After a short debate, we sold the two “evil” items from last time. The thinking being, if they fall into the hands of an evil sort, they weren’t that useful anyway. Those plus some glaives and the party stuff Clarisa had left over in her bag of holding netted everyone 2 platinum and 8 gold. After going round and round and starting and interrupting, we accomplished some stuff. We cast a ritual to create 3 permanent unseen servants for the house. Once we figured out who had the 3 skills needed. But in order to make a DC 19 check 3 times, it took 2 hero points. But that turned into a crit so we got 6 minions. TerStegan bought his Killer’s Belt from Wren. Clarisa bought some rituals for her spell book. And transcribed them. (And then undid all that when Dan reread the PE2 ritual rules.) Wren gave them a Consecrate ritual to ward off future undead armies. However, in addition to another 3 skill rolls, it needed to be 3 people of the same religion. That went round and round but we eventually decided that Oakwood and Brisco worshiped the Nature god. So, we reached out to the town Druid to help. But again, we needed a hero point to make the DC 17s and again that became a crit. That covered some of the nearby swamp as well. During the 3 days on that ritual, TerStegan earned some cash and Xeelie did repairs on the cabin. Clarisa and Oakwood repaid Xeelie 10 each for the Consecrate components. Briscoe refused on general principles. We weren’t sure what those were but he was adamant about it. TerStegan said to add it to his tab. And then Xeelie bought some more scrolls including a healing one Oakwood paid for.
We decided to finish off the Hydras and started at the main spiral staircase. Briscoe had memorized a Water Breathing spell and cast it on everyone. We moved into the room, hoping to get a round or two of long-range fire while TerStegan made a bunch of noise. Briscoe felt some sort of connection to the natural world in the area. TerStegan drank his Swim speed potion and cast Bless. And then used his Musical Accompaniment cantrip. We rolled initiative. TerStegan was first but nothing had happened yet. Xeelie cast Conduction Weapon on his axe. Oakwood turned on his Nimbus and fired a fire arrow into the middle of the water. There was nothing to target but he rolled a 16 and hit about where he wanted to. But nothing stirred. Briscoe sensed Earth Elemental magic behind us. Great. A Sod Hound emerged from the wall. It looked at us. Those with expert levels in Arcana and Occult noticed that it had energy shackles on its legs. Another human-like creature then emerged. Also, with shackles. And then another Hound. And another. That one took damage from the Thermal Nimbus and thus were identified as “foes”. TerStegan re-entered the order and tried an Occult check. And rolled a 1. He then tried an Intimidation, rolled poorly but succeeded. And did the same to a Hound. The Living Landside said something but we didn’t speak its elemental language. Clarisa didn’t want to start a fight and cast Deep Breath and Shield. And stepped back a bit.
Xeelie was too far forward to see the elementals so she moved to get line of sight and then rolled a Lore roll. She learned that the shackles were keeping them on this plane. Given the time and material (gems from the earth) she might be able to free them. But no one had any gems. Oakwood suggested Xeelie use her Thaumaturge power. Namely, having odd bits and pieces of stuff to Exploit Weakness on creatures. Like gems on the shackles? The GM bought it. After a Diplomacy roll, she managed to approach. We dropped out of combat and let her do her thing. And then Hound pulled 6 gems out of a stone crevasse. But the ritual would take 4 hours. Brian gave us a bone (a poison bone, it turned out) and told us the hydras were gone. No one was feeding them so they left? But again, rituals needed skill checks from multiple people. The DC was 23 and the backup rolls needed to be a critical success to help or the main roll took a -4. So Xeelie would have to do it alone. TerStegan used his swim speed and water breathing to start searching the water. Oakwood went with him. Briscoe stayed with the elementals to help keep them calm. Clarisa did nothing. It was a big area to search. Around the bend, on the land, behind some debris, a hydra looked up.
The Hydra went first and looked hungry. It moved a bit and did a focus assault on TerStegan. All 5 heads at a +18. Thankfully(?) the extra heads only did extra damage and not extra attacks. The crit did 62 points on 12d6+14. The next hydra moved up onto the land but was out of movement. Briscoe moved to get line of sight and then tossed a trident at long range. And somehow hit for 8 points. TerStegan feared he was facing 5x2 opportunity attacks with reach. So, he decided to fight rather than run. He did his stance and crit it. That did 49. And then he hit for 14. Xeelie ran up behind Briscoe and did her Lore check. And then drew her starknife. Clarisa moved up but she could barely target it. But it turned out she only had 1 action left so she cast Shield. Oakwood was in a pickle. If he swam to get onto the land, it would trigger reactions. And if he fought without a swim speed, he’d take minuses. So, he Channeled his elements, did his Thermal Nimbus and used Burning Jet that doesn’t trigger reactions and got onto land.
