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LMAO!!! Hilarity...

This combat was probably one of the best to happen so far (though they were all great in their own way). The PC's tracked down the fair maiden's captor to his old, crumbling tower, where they heard the giant trying (very poorly) to play the harp, while the young Arielle sang. After watching them for an hour in secret, Arielle went over to a nearby pond to get some water while Girbolg went around the back of his tower to take a crap. At the exact moment the giant began to squeeze one out, the players shouted, "Get him!!!!" LMAO!

Sending their summoned monsters into combat first (all of whom were caught in the giant's huge ass-spray...think "Burning Hands" but with crap), Girbolg found himself surprised, without his weapons, and completely surrounded. Meanwhile, the dwarf monk and sorcerer picked up his mighty club from the front of the tower and threw it out of sight inside. The dire badgers somehow survived the giant's initial attacks, sending them both into a rage, while the pair of wolves did their best to nickle and dime the party's mighty foe. By the time the summoned monsters were slain, the party was upon him, and had done quite a bit of damage to the giant up to this point. The party's fighter landed a couple of powerful blows (she rolled very high three times in a row). But then the giant turned its considerable might upon them, and in one round dropped the fighter to -4 hp (she had 32 max), dropped the druid's animal companion to 2 hp, and halved the dwarf cleric's total hit points. Things weren't looking good. Then the brilliant dwarf monk did the unthinkable. He taunted the giant into overrunning past his companions towards him, and the giant being in a great rage (he failed the opposing roll), he attempted his overrun, drawing two attacks of opportunity that finally took him down.

The fight was over. Everyone leaped up from the table and cheered, giving each other high-five's. The PC's all leveled up to 4th level. And that means they are ready for Rappan Athuk. They are all very excited and nervous about entering the dungeon, but before they left for the night, they all expressed that by the end of next session, they wanted a taste of the "unbeatable" dungeong.

And a taste they will get...

Soooo...it's been awhile since I've posted. Do not fear, however! We've had two sessions since my last post. I have just been extremely busy with that thing called LIFE to post about them here. I'll sum up in very short, as I can't recall the details of every game that well anymore.

2 Sessions Ago:

The PC's found the Oracle. And the Purple Worm cavern. They were very afraid. Things went well and they were sacrificing items left and right to get as much information about the dungeon as possible. Here are the major things that they discovered:
1. The PC's must destroy three sources of power (i.e. the Temples) if they hope to have any chance at wiping the Great Evil completely from this dungeon.
2. The PC's were given enough hints to figure out that some nice booty could be found in the cavern of the Purple Worms.

Based on all of this information, the PC's decided to head first to the big loot in the column of rock. It took them nearly 45 minutes of gameplay to actually find it, and that's only because they had two dwarves in the party to assist. However, 3 of the 6 PC's were hit with the Symbol of Insanity and failed their Will saves, sending them hooting and hollering around the cave like madmen (it was the funniest moment in all of my D&D'ing days that I've ever seen). With some really quick thinking on the dwarf cleric's part, he was able to rope them all in as Purple Worms and Umber Hulks started arriving on the scene. He used copious amounts of Hold Person on them to keep them still, then he tied them up and bound them and ran like hell one at a time to the safety of the southern tunnel. The PC's retired from the dungeon and made their way back to town, where they found a priest of St. Cuthbert who was willing to Heal them...if they undertook a "small" quest for him. He handed them the Elder Dagger (the topaz dagger used as one of the keys to Level 3B: Down the Well) and told them that they needed to find the other two somewhere in the dungeon. A great evil would soon be released upon the world if the PC's did not accomplish this soon (i.e. the Ravager would be turned loose...uh-oh!). As a final note, the PC's were able to get the goodies within the mysterious Arch-mage's tomb: the Staff of Power, the Robes of the Arch-Magi, the Ring of Counterspells, and the big pile of coin. They sold the Staff and Robes for half price to hand out 50,000gp to everyone in the party.

Needless to say, they are...well-stocked...now for PC's of only 6th level.

