We started up again in the bat room. Aside from the corridor that led to the drake pens, the room had two other forward paths we could take: into a pit, and down a short set of stairs. We opted to check out the pit.
It was two 10 foot drops down into a garbage pit. We spotted some narrow crevices down in the pit. We detected a hint of a fouler smell than garbage in the air, so opted to stay on the ledge, and we took a short rest (remember, a short rest is an hour long in the basic rules).
After the hour, a re-cast light on my shield and also on Thok's shield. Then we went down the set of stairs. It ended at a curtain made of over-lapping straps of poorly cured hide. Corrin was about the go through the curtain, but with a successful Dexterity saving throw, back away before being skewered on hooks set in the hides. He ended up using a rusty, discarded spear that the denizens of the dungeon had set aside to push the curtains back to reveal a larder of meat. Once we were content that the larder was empty of anything of value, we went back to the drake pen.
Fortunately, there were no kobolds this time. I grabbed one of the training dummies on the walls of the room down the stairs Lokeo went down. When the dummy was not pelted with sling stones or stabbed by daggers, we ventured down and found the kobold barracks. We spent about ten minutes searching their foul beds and came up with some treasure.
We then followed another set of stairs deeper into the cave. We cam upon a room of worked stone carved with bas reliefs of dragons, including one of a really large dragon with five heads of different colors each-Tiamat. There was a chest sitting in front of the carving of Tiamat. The room also contained some inhabitant: Langdedrosa Cyanwrath, the half-blue dragon Censura "dueled" before, and two dragonclaws, the scimitar wielding fanatics.
Cyanwrath, being a nice guy, offered us a choice. We could let him duel Censura again and he would let the rest of us leave alive, or he would kill us all. We took a third option. I ended up winning initiatives (natural 20s are good for that). I cast guiding bolt on Cyanwrath, a damaging spell that grants advantage on the next attack roll against the target. I ended up using my War Domain feature to grant a +10 to the attack roll (I rolled a natural 7). In retrospect, I should have then engaged on of the dragonclaws and pinned it in place. Instead, Thok went to engage the other Dragonclaw, and missed his first attack, then Dragonclaws surrounded him. Fortunately, their first batch of attacks missed, but the second batch brought a critical hit, which dropped Thok, almost killing him. Then the dragonclaw opted to hit Thok again, resulting an automatic death saving throw failure.
Fortunately for us, Cyanwrath rolled terrible on initiative, so the rest of the party got to act before he did. Corrin used the advantage to deal a sneak attack to Cyanwrath. Then Censura used the "grovel" effect of the command spell to cause Cyanwrath to use his turn going prone.
I used healing word, which is advantageous because it can be used at range is only uses a bonus action, to bring Thok back into the fight. Then I hit Cyanwrath with my hammer. The dragonclaws ended up attacking Thok again, but Corrin got advantage from Cyanwrath being prone and delivered another sneak attack to drop the half-dragon.
While we made short work of Cyanwrath, low rolls on our part and the raw damage output of the dragonclaws ended up being a problem. They dropped Thok, Censura, and myself. However, between a spell called hellish rebuke, a spell that allows a warlock to injure their attacker after being hit, and Corrin's ability to hide and Sandi being squirrelly, we managed to drop the dragonclaws. The party lived. And we had enough healing potions to get everyone conscious again, at least.
That done, we saw to the chest, We couldn't find any traps, but with dragon murals surrounding it, I figured we shouldn't take chances. As an arcane trickster, Corrin has a feature called Mage Hand Legerdemain, which lets him use the mage hand cantrip to pick locks and open chests. We managed to disable the trap in the process of picking the lock anyway, so we looted the chest without getting bathed in super-villain origin story amounts of acid.
Next week will be our last session before Christmas, though we may play New Years Eve. When I return, I'll have more on the DMG, and the Cleric Spell Card deck I ended up splurging on.
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