meant he could just grab it and run without fearing opportunity attacks, but was told that he had to at least attempt an attack. So he did, and killed that slimy fucker, then flew away, madly healing himself and going as fast as he could towards Vilgaxes last known location. Dennis can heal really well, but raising the dead is currently beyond him.

Around this time, Minion, from his recess in Rusty’s armour, grabs a potion of superior healing from Rusty’s pouch and pours it down his master’s throat. Rusty jumps up, grabs Horus’s body, and runs like hell. At the end of his run, he realises he still has a bonus action left over, so pours the second potion down Horus’s throat.

Horus immediately spins around and runs back toward the massive Nautiloid, launching fireballs as he goes.

In another area, The Captain is using Bigby’s Hand to save as many drowning villagers as he can manage. He saves some, he fails to save some. It’s the circle of life. Then he gets the Tree to Dimension Door him to where Horus is - and realises that Horus uses ranged attacks, while he needs to be quite a bit closer. So he jumps off the cliff and falls 100 feet onto the Nautiloid. Then he stabs it - hard. He does this under the effect of a potion of haste, so even though he misses a few times, he still gets two really solid hits and one critical.

Elsewhere, the orphanage is now undefended - Louie having lost his mind, Raymond dead, and Dennis trying to get Louie to Vilgax before it is way too late. The Mind Flayers demolish it, killing Sister Act and her chorus line of tearful little orphans. Why does a small hamlet of Harendon have so many orphans, anyway?

The rest of the hamlet is on fire, people running everywhere, it’s raining frogs and cats and dogs are living together. Truly it is the end of times.

Young Horus creates his first magic circle

Against all expectations - especially his own - young Horus manages to finish his magic circle, and the remaining Burrowdalians escape through it.

82 additional Burrowdalians saved. Including the 20 we saved last session, that’s 102 of a possible 150. We’re actually over 2/3 success. Not bad!

Young Horus and Cletus also escape through the portal, but somehow we are aware that the villagers have ended up somewhere, Cletus somewhere else, and young Horus somewhere else again. I suspect this has plot relevance, or Ethan needed to say it to explain continuity issues, or something.

The end times arrive

There is a long descriptive passage where Ethan tells in excruciating detail the fall of reality and the death of Burrowdale, as it transforms into some sort of eldritch nightmare.

The party takes this largely in stride - with the exception of Horus, we’re old hands at eldritch horror. Hell, a few of us are eldritch horrors. Horus is mentally approached by Jubilex, asking if maybe it is finally time for Horus to call on him to fix shit up. Horus, who is in a bit of a tizzy (as usual) declines, saying that one more lap of the time loop should do it. At this point, I don’t know why Jim called his character Horus instead of Ryan Romano.

That fucking Modron again

It comes from the plane of Mechanus and it has one eye. It’s a Modron with delusions of grandeur. The parties temporal point of view returns to the big cavern with the big modron, and we see the gears inside it spinning and - apparently - regenerating. This is a clue for later.

A crime is committed in a realm where all laws are known, all evidence is preserved, and all judges are incorruptible. Yet justice cannot be served. The criminal is guilty, the victim demands retribution, and the law is clear. Why does justice fail?

The party mostly thought this was a rhetorical question, or at least, something with relevance to Horus. Each player (not character) gets one attempt at an answer, and we’re warned not to just spam ideas. It was never made clear why, but for a change, the players play along.

Initiative! That fucking Modron gets a Nat 20, and wins. Then it is Rusty, Louie, The Captain, Dennis, Horus, Raymond and Gary, in that order. Vilgax takes his customary location at the bottom of the initiative ladder, so that he can fix whatever we fucked up that turn.

The Modron raises it’s hand and does 60 points of force damage to Dennis and Vilgax simultaneously, no roll to hit or save. Weak sauce.

Rusty shoots it with lightning. The first shot misses (pretty high AC!) but the second one hits. Minion shoots it with Shatter, but it Nat 20s its save, so no damage.

The Marut does a legendary action and places the entire cavern into temporal lockdown. Dennis and Louie were the only ones to save. No damage done, but wait for it, everyone.

Louie casts Spirit Shroud, taking a leaf from Horus’ playbook of lets not do any damage in the first round in the vague hope of hitting our straps later. Then he climbs aboard Raymond.

The Captain has to roll a d4 and a d100, which (due to dumb luck) has no apparent effect. Then he casts Grease, which astonishingly, works! The Marut falls down. The Marut starts casting a spell with it’s legendary action, but Louie Counterspells it.

Dennis hits it 5 times, but misses twice. One of the hits was a crit, though, which temporarily blinds the Marut and disables its automatic damage (that unavoidable 60 points of force damage) for one round. Nice!

Horus has to roll d4/d100. He gets teleported a fair way away, but manages to get close enough to Chill Touch the Marut, doing - nothing.

The Fuming Fey (he’s still here from 2 sessions ago!) gets teleported completely out of the room, but runs back inside and proceeds to smack the Marut around. Honestly, what happened here got pretty confusing. It seemed like this whole Fuming Fey with a Shadow Blade was the whole purpose of Horus’ build, but Jim read about it without fully understanding it and it took a while to work out what happened. In the end, we think it was probably pretty effective.

Raymond gets teleported out of the room on his turn, and starts bounding back.

Vilgax is also teleported out of the room, but he can Dimension Door so instantly returns and heals Dennis.

Our answers to the riddle were close but not correct. The Marut’s regeneration is reduced.

Round 2

The Marut, on its turn, prognosticates again:

Beware the sharpness of my edge. When standing on my infinite ledge. Fashioned made with a single long band. And see your right become the left hand.

Scott guesses circle (incorrect) and Dan guesses Mobious strip, which was correct. No regeneration for you this turn, Marut!

Then the Marut casts a spell and everyone in a 60’ cube (everyone except The Captain and Raymond, I think) takes damage and is stunned. This causes Louie to drop concentration on Spirit Shroud, so it did absolutely nothing. No surprise there.

Rusty rolls his d4/d100 and gets teleported about as far away as it is possible to go. In addition, he is stunned, and his movement is reduced to 0, so he just sits there.

Louie hits the Marut and crits it. No automatic damage next round either, loser!

The Captain is teleported, and once again rolls insanely and essentially stays where he is. He hits the Marut.

Dennis has a terrible round, missing 4 times and only hitting once. At least he isn’t randomly teleporting, and can’t be stunned.

Horus is teleported into room 3 (not as far as Rusty, but pretty far) and is stuck there because he is stunned.

Raymond is also teleported to room 3, so he picks up Horus and starts running back.

Gary gets teleported to room 2.

Vilgax gets teleported to room 4, and casts dispel magic on Rusty so he doesn’t randomly teleport any more. Rusty didn’t know you could do that, or he would have done it earlier this turn when he wasted his action. Horus probably would have, too.

End of play for the day

Before we all go home, the Marut has one last riddle for next session:

The base of binary, the first of my kind. Another even prime you will not find.

Dan says zero, but that’s obviously wrong. Scott says 2.