Dramatis Personae
Beltin (Aasimar Dirge Bard/Cleric 11).
"Jake" aka Alex, the actual character name but I refuse to go back and edit the old entries (Human Wizard/Rogue 11).
The Smith (LN Half-Giant Aegis/Psychic Warrior 11).
Why the DM won't feel bad when you all die horribly, Session 16.1 - 10/10/14
Day 31
The day after liberating the firebase the party decides to rest up before heading off to kill themselves a tar dragon. The Smith tries to instill respect for proper weapon maintenance ("Not only must you tend to the body of the steel, but also the soul") among the Greed Elementals, but he fails. Jake and Beltin examine the canisters they found in the oddly preserved shed (9 total) and notice the symbol of Tsar as well as another sign. The meaning is not immediately clear, but upon reflection Jake remembers it is an old sign, one that has since fallen out of use.
It used to be put above the doorways of the homes of plague victims. Hmmm. The party considers firing a canister off with a catapult but decide against it.
Day 32
Jake commands his men to hold the base while he and the rest of the party go out for a boss fight. The party leaves and begins walking. As they walk, perception checks are rolled. High above, three ravens of unusual size circle and follow. Jake points it out in an obvious fashion and as he does so the three birds break formation and begin to fly away in different directions. That can't be good decides the party as they continue on.
A few hours later they approach the blighted tar pits that mark the artillery boundary of Tsar. Perception? No sign of a dragon... They get ready and wait. Time passes and then Beltin decides to escalate things. He magically enhances his voice and calls out a challenge in Draconic. In answer to his cries the normal ambient sounds of the Desolation cease. They have got something's attention.
From poisonous looking cloud being pumped up from the blighted pools off to the west they see movement in the sky. Something gigantic is coming to them and coming fast. As it flies it leaves a vapor trail of tar. It is most certainly a dragon. Initiative!
The party readies as the tar dragon dive bombs them! The Smith, psionically grown to epic proportion again, stands out as the most obvious target and the dragon takes it. Jake blasts the dragon as it comes in, hoping to divert it, but the dragon gives no fucks and pulls its wings up to soak most of the damage before slamming into the Smith.
The Smith staggers back but is ready. He and an astral construct he had summoned as the dragon approached move in to attack. The Smith strikes the dragon but to his dismay realizes that his weapon is now stuck. Fortunately he uses his psionics to get an extra move action to pull his weapon free and hits again.
As his weapon is stuck a second time, he makes a rather high will save; it is not the tar of the beast that traps his weapon, but rather his own mind. This is not the dragon Malerix. It is an illusion.
He calls this out and as he does the illusion in front of them begins to become less substantial, but from behind them the party feels tremors. The real Malerix breaks up from the ground and attacks Smith! In retrospect this is where he made a mistake. He should have breath weapon'd first for crowd control, but instead trusted to his tar coating and the fact that he cast Mage Armor and Lesser Globe of Invulnerability before engaging the true party.
Malerix had heard of the party and its exploits and was warned (but by whom? Dun dun dun) to beware the party and so he was. He sent in an illusion first to soften them, but a lucky roll by the Smith defeated that tactic much sooner than he had hoped. Sighing, the dragon decided he would just handle this himself but put up some token magical defenses before doing so, something that is almost unheard of, but hey, he's not stupid.
He shouldn't have let his vanity get the better of him. He should have cast more buffs.
The Smith slams again into the dragon, but this time the real one. His first blow is deflected by the Mage Armor and gets stuck in the tar, but one psionic move action later, he has it out and slam again, this time for a massive crit. About 150 damage from one hit later, Malerix is beginning to recognize that perhaps he had still underestimated these people.
This thought is affirmed as Jake teleport slashes around the dragon, unaffected by the tar effect due to his constant dimensional striding, and then he calls forth Bol. Bol launches his tiny form at the massive dragon's throat and rips into its neck. Malerix tries to rip the tiny demonspawn from his throat, but Bol bites through the tar and the scales and tastes blood.
The dragon sways and then collapses, leaving Bol, most of the undead, and Smith's weapon entangled in his corpse. But as he falls the party hears cries from above and sees movement!
The three unnaturally large and obviously undead ravens from before are diving toward them, and magical energy is manifesting around all three! Beltin realizes what is happening. These creatures are the conduit for a greater power, one that is channeling his power through them. Beltin recognizes some of that power. Looks like Malerix may be coming back a Juju zombie, and this time he won't be so cocky.
Unfortunately for that plan the players started bitching about how readied actions work for the birds (ignoring the fact that casting high level spells through undead minions miles away is hardly in the rules), so instead of a properly continued boss fight they got a round before it happened. The Smith readied to take out a bird as it approached and Jake blasted one out of the sky. Beltin then moved up and beat the birds to the punch; Malerix is now a bloody skeleton!
As this happens the aura around the last giant undead raven changes from necromantic magic to evocation. More specifically, the spell Detonate. The last bird slams into the tar dragon and explodes, catching the entire party in the blast, but unfortunately it was poorly rolled. Next one is going to be maximized and empowered, assholes.
Before leaving the battle site Beltin of course captures the deceased dragon's soul, because who could pass on that? A black vapor cloud coalesces around the undead dragon and then condenses into a small gem, which Beltin stashes along side BW's soul in his bag. The Smith eyes this suspiciously but doesn't know enough about what is happening to really contest it. For all he knows that's just part of making undead.
With the dragon defeated and adopted into the menagerie and safely stored in his staff (apparently he now has a CR 7 regardless of his stupid high strength and 40ish AC), the party teleports back to the men waiting in the firebase and much rejoicing is had for their victory. Hooray!
To be continued...
