Game Report: The Big Confrontation

They burst through the double doors, and wait, noticing that there are two doorways open in the hall. They discuss the best course of action and decide to cast an illusory wall in front of the doors and pick off any enemy that arrives. This is done, and once they create a distraction, what appear to be floating zombie brains emerge from the first room. They begin to fire their ranged effects through the wall, and the brains charge, but cannot seem to grasp the fact that the wall isn’t actually there. Only one manages to get through, and provides the only resistance when it dominates the swordmage and sends her after the wizard.

However, at the end of the hall, a blood ooze pops out of the second door, followed by skin kites, flying patches of skin. The players use the protection of the wall to fire off some area effects that destroy the skin kites easily, but the blood ooze easily breaks through the wall of deception to start grabbing the PCs and draining their healing surges. They manage to bat it back, and after a few hits, it decongeals and melts, leaving a single bloodied brain to dispatch, which they quickly did.

They find that the room the brains came from have four dead bodies inside, apparently tricked into slaughtering each other by the flying brains. The room the ooze came from was a lab used for growing new undead creatures, and they had escaped not a short while ago. After collecting themselves and a little loot, they step into the next room, a small antechamber. Two infused suits of armor attack them, but fall shortly after doing not much damage to the melee fighters.

They open the next set of doors to final find the Margrave, who sits on his raised throne awaiting them. He applauds them for destroying their forces and asks them what they want. When they say that they want the hilt and the black blade, the lich tells them to take them, he doesn’t care. The party thinks it can’t be that easy when a githzerai appears next to the lich, telling them that he refuses to let them leave. He is outrageously upset that they keep disrupting his business’s operations, and wants only revenge for what they’ve done to his headquarters, his minions, and his lover.

The players weren’t that into talking to him either, and the wizard lets loose an icy ray at both him and the githyanki that materialized nearby. The players quickly bumrush the githyanki and disarm him quickly, taking back the black blade that the doppelganger needed to retrieve. The doppelganger quickly runs up and grabs it, then turns to the rest of the party and gives a shrug. Luckily, someone pointed out that she wasn’t unbound yet, so she should continues to fight.

The githzerai is furious, and powers up for a devastating attack against the wizard. He takes a swing, which is guaranteed to be a critical if he hits…and the fist bounces pointlessly off the wizard’s magical shield. He lets loose psychic bolts after that, while drawing the party closer and closer to the lich so they are hit by his aura. Unfortunately for him, the lich’s aura also affects him, and at some point during the combat, the lich decided that their alliance wasn’t that important and included the githzerai in the area attack. The githzerai fell from the necrotic influence of the lich, and the lich continued to throw lowballs at the PCs, most of its power wasted now that the group had moved outside his range.

Eventually they get the lich to below 20% of its hit points, and the doppelganger sees an opportunity to get out of there. She throws open the double doors only to see a small crew of heavily-armed vampires. They take aim at the lich and destroy it with magical crossbows, and then march in, preventing any characters from leaving.

The brother and sister leaders of the vampires and thank the PCs for clearing the path to allow them to take over the Margrave’s land. They offer their condolences, let the PCs take whatever they like, and give a blood oath to allow them to stay safely within the mansion’s walls. The PCs, completely sapped, reluctantly agree, but also find the missing hilt. They pass out, exhausted, but wake up more energized, more powerful, and ready for the paragon tier.

Lessons learned: The final fight was obnoxious for the PCs because they had a hard time actually hitting the two villains. It took some lucky rolls, but all those misses really dampered the party. The flavor also didn’t stand up too well, and a lot of explanation and storyline didn’t make its way out of the enemy’s mouth. Still, it managed to be a tough fight, which was the point, just not in the most elegant way.

Anyway, so long heroic tier. The PCs have achieved a lot, discovering an artifact, saving a drunken dragon, rescuing a number of refugees, destroying a roaming devil’s caravan, constantly flustering the Company, having numerous run-ins with vampires, fulfilling an angelic order, and nearly killing a lich. The lost two among their ranks, but gained new allies, and likely will gain more along the way. The paragon tier will be interesting for them as they continue their adventures.