Session 175: Bulldozed

[icastsword]

ROUND 1

Relentless Juggernaut is at the top of the order. He’s going to start making his way downtown. He fills the doorway. He has a big-ass scythe. Jericho is getting scythe envy. He gets all up in there. His reach is 10 feet. He attacks Crimeny. Does a 27 hit? Yeah. If the target is a creature, the speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of the Juggernaut’s next turn, and Crimeny takes 25 Piercing damage.

That’s one attack. Next Griffin has to make a Dex Save from 40 feet away. He beefs it with a 10. The Relentless Juggernaut places his hand tenderly on the stone wall next to him. The tile beneath Griffin’s feet erupts underneath him and takes the shape of a massive stone beartrap. It snaps shut on Griffin, then vanishes. He takes damage, and an effect. He takes 17 Piercing damage, and at the start of each of his turns, Griffin is going to take Necrotic damage from his wound.

Shane is very startled. That’s a bad bird that just attacked his friend. Shane can’t see the Juggernaut’s face. How intelligent does it look? He rolls Insight: 19. Shane has no idea. He is moving with purpose and intent. Well, Shane is going to chance it. He casts a spell. The Juggernaut needs to make an Int save. It fails with a 16. Shane casts Mental Prison on the Juggernaut’s body and brain. Wait, no he doesn’t, this target is immune to being charmed. It still takes 5d10 Psychic damage, it just doesn’t get put in the time-out scare bubble. He takes 37 Brain damage. He’s got a headache, and now he’s on to Shane.

Shane ducks around the corner to hide with his dad.

Before Jericho gets to go, the Juggernaut has a legendary action. He charges. Anything in its path is going to take some damage. Crimeny, Serra, Griffin, and Jericho all take 56 damage. This is known as Implacable Advance.

Crimeny has 4 hit points.

Ant has brought the boss to Jericho, who is now bloodied. He uses his gleaming scimitar of the mimic to attack three times. He hits with a 19, a 23, and misses with a 10. He does 43 damage. Then Jericho quaffs a superior healing potion, because he is in pain. He can’t move anywhere without provoking an attack of opportunity so he stays where he is. There is nothing he can roll to maintain Concentration on Polymorph. Poptimus Prime goes back to being plain Mr. Bishop.

Crimeny rolls a 29 Perception. As they pull themself out of the crater, they hear something coming from the room the Juggernaut was just in. They can hear the jabbering snarling of at least one Maurezhi.

Nellie drops concentration on her giant flies. She uses a 5th level spell slot and uses her 11 Portent to force the Juggernaut to auto-fail on his Wisdom Save for her Mind Spike spell. His total Save is a 17, which fails. Barely, but it fails. She does 29 Psychic damage. Nellie scrumbles away.

Time for another Legendary Action: He lifts one of his giant booted feet and slams it onto the ground. A spear made of that tiled rock erupts from the ground behind her and pierces her. She is going to be taking some damage and she is going to be incapacitated until the start of the Juggernaut’s next turn. WAIT, actually Nellie needs to make a dex save: She fails with a 12. Now she takes damage: She takes 21 Piercing damage and is incapacitated.

Crimeny is going to shoot this thing in revenge. They hit with a 24, and do 37 damage. Their speed is reduced by ten, but they only need 10 feet to move around a corner and use their bonus action to hide. They lie down. They turn into prop hunt.

Griffin takes some wound damage: 17. Griffin has 27 HP. He rolls a 19 and a 28 to hit.

Hit 1: 17 Slashing, 1 Cold
Hit 2: 10 Slashing, 6 Cold

Total damage is 34.

He takes his only Healing Potion for 16 HP.

Griffin Action Surges: 19 and 26 to hit.

Hit 3: 16 Slashing, 7 Cold
Hit 4: 11 Slashing, 6 Cold

Total damage is 40. He moves around to put himself between Shane and the Juggernaut.

Juggernaut has one more legendary action to burn this round. He does another Implacable advance. Griffin has made a tactical error. Jericho, Griffin and Shane each take 40 damage. Griffin has 3 HP.

