Rescue Heroes to the ... Rescue!
S1 loves these things! |
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When Othello arrived with Sandy, he saw that the gnolls had dropped the prisoner and run off. Since I had set up a combat field using my Dungeon tiles (it looked quite nice in my opinion), the players knew there would be a big encounter. S1 said he wanted his character to race past the prisoner, grab him, and drag him out of thr pesh fields. Unfortunately, I had to remind S1 that Othello is only about 3 feet tall and the prisoner is maybe 6', and Othello has the lowest strength in the party. S1 then said he would toss the prisoner over Sandy and she could pull him to safety. Again, I said that wasn't going to happen.
So, Othello quickly shook the prisoner. "Are you okay? let's get you out of here." The prisoner lifted his head in despair: "Save yourself, the gnolls have already called their pet." Othello noticed that he could feel shudders through the dirt he was standing on. S1 noticed that the map had boulders on it, so he had Othello help the prisoner to climb onto a boulder. The rest of the party arrived at the same time and Othello yelled out to climb onto a nearby boulder. Shortly afterwards, the ground opened up like a giant sinkhole and a titanic worm reared up. It was a dust digger, sort of a cross between the monster in Tremors and a Bantha. Unfortunately (for the DM) this turned out to be a short fight. Jasmine was able to shoot it from her vantage point and Ibrahim moved to protect Othello, Sandy, and the prisoner. Othello fired a scorching ray down its throat. The dust digger moved and used its reach to attack Sandy. Since the monster could only reach Sandy using diagonal squares, it was debatable whether the monster was really within range; therefore, I only allowed it to use one of its 5 attacks. This one tentacle lash barely missed Sandy, and that was all she wrote. Sandy got in her flurry of kitty attacks, and on the next turn Jasmine shot and Ibrahim hit the dust digger. The worm had had enough and turned to burrow away. Ibrahim rolled a critical hit as an attack-of-opportunity and smashed its wee brain in. I had hoped that the worm would at least get to eat somebody...
The party returned to the monastery with the newly-released prisoner, whose name was Oxvard and a fellow member of the Iron Lions of Cheliax along with the guy tortured to death earlier in the day. Since the party members had no questions to ask this man, who had been held prisoner in the town they had been hired to liberate (!?!), everyone went to bed.
And then I pulled a trick I've been holding back for quite a while...