Last session:

The PC's scouted out Level 4, the Upper Temple of Orcus. They quickly figured out that they were outmatched. But they decided against all odds to assault the Temple anyways! Brave of them, indeed! They made it to the Temple doors, avoided any of the chests, used the Stone Shape spell to turn the stone surrounding the entrance into soft mud, and had their big fighter kick the entire thing down! Lol. It was amazing. I ruled as DM that because they destroyed the "portal" surrounding the door that the Glyph of Warding spell upon it disappeared. I'm not sure if that's correct or not, but I didn't want to waste time flipping through reference books to deduce the answer, so in the name of speed, I rewarded them for their ingenuity.

Once I drew the Temple out on the huge battle mat I've got and place all of the appropriate miniatures on the table, the PC's mouths dropped. But they shut them quickly and went straight to work. A well-placed Fireball killed 3 of the acolytes on the first round and wounded 2 of the priests. The human fighter ran in and clobbered 2 of the acolytes with Cleave. Then Zehn reached out with his Ring of Teleport Other and cast the fighter directly into the lava. Uh-oh! Everyone got pretty scared then! Fortunately for her, the dwarf had blew nearly all of his 3rd level slots casting Protection from Energy (fire) upon everyone before hand, as the party thought there would be copious amounts of Fireballs going off on them (lucky bastards). She pulled herself free from the lava without a scratch, but killed all of her protections during the process. The druid immediately saw the great threat Zehn presented and acted quickly. Summoning a Dire Lion, he sent it at him to keep him occupied. Also, the dwarf cleric had his Figurine of the Bronze Griffin activated prior to entering the Temple, so he sic'd his live griffon upon Zehn also. He was flanked and in trouble. So instead of using the Vrock to summon one of his allies, I sent the Vrock immediately into melee to destroy the summoned creatures as quickly as possible. He ripped the Griffon apart in one round. One of the priests near the altar ran up and dispelled the summoned lion soon thereafter, but not before it put a real hurting on Zehn. Meanwhile, in a moment of pure genius, the dwarf monk lobbed a Tanglefoot Bag at the Vrock, who was unfortunately hovering over the lav pit. The Vrock failed his Reflex save and plummeted directly into the lava! It then got hit by another Fireball as it was rising out of the pit along with 2 acolytes and 1 priest. All were killed.

By this point the battle started to turn for the PC's. The druid did not stop his assault. He kept summoning lion after lion and dire wolf after dire wolf, doing his best to occupy the high priest and keep that dangerous ring from being used again. Zehn was chased back down the altar and towards the back of the Temple. The fighter, dwarf cleric and dwarf monk were doing their best for the remainder of the fight to destroy the priests and acolytes. The rogue sped across the Temple and tried flanking Zehn with the Dire Lion in an attempt to Sneak attack him. Unfortunately for him, Zehn backed out of the lion's range with his move action and cast Slay Living upon him. The rogue was instantly killed.

Things swung back wildly in the Cult's favor. 2 priests ran to aid Zehn and began using their actions to dispel the summoned monsters. Nadroj appeared immediately after. Zehn then used his ring upon the dwarf monk and successfully Teleported him five feet above the lava. However, he made one fatal mistake. The monk had the slow fall ability, and as he sailed down towards a certain fiery doom, I had mistakenly placed him upon the battle grid next to the square lining the pit's wall. Without realizing what this meant, the monk asked if he could stick his legs out and touch the lava pit's walls. I said yes, readying myself to laugh at his feeble attempts at trying to make a Climb check with his feet. But I had forgotten that he purchased Shoes of Spider Climbing before in town. He stuck his foot out and was able to stick to the pit's wall! Lol. I gave him 200 XP for that after the game! Everyone rejoiced when it happened...one of those "Wow" moments you never forget!

Then the unthinkable happened. The dwarf cleric saw a priest upon the steps leading over the lava pit. In a brave attempt at heroism, he charged the priest, leapt over the lava onto the staircase and tried to bull rush him into the fire.