As soon as Shane Jr. Sr. 64 was no longer Poptimus Prime, he tried to scrumble away. The Relentless Juggernaut holds Mr. Bishop up by his head.

Griffin is allowed to make an attack of opportunity: He hits wiht a 30, for 17 Slashing and 1 Cold for 18 total. Jericho also makes an attack: He hits with a 21 for 18 damage. Shane is ALSO allowed to make an opportunity attack. He has this tentacle staff that does three attacks: 17, 17, and 25 all hit. He does 11 damage.

As he charges through, Griffin and Jericho each hamstring one of his legs. Then Shane smacks him on the ass with his fucking dominatrix whip.

He comes crashing down at Mr. Bishop’s feet.

Serra uses a Channel Divinity: Preserve Life, which gives her 55HP to distribute amongst the group. Crimeny is at 4HP. Serra gives 19 HP to Griffin, and 18 to herself and Crimeny.

Then she uses a bonus action Healing Word on Griffin for an additional 9HP. Ya Boi is now at 31HP, up from 3. That’s her turn.

ROUND 2

Maurezhi comes into the kitchen from the other room.

Shane feeds a potion to Griffin with his bonus action for 17HP. He rubs vix vaporub all over Griffin’s face. Since Shane thinks the danger is over he’s going to mosey back into the hallway the Juggernaut charged through. He sees a statue down to the south at the hallway intersection. He tells Serra that’s a magic statue. He’s not sure she wants to be there.

SHANE: THERE’S NOTHING ELSE TO KILL, RIGHT?
CRIMENY: whyyyyy

Shane puts his Death Stranding in the kitchen, effectively pausing combat.

We regroup. Nellie asks what the fuck is over there? Crimeny reports at least one more of the same Maurezhi guys. Everybody casts some spells to heal up and drink some potions. Griffin requests some more heals - he’s STILL bloodied. She gives him 21 HP. He is now at 69. Nice!

Serra burns a Mass Cure Wounds: Everyone recovers 34 HP. Griffin is now at 103. Good enough!

Griffin and Jericho move up to create the first line of defense against the oncoming baddies. The Fap Zone disappears.

Jericho wants to return to Old Reliable. He moves into the kitchen, and requires both Maurezhis to roll Dex Saves. One rolls a 17 and one rolls a 12 - both fail. Time for Fireball: 37 fire damage. Jericho moves even further into the kitchen room so that he’s not blocking the hallway. He the moves up one, so he is 35 feet away from the closest Maurezhi.

Maurezhi can’t make it to Jericho with its movement, so he burns his action to get up into Jericho’s face.

Nellie requests a Wisdom Save from the Maurezhi menacing Jericho. It fails with a 13. Time for 3d12 Necrotic damage: 24.

Crimeny moves 15 feet up, stepping in front of Griffin, and shoots the one accosting Jericho. They hit with an 18 and pop the Maurezhi’s nugget with 27 damage.

Griffin moves into the kitchen and shoots at the Maurezhi. He misses with a 13, and crit fails with a 1. He takes 5 damage as the wrist-mounted crossbow jams.

Serra moves into the kitchen, and casts Sacred Flame on the remaining Maurezhi. It fails with an 11, and takes 11 Radiant damage.

ROUND 3

Maurezhi moves up to attack Serra. It hits with a 23, and she has to make a Con save: 18. She’s fine. She takes 15 Slashing damage, and the Maurezhi goes in for a bite. First though, it takes some radiant damage from Serra’s Clangeddin armor - 10. Now the Maurezhi tries to bite her, but misses with a 13.

Shane’s going to have to pop out of his hidey-hole. He views the one thing that is accosting Serra. He casts Eldritch Blast. All three of his blasts connect, and do 37 damage. He blasts the things head off its shoulders. It’s dead.

We solved Ant’s Juggernaut puzzle!

First things first: Crimeny wants to check the room to the south. There are no more creepy crawlies, but it’s not a great scene. It’s wall-to-wall coffins that have been emptied, and there are a lot of bones.