The hydra regenerated 15 points and then hit TerStegan for 32. That knocked him out. And then picked up his body in one of its mouths. The other one hit Oakwood for 30 and then bit him for 13. Briscoe cast Fleet Step and then charged up near Oakwood. Xeelie moved up with two move actions to get near TerStegan. Unfortunately, with reach it got reactions to that movement. It used 3 heads for 3 attacks. All missed. She then cast a spell and the other two heads got to use their reactions. Two hits for 18 and 18. But none were crits so she cast Life Boost on TerStegan. Clarisa could now do her Force Barrage on the uninjured one. She did 34 points. Oakwood did Hunt Prey for the extra d8. And then missed with reach fire. And then used a hero point to do 20.
TerStegan got the Life Boost. He drew his hatchet and attacked, still in its jaws. He did 20 and it lost a head. That dropped him back into the water. A 10-foot drop into water does 5 points of damage in this system. He attacked again and hit for 14. That Hydra grew two heads and did a focused attack on TerStegan with 6 heads. That did 34 and took him out. And it picked him again. He dropped another axe. The other one shoved Xeelie with ease and moved her back 5 feet. And then attacked Xeelie but missed due to the -5 MAP. Briscoe moved up and was crit as a reaction for 34. And then did BFM on Xeelie but that reactive crit interrupted that action. That only did 30 so he was still up. After much consideration, he stabbed with his trident so he wouldn’t be killed by yet another reaction. And missed. And missed again. Xeelie took a 5-foot step back, and threw her knife. She missed and then hit for 17 points. Clarisa moved up and engaged in a lengthy discussion about line on sight, line of effect and spell ranges. And eventually decided to do a Fireball, getting the Hydras and TerStegan. They save for 20 and TerStegan took it all, stepping closer to death. Oakwood then missed with a 1 and then missed with a 4.
TerStegan came to again from the Fast Healing. Paul noticed drawing a weapon was a manipulate action and would cause a reaction. So, he bit the head that held him. And missed. He used a hero and barely hit. That did 13 and it dropped. He fell 10 feet again and took 5 points. He swam 15 feet down and grabbed his axes. Briscoe did BFM on himself for 36, Oakwood for 32 and Xeelie for 36. Xeelie moved to the pile of debris and started searching. One of the regenerating Hydras got up and attacked Oakwood. (Somehow BTO missed that they had been regenerating?) That did 30 points. Clarisa moved up and did a 2nd level Force Barrage. One hit for each Hydra. Oakwood targeted the both of them with a Flying Flame. That dropped the one that was up and the other one went down a Dying level. He then tried a Recall Knowledge to figure out how to kill them. And rolled a 1.
The 6-headed Hydra stood up and hit Xeelie for 28. TerStegan was too deep to attack it so he had to swim up. He did get flanking from Xeelie. Using his hatchet, he missed and missed again. Briscoe shot them both with a Blazing Bolt. He hit the dead one and then missed with a trident. Xeelie did her Recall Knowledge to figure out how to kill these things once and for all. On a 26 she learned that they would regenerate as long as they had heads. But don’t they regrow heads? Brian forced him to use another action to make another roll. We have to chop the heads off with slashing and cauterize the neck with fire. How much fire? On her 3rd action, she barely hit the one that was up. That was 15. Clarisa cast a Floating Flame and put it over the necks of the down one. The 5-headed one popped up but Brian gave up on the combat. Because they were dead, Foundry was a nightmare about targeting and the effort wasn’t worth his amusement of watching us flounder about. Kill, slice and burn would have been a challenge but we’d do it eventually.
Briscoe bandaged TerStegan and Oakwood hit him with Herbs. And then Herbs for the rest. Xeelie and Briscoe searched the land and the rest swam and searched the drain lair. There was a skeleton in armor and miscellaneous gear. Oakwood made a raft from generated elemental wood to make transporting it all back to land easier. Briscoe couldn’t stand being left out and swam up too. However the weapons were too rusty to be of value. So, after all that effort, one suit of scale mail. At least it was very valuable +1 resilient armor. It would take 8th level to transfer it to a better armor type for us before we could wear it. TerStegan could wear it now but he didn’t want to lose 2 points of AC. So, we’ll store it. And work out who gets it when it comes up. Oakwood cut open the Hydras and found nothing while Xeelie attempted the ritual to return the elementals. But we couldn’t make that roll until we had one more distraction. The GM said the moss in the area was very nice. Briscoe rolled a 1 and then heroically rolled a 20. It was tasty moss. He harvested some to take back to our swamp. Xeelie rolled a 20 and the earth elementals went home. She got crystal sense for a week for her efforts. The ritual took 4 hours so we healed up and will head down to the fiends. But first, there was talk of retrieving the magic glaive we used to escape the arena. It was broken but maybe the runes were salvageable. Brian couldn’t wait, mainly because he won’t be here next week. So, we zoomed down, were placed into the arena and were attacked by a huge garbage monster. And the glaive was gone. We’ll start there.
