Rise of the Runelords Recap # 95 [RPG]

[4 Pharast 4708 continued]

 

A howling cacophony fills the air as the enraged winged furies spring to attack.  But Yuzo and Jinkatsyu move quickly and cleverly rush into the room so their opponents have little space to maneuver.  At first the creatures, whom Kang identifies as succubus demons, rely on their sharp talons and rage.  But as the battle wears on, they turn to a vile bag of tracks, like charm and suggestion spells.  Jinkatsyu finds himself suddenly falling madly in love with one of the succubi and leaning in for a kiss.  Ava wades into the fray and teleports Jinkatsyu to seeming safely, but the succubus can teleport as well and follows!  As the kitsune’s lips touch those of the demon, some of his very lifeforce is drained away!  Meanwhile, Yuzo continues slashing with his sword, Erik faces the succubi in hand-to-hand combat in order to conserve his last handful of bullets, and Kang starts hurling bombs of magical force.

Succubi have been known to give their lovers 

profane gifts that come at quite a cost.

The battle spills out into the hallway adjacent to the chamber.  Suddenly the others realize that Yuzo has been left alone with a single succubus!  Falling prey to the demon’s mental manipulations, Yuzo happily follows the succubus into bed and is soon reduced to a desiccated husk!  The other adventurers win the battle and destroy all the succubi (who, oddly, melt into piles of snow), but not even Ava’s powerful array of magicks can return the gillman to life.  There are far worse ways to die, but the loss of Yuzo is a major blow to a party trapped within the demiplane of Runeforge.

After the harrowing battle, the adventurers once again barricade the doors to Vraxeris’ study.  They rest for several hours, though the utter lack of a day/night cycle within Runeforge makes it hard to tell duration.  Kang spends much of the time continuing his translations of Vraxeris’ work and learns a secret which he keeps to himself: with enough effort (and the assistant of an arcanist), he could develop an improved version of the clone spell Vraxeris used and, potentially, achieve true immortality!

 

[5 Pharast 4708]

 

When everyone is fully rested, Kang drinks an elixir that allows him to see magical auras and identify magical items.  He realizes that the headband that Vraxeris wore increases one’s intelligence dramatically.  Kang puts it on, and suddenly a host of new alchemical insights spring fully-formed into his mind!  And when the others continue speculating about how they might be able to escape Runeforge, Kang recalls a pertinent detail in Vraxeris’ journal: the mention of a “master circle” in the Halls of Wrath that one could use to leave the demiplane.  After he shares this information, the others press for an expedition to that wing.  Kang, however, is quite reluctant to leave and abandon the fantastic library and other resources in the Shimmering Veils of Pride that are suitable only for a genius like himself.  Jinkatsyu and Erik manage to lure the tiefling away, however, by dangling the hope of even more amazing discoveries in the other wings of the complex.  Although Ava follows the others, she grows increasingly nauseated as the foursome pass through the central hub and then venture deeper into the Halls of Wrath.

 

The corridor leading into the wing is made of polished marble, and opens into a massive, brightly lit chamber.  The upper portion of the far wall is entirely covered in a mural of an armored woman with crimson hair holding a burning ranseur and riding on the back of a massive dragon.  On a square outcropping that juts out of the far wall, the adventurers see a twelve-foot-tall iron statue gripping a enormous bow in its metal fists.  Behind the outcropping is a passageway, but for now the Heroes of Varisia have to deal with the threat before them, as there’s no doubt that the “statue” is really some kind of iron golem!  A distant alarm that echoes through the stonework begins to ring as Jinkatsyu starts racing across the chamber, but before he can even get close, he’s struck by several “arrows” of fire launched by the golem’s obviously-enchanted bow.  The fusillade is powerful enough that the injured kitsune is forced to flatten himself on the ground, but he doesn’t have to wait long for help.  Kang, although perhaps a hundred feet or more away from the golem, draws a strange device that allows him to launch his bombs incredible distances!  In less than twenty seconds, the alchemist has reduced a seemingly invincible guardian to melted slag!  But Kang takes no visible pleasure from his success, having fallen into a state of ennui after leaving Vraxeris’ library.

Although iron golems are immune to most spells and resistant to most weapons,

 no one expected an adventurer like Kang!

 

After the adventurers ascend to the top of the outcropping, they see that the tunnel behind it leads to a chamber with two engraved circles on the ground that surround large runes.  One of the runes is red, while the other is blue.  Kang has no difficulty identifying them as teleportation circles, explaining that the red circle sends the user somewhere, while the blue circle is where someone using a different circle would arrive.  Excitement builds in the group as speculation mounts that this circle may be the way out of Runeforge.  But the conversation drops into stunned silence as Kang off-handedly remarks that the group has been scried  ever since the battle against the golem began . . .

-------------------------

Director's Commentary

Yuzo's player went permanently AWOL just before this session, so having the PC get drained and killed by the succubus seemed like a fast and easy way to resolve in-game what happened to the character.

Erik was really starting to run low on ammunition, an effect of being trapped in Runeforge that I hadn't really thought about it.

The trivial defeat of the golem was another reason I'm not a fan of the alchemist class in Pathfinder.  Normally, golems are difficult to defeat because they have a good AC, a lot of DR, and they're completely immune to all but a few particular spells.  But alchemist bombs target Touch AC, by-pass DR (because they're not "weapons"), and work perfectly fine against golems or creatures with spell-resistance because they're not "spells" (even if they are "magical").  In theory, an alchemist only gets a limited number of bombs per day, but it's very rare that a character runs out of them in a normal day's adventuring.  Add in their splash effects and all the discoveries that give them even more versatility, and bombs are just the best thing ever.