SCOTT: He he he he he he he

Crimeny investigates the bones: Unnatural 30. Ant will allow Scott to select four bones. These are all human or humanoid. Crimeny selects a skull, a ribcage (Bethesda logic), a pelvis (Ant allows Scott to have TWO pelvises), and one single falange.

The graves have been robbed, this is desecration.

The rest of the crew investigate the Juggernaut’s kitchen. Griffin rolls an 11. Nellie rolls a 26. She also peeks into the bone room, looking for anything interesting among the coffins. There’s nothing of note here in terms of magical items, it’s all mundane clothes and baubles. Have the cultists discarded anything we might find useful?

There is a big pile of fetid meat on the big chopping block. It’s looking like these bodies were taken, all of the meat was carved from the bones, and this coffin room is just the bones.

Griffin wants to know what all this fetid meat is for. :(

The smart character make some rolls. They’re not taking the meat and putting it in a god sausage. Nellie and Shane know how magical components work - all of this meat is basically the spell components necessary for a big summoning spell.

Okay, NOW it’s time to flood one of the blood rivers with Crimeny’s brick of pykrete. Which side are we flooding? The left side, with the meat kitchen and the bone room. Crimeny stops up the drain, and very quickly the blood begins to overflow.

We return to the right side of the cult facility and continue up the path to the north. There is a barred door blocking access into a round chamber. Hanging out underneath a big chandelier is an armanite. There is another Armanite in the mirrored hallway to the left.

Time to poke the beast. Its back is to us. Crimeny fires an arrow through the barred door. They hit with a 22 for 36 sneak damage. It cries out in pain and whips around. Crimeny hides. The armonite has no idea what just happened. It goes back to doing what it was doing. Crimeny peeks and shoots it again with a Nat 20 for 61 sneak attack crit damage.

At this point, it’s angry. It turns around, but instead of charging, it jumps up and grabs the chandelier. The chandelier starts to descend, and we hear the sound of mechanisms. Everyone has to roll a dex save. Griffin beefs it with a 4.

The gargoyle statue in the back starts to shudder violently, and transforms into a wall of force that rushes the length of the corridor, barreling through the losers who failed their dex. Serra, Nellie, Griffin, and Shane (and Shane’s dad) take 30 damage. Jericho and Crimeny take half. Crimeny takes 0.

Mr. Bishop is on the ground, face down. He’s not looking great. Nellie slaps him with Mage Armor.

ROUND 1

Armanite’s speed is 60 feet. The gate opens and he comes through. Jericho, Crimeny, and Griffin have ot make Dex saves. Griffin beefs it with an 8. Jericho and Crimeny save. Time for a lightning lance that arcs through all three. Crimeny saves and takes no damage.Jericho takes half (14) and Griffin takes full (28)

Crimeny uses a bonus action to disengage and back up. They delay their attack until Griffin or Jericho moves in to smack it.

Nellie requests an INT save from the Armanite. It fails with a 3. Time for Psychic damage: 7. The next saving throw it makes before the end of Nellie’s next turn - Its head explodes. It did not have much HP after Crimeny’s bullshit.

Shane tells his dad to drink the potions he brought.

Crimeny checks the Armanite room for traps: 26 .The gargoyle heads are not trapped. The only trap is the chandelier. It doesn’t look like it could be activated again.

There is one final gargoyle had in the small offshoot chamber. Shane casts Detect Magic at will. The gargoyle isn’t magic, but there’s some kind of magical mechanism in it. Crimeny Investigates for a trigger: 22. They spot the trigger about 15 feet in front of the gargoyle. Crimeny marks that area to alert the rest of their idiots not to step there. Crimeny makes a wide berth around that trigger and peeks down the next hallway with Stealth (28) and Perception (29).

The end of the corridor is a large atrium lined by statues. At the far end, leading further into the complex, Crimeny sees a Galbrezu. It’s lazily snoozing, along with two hellhounds.

Crimeny reports back.