Ep 1108: This went really really wrong

So when we last left our brave band of adventurers, the grand plan the Paladin and Rogue had cooked up was to have us sneak up to the cultists, take them out, then rest. First, we should have known better when the Paladin and Rogue agree to a plan. Second, who thinks a Paladin can (or is even willing to) sneak?

We're currently in a cave system occupied by at minimum several dragon cultists, a couple of ettins, a green dragon, and the green dragon's rider. We've been on the move for several hours by now, and the wizards have about half their spell slots left.

But sneak we did, right into the room containing 6 dragon cultists. Tsedek and Magnus, being invisible, walked right into the room and set themselves up to swing. The rest of us were not invisible so we stayed quietly in the hall. Leovan did rearrange himself to have good angles to shoot into the room. Then Itanis did a mass hypnotize on the group of cultists, and surprisingly three of them failed their savings throw. So three got up and walked out of the cave system as they were commanded to walk to the nearest town and donate all their gold to a charity. That left three very confused cultists who started standing up, so Magnus and Tsedek swung at the ones in front of them in their classic manner and did a lot of damage. One of the cultists goes down. Also, since they attacked, they are no longer invisible. Which then sets off the alarm goose. No, really, there's a goose in a cage in the corner of the room and it starts honking like mad. Leovan snipers another cultist, dropping it, then Elle uses firebolt (it's basically free) on the third.

So far so good, right? Well, not really. See, the alarm goose has gotten his fellow alarm geese to sound off. Caves are very echo-y and suitable to using geese as alarms.

So the next round Leovan finishes off the third cultist, so Magnus walks right up to the goose in the room with us and strangles it ... and when it died it vanishes into thin air. Magnus, being a not so smart sort who has been pranked several times already by Itanis bellows at Itanis thinking it's one of his illusions. It's not. There was much laughing. Tsedek walks over to the next room where we hear another alarm goose going off, and he proceeds to dispatch it handily with a bonfire. Elle's opinion of Tsedek is definitely going up lol.

At this point, another being appears ... turns out its a friend of Tsedek's who randomly appears. Minsc is a 8' tall Goliath Barbarian, with some interesting wild magic to him. Also, game mechanic wise this isn't really a thing, it was more of a way of getting a guest player into the game for the evening.

Itanis throws an illusionary wall at the entrance to this pair of rooms and Leovan starts exploring a bit in this hall/two rooms but the damage has been done, we pick up the sounds of large heavy beings walking our direction, and another alarm goose off in the background.

So Magnus plants himself up at choke point of the hallway behind the illusion wall, making him the front line. However, Tsedek and Minsc waltz right out into the main room to greet the incoming Ettins. Ettins are very large two headed ogre things. Elle moves up behind Magnus, its safer that way (ok not really), and Leovan readies his arrows. Oh and in a humorous moment, another one of these alarm geese pop in and bites Magnus, I swear he practically growled as he smashed the alarm goose.

This is where everything really goes sideways. Turns out there are three Ettins, two that will move forward to fight us and one that stays further back. Magnus, Tsedek, and Minsc all start beating on the Ettins, and they start beating on us. Leovan starts shooting his arrows and Itanis uses his water sphere trick to restrain one of the melee Ettins. Then Elle steps out into the main room and gets a solid line on the restrained Ettin and the further back one and cast lightning bolt.

Then the further back Ettin picks up a boulder and drops it in the lake. Yeah, that's bad news bears as the resident green dragon and his rider have been known to show up wet to meetings with the traitor elf. Cue the rushing water noises.

Another round of fighting and one of the Ettins dies, and the one in the water sphere gets dropped in the lake. And the Green Dragon shows up, with a rider. It's clinging to the stone wall about 20' in the air kinda sideways and breathes poisonous gas on us. Several of us took significant damage from that. So Elle, being the bold and brash sort, steps up to the new guy, looks him in the eye, and asks if he is willing. Weirdly, he said yes. So we Dimension Door up to the Dragon's rib cage. Yes, she normally does this stunt with Magnus but he was over to the side beating on Ettins and not reachable at that moment.

While on the dragon it decided to take offense to us standing on it so it reaches around and bites Elle, bringing her to 0hp. So she's falling to the lake below, which would kill her. However, she was prepared for this day, so you see her falling, lifeless, then poof she lands on the shore still lifeless but not drowning.

Meanwhile Tsedek is in trouble between fighting the Ettins and the poison gas, so Magnus fights his way over to him and gives him some healing. Itanis pulls out several of his pre-made illusions and had them shape themselves to match the party. And Leovan came over to heal Elle, bringing her up to 13hp. She chooses to lay there for a moment.

Minsc, the new guy, winds up falling into the lake with the dragon, but was successful in swimming to shore. He also did this epic spear throw, spear return, spear throw routine on one of the Ettins and between that and Magnus' hammer it went down, so Tsedek walks up to Elle and helps her to her feet. He also starts spouting nonsense about how we're in the dragon's house and we should just be friends. Yes, Tsedek got charmed by the dragon. Itanis decides to pick this time to point out that while highly intelligent, Elle's rather reckless. Not disagreeing, she then throws sunbeam at the dragon/rider combo, nailing them and blinding the rider.

The dragon decides to fly back up out of the lake, cling to another wall, and the rider casts at Elle, and she goes down again, but Tsedek catches her in his arms as she passes out. The visual amuses me as Tsedek is this 6'4 horned and tailed demon looking humanoid while Elle is this tiny little blonde elf, it's an angel caught by the devil sort of look.

The rest of the party takes out the last Ettin and someone heals Elle (to 5hp). So the dragon casts wall of thorns, separating the party. Itanis casts spider climb on Magnus. You have to admit, that has to be a funny visual, this big muscled human in full plate armor climbing along the walls like spiderman. And Elle decides that it was Tyrannosaurus Rex time and gets all up in the dragon's face. Bites the dragon but good too, so it retaliates and does damage to the T-Rex. Regrettably, she's also rather lousy at making her con saves when damaged so the spell dropped and she's back to being her damaged self.

And the dragon flew up and over the party and back into the lake, again.

And that's where we left the party. Everyone is damaged, and we're rather low on spells at this point. While the cultists and Ettins are dead, the dragon and rider are not that damaged.