Ava ran an excellent session starting from where B. left off from some of her suggestions. Sam R. and Shane T. made new characters. Jon and Mat meanwhile played some furious duels of Magic while Ava prepped the adventure. B. and I printed updated versions of Min, Tiger Lily and Nightshade. Ava also played Cyn'Dar as kind of a back-seat character (the typical way to do that when running). For this session Jon played Gnoll and Nightshade; Mat played Scourge and Tiger Lily and I just played Min (and Scrabble on my phone between turns admittedly...) and took care of terrain, the dog, pretzels etc.
The B Team, (AKA Aftermath of the Golden Heroes campaign group), left from the undercity (see previous entry) by way of a lava tube that looked ripe for exploration. The network of obsidian-walled caverns went on for miles. Cyn'dar, Gnoll, Min, Scourge, Tiger Lily and Nightshade gradually worked their way toward the surface. On their way up through the lava tubes, they met with two more adventurers who converged from a different tube. They were seeking a dragon's treasure, had some idea where to go and wouldn't mind some reinforcement given the rumors they had heard. Brark, a Duargar assassin armed with poisons and a wicked looking flail, agreed to join the group. The group were just happy he was on their side after having recently fought Duargar. With him was Krunk Eyemind, a Minotaur Psion equipped with what looked to be a little-used morningstar and crossbow over his back and carrying in his hand a well-worn staff. Krunk, something of a quiet guy, was glad to join the group.
The characters were under the mountains of Emberwake, not far from the Coast of Eternal Steam. There were lava beds all around, with lava tubes underneath. Brark said the rumor he had heard was that the Burning Rage Cult were fanatically serving a Red Wyrm, Scorchblood - the kind of impossibly old, gigantic and powerful dragon that destroys entire cities. We knew this would be way too much for us, but the other half of the rumor was that this was where Scorchblood's treasure might be found and our hope was to um, maybe steal some of it without him missing it. Not far from here was the Eternal Eruption of the Cinder Crater.
Making our way upward, we came to a definite left-right fork and thought we heard distant noises in both directions. Taking the cavern to to the right, it opened up into a higher-ceilinged chamber several hundred yards later where we were descended upon by Fire Bats, who had been hanging upside-down from a ledge ahead of us. These things were annoying because of their echo-location and swarming tactics but the group had the right mix of classes to overcome them. Because our group includes a Fire Wizard, many of us have been loading up on magic items with fire resistance, which was very helpful for this encounter.
After a short rest we continued ahead, where after several hundred more yards we encountered the Cult of Scorchblood, the Burning Rage guys we had heard about. They were kobolds and their priest spoke Draconic. Only a couple of us could make out what they were blabbering about but they seemed to be getting pretty worked up. Scourge (Undead Deva Cleric) ran forward wielding his scythe and singing badly in draconic about how stupid they were. Brark (Duargar Assassin) snuck up the right wall of the cavern and quietly garroted one of the kobold slingers perched there. Tiger Lily (female Human Monk, age 9 1/2) bounded deep into a cluster of kobold fighters and spun fists and feet into all of their faces. Nightshade (female Human Rogue, age 11) snuck close enough to launch dagger and crossbow attacks into the throats of more of the kobold slingers before they could attack us. Gnoll (Half-Orc Battlemind) charged forward, gave us cover behind him and telekinetically hurled a 30-lb. boulder at one of the bad guys. Min Vizardio (Gnome Warden) launched a javelin at the kobold priest, then took ram form and charged the left group of fighters, keeping them busy with his shortsword and shield. Cyn'Dar (Dragonborn Wizard) stayed back and launched fire attacks with both her breath and spells. Krunk Eyemind (Minotaur Psion) took cover behind a rock and psychically attacked groups of kobold fighters. Even though the B team are not racially talented in their respective classes and were initially far outnumbered, they fought ferociously with cohesive teamwork and soon the odds were even, then in their favor, and then they were victorious.
The defeat of the cultists opened the way to the caldera of Scorchblood, which allowed only single-file access to within. A narrow stone bridge led through a narrow entrance to what was effectively a stone island about 50' across, surrounded by lava. Awaiting us each in turn from the center of this caldera was Scorchblood. Tiger Lily got there first. "You're smaller than I thought you would be," she declared. The rest of the party followed one at a time, attacking in their various ways. Scorchblood (Jr.) was a Young Red Dragon, the grandson of Scorchblood who was in fact away. But he was still quite a handful. Halfway through the encounter, Brark was hanging from Scorchblood's neck by his garrote like some kind of dwarf necklace. Cyn'dar was having difficulty getting past the dragon's fire resistance. The defenders, Gnoll and Min, were taking turns taunting the dragon into directing his attacks to them to protect the strikers, Tiger Lily, Nightshade and Brark. Meanwhile Krunk and Cyndar stayed back and picked away with spells, as controllers do. Scourge, our one and only leader, supported and healed any of us who needed healing as we fought on. It was a long and tough encounter but in the end Scorchblood's multiple breath weapons, action points, healing surges, nasty claw and tail attacks -- just were not enough to overcome the relentless B Team. As the dragon lay dying and the party started eagerly looking for treasure, a distant sound was heard. SKORCHBLOOD (SENIOR! Jr.'s Grandfather) was flying over. The group grabbed what treasure they could (quickly) and took off.
After D&D we had the opportunity to play a bit of two-headed giant Magic. Mat played a white life deck that was working pretty well; Sam teamed up with Mat, using my b/w Angels deck. Ava's deck was red/black land destruction, and very good at that. As it happened I played a red Sligh-style "Magmavore" deck that teamed up well with Ava's because it includes some land destruction (though it wasn't planned that way). Later I played a Zombie deck that struggled early and then really went off late, pretty fun. Ava had something great that mana-shorted, but included green black and white I think. Mat played a great blue deck that "borrows" creatures from opponents.
Session note: We rolled a lot of nat' 20's !
Current Experience: 9575 (still 6th level)
Treasure: 1,500 GP
Magic: 1 6th Level Magic Item
Next Session: 3pm Saturday March 10.
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