He failed. Summarily, he fell into the lava himself. And unlike all of his companions, he hadn't cast Protection from Energy (fire) on himself! Yikes! He was dropped to -7 hp. However, he had Die Hard and was still able to be conscious. As he fell directly next to the edge of the fire, the monk ran along the circular interior of the lava pit and grabbed the dwarf out of the lava, saving him from residual damage. The cleric used his next turn to immediately cast Protection from Energy (fire) on himself to prevent further damage. But as they both came out of the pit, an acolyte was waiting for them. The PC's laughed at him as if to say, "Like this wimp is going to do anything to me!" But they were very, very wrong. He cast Deathknell upon the dwarf cleric, who was still down to -7 hp.

He died immediately.

At this point in the combat, things were really uncertain. The rogue and cleric were completely and utterly dead. The fighter was licking her wounds away from the combat (she got a bad taste of Nadroj's Scorching Rays and Magic Missiles over the past few rounds). The druid was still invisible and so was the sorcerer. The monk was in the middle of wiping out 2 of the last 3 priests and the remaining acolyte. Zehn was still alive, but barely. He only had 11 hp left. He had backed away from the lesser summoned monsters and was about to cast Cure Critical Wounds on himself the following round (or maybe another Teleport Other attempt...I wasn't sure), when the druid wasted his last Summon Monster spell to conjure up a Dire Badger and send it in to rip apart the high priest. It worked. Zehn met his end at the claws and teeth of a damn dire badger (lmao)!

But combat was still not over. The party was pretty beat up, down 2 members permanently, and Nadroj was still unscathed. After peering at his remaining spells (there were no attack ones really left), I decided at that moment to have him dematerialize out of combat, sending him to his crypt on one of the other levels. Let the PC's have their victory, I said to myself. The end is near! I had Nadroj report as quickly as possible to Gudmund of the Lower Temple to tell him all about the enemies that had shattered the forces of the Upper Temple. They would be ready when the PC's (or if the PC's) make it there.

The PC's made their way quickly back to town with a Teleport scroll, got their party members raised, leveled up from the encounter to 7th level (but possessing 13th level gear), and returned to Consecrate the Temple. As they finished this task, however, a sudden flash entered all of their minds. A great, black, sinister Eye peered out at them through the Void, and a barely audible whisper hissed, "He is coming! I see you!" And that ended the session.

The players decided before leaving my home that the next session would be spent speaking to the Oracle about the possible locations of the other two Elder Daggers and gathering as much information about the Lower Temple as possible, as well as the safest routes leading there (as if anything like THAT existed!). They were also interested in more information about the other two entrances (the Well and the Black Fane). So they'd try and gather a little more information about them, too. Then they would make their decision about what to do next upon acquiring as much info as possible.

So here's my plan. The way I see it, if I were Orcus, and someone f'ed up one of my sources of power, I would send everything I could to destroy them. So he is ordering Theron, the high priest in the Slave Pits, to watch the PC's with divination spells. And as soon as the time is ripe, Theron must summon the Balor of Rappan Athuk and send it forth to destroy them! What I'm going to do is this...whenever the PC's have neared one of the teleportal gatehouses, the Balor is going to approach (ala the Balrog in the "Lord of the Rings" movie). I'm going to funnel them into the teleportals (as I highly doubt they'd be stupid enough to fight a Balor as soon as they realize what the approaching threat of "fire" and "evil" really is). That way, they're going to be forced to jump a few levels down without any preparation, effectively making them lost in the deeper middle levels. I've changed the teleport locations in both gatehouses in level 3A and level 7, so that they lead to very dangerous parts of the dungeon...and only those places (lol). Then the PC's will spend the next few sessions trying to find a way out. I think it will be very suspenseful, dangerous, and a lot of fun. I'm planning on using the Balor to chase them all throughout this time. They'll lose it for awhile, then it will pick up their trail. Should be tons of fun! Hahahahaha! I am NOT, however, going to have it destroy them, unless they are foolish enough to stand their ground. I'm always going to let them escape...but barely. Afterall, the rest of the dungeon's denizens can do that for him...