Shard Saga – Venturing into the volcano part 2

Ok, it’s been a while. Occupied with personal events and turmoil, and now, I really can’t remember much of the game… This will be a photo dump, and I’ll chip in with commentary when my memory decides to dredge some tidbit up.

So it was after we entered the door in part 1. And we came upon a vicious group of monsters (because my DM was feeling kinda vicious).

The green thingie looks nasty. The transparent dragonling looks dangerous. The flying skull at the end of the room was going to be trouble. The giant dragon gave us pause. But Kepler was interested in the last monster, because it looked like a baboon doing a ballet (never mind the sword)…

Then the dragon swooped in.

Kepler and the bard scattered to avoid the dragon’s breath attack. Then the dragonling swooped in to corner Kepler.

The barbarian came to help out. Then the dragonling snuck away to deal with the fighter.

Kepler and the avenger went after the flying skull, which took a while to take down.

Then the dragon flew into the chamber and cornered the invoker. It also killed our bard *gasp* , the only leader (or healer) we had. We are so dead… On the upside, I got to see a death saving throw. No I’m not morbidly sadistic. I just want to see how it’s like. It’s like normal saving throw, but the stakes are higher.

We killed off the rest of the monsters, and the bard managed to recover from dying. We got our hands on a red shard. Which was worrying, because this was the second encounter and we’ve already gotten the important item. The DM had something up his sleeves…

and gave us some red crystals. If I remember correctly, each crystal can be used to regain an encounter power. Ok, long battle ahead…

We exited the chamber, and lo and behold, a bunch of monsters. I knew it! The DM placed the dungeon tiles carefully, and plopped them here and there, all while humming quietly to himself. Well, he could be humming to himself. He was certainly excited when he placed the lightning wall at the end of our impending battefield.

“You see a wall of lightning barring your way. You see these 4 monsters you vaguely remember fighting from before. And there are these 2 winged reptiles.” said the DM. “Oh yeah, I nearly forgot.”

My DM placed a ticking timer in the form of an approaching fire wall. Like I said, my DM’s feeling particularly devious… We killed off the 4 monsters, minions actually, and they became difficult terrain. The white dragon was taken out, which left the red one.

After felling the red dragon, the lightning wall dissipated. “But wait, there’s more!” said the DM.

You’ve got to be kidding me. “Oh yeah, the fire’s still moving down.” said the DM. You have got to be kidding me.

We killed off some monsters. Then Kepler was using his shard power to burrow through enemies. And rolled a 1. “Stop.” said the DM. “You should be somewhere here then.”

As a wild magic sorcerer, when Kepler rolls a 1 on an arcane attack, everyone within 5 squares gets blown away 1 square. My advice to you is, if you’re playing with a bunch of tacticians and power gamers, choose some other type of sorcerer. For some reason, Kepler seem to roll 1′s fairly regularly. He feels somewhat unpopular sometimes.

Kepler hasn’t had much luck hitting. It was like rolling a d6 for attacks. None of the numbers were higher than 7. Kepler decided to stay away from everyone.

While Kepler was staying to the side, I looked through a drinking glass to see if it made the situation look better. Nope.

Killed off the last of the monsters, the lightning wall dissipated… and revealed…

We’re never getting out of this alive, are we?

We moved quickly forward, because the fire’s still chasing us. We had to take down that dragon fast, or we would be roasted alive. Forgot to mention something. Each time the lightning wall dissipated, the whole place would shake, due to the volcano getting ready to erupt or something. And each of us had to roll against Acrobatics (Athletics?) to remain standing. That explained why half the party was lying on the ground.

Well, the fire wall moved rapidly this time. I think it’s 4 squares per turn instead of 1 square.

The invoker got roasted, the fighter was bloodied, the barbarian knocked prone. Kepler felt like giving up. Why attack when you’d miss anyway? (Kepler missed a lot this session). Worse, Kepler could roll a 1. He could have pushed a fellow member into the fire instead.

Some people don’t like random chance events. Unless they came from the DM. Then they get to blame the DM. Ah, maybe Kepler should retire… His own people forsook him, his friends left him, and now his team mates were… *sigh*

The fire wall was closing in rapidly. It was either the dragon or us. Everyone used everything they’ve got.

The dragon died, the lightning wall dissipated, and everyone scrambled out of the volcano, boarded the airship and flew away as the volcano erupted in a gorgeous spray of lava. At least I think it erupted.