03/07/2024 Operation Fort Galax Part 1

Mission: Part 1 Fort Galax

Players: Shannon, Brandon, Peter, Marcus, Jonah

Characters: Shape, Guy, Kaleesia, Seth, Kuno

Roles: QuarterMaster (Shannon), SpyMaster, Marshall (Jonah), Commander (Brandon), Lorekeeper (Peter)

This new and twisted world is described to Seth. Seth is Damon’s brother! He is being stalked by a wolf in the night “The mantle has been shifted to you boy! Don’t push this away anymore!” This wolf, the spirit of the hunt, speaks secrets to him, and speaks of the name Illethrandil (spell check needed lol) that he is descendant of. His brother and his father failed before, now he must rise to the occasion and protect the ring. Whether he has the strength or not matters zero, he must bear the wolf's power and show that he is better.
Seth enters into Zetian’s cabin, he sees a group gathered here already. I describe my character Kaleesia, a tall woman with orange hair and yellow slitted eyes, she bears four golden horns upon her crown, a pair of red wings, and a red scaly tail.
Zetian tells us about the mission, we need to keep the gate of the fort open for 2 minutes so the brigade can head inside. It is made of mithril so we need to figure out a way to get to the guarded mechanism for it and destroy it or something. We also need to make sure we return with the single emerald we have
We arrive at Fort Galax, built by the court of stars in the shining light of Ithradil, but now is dark, swarmed and twisted by the impure. We climb its walls to the top and find ourselves by the side of the guard tower of the gate.
Shape melts the glass of a window to give us a way in. At the same time the mist veil from the emerald begins to fall around us and alert the impure that the enemy is coming or here.
Kuno makes an illusion using Seth’s golden amulet as material and Kaleesia’s dragon breath magic as extra power to disguise us as impure in sight and smell.
We go down towards the gatehouse, the illusion fails as we arrive. In front of us is a magical barrier, called a pass wall that allows only certain people to pass through. Behind it is a spellcaster, a gloomweaver of Dionysia chanting over a green aura gemstone to create the barrier.. Guy sees a potential future using the Augrey power, he sees a gloomweaver going up to the barrier and saying the codeword “fearless sky.” Shape polymorphs into looking like the gloomweaver Guy describes and gives him the codeword. The barrier is let down by the other spellcaster and we dash in. This alerts the crows and they call out for reinforcements to start swarming in.
Combat ensues and unfortunately the gloomweaver takes a very long time to kill so Kuno isn’t able to raise the barrier until turn 6, and we begin raising the gate. (We should have raised it at the very beginning because now we need to wait 8 rounds till we can leave) Every round enemies swarm in, we get super overwhelmed by round 4 and BARELY are able to block all of the enemies in the other room in round 7. By using all of Kaleesia's armor blocks (scales, shield, and magical energy) as material Kuno was able to maintain the barrier for 6 more rounds. We reinforce it as best we can, Kaleesia now in her dragon form to support it, but fail to keep it up for the final round we need and combat begins again.
By the grace of god, Kaleesia was able to make a crack in the ceiling which Kuno weakened and collapsed to create a final barrier for us. Everyone climbs onto the big dragon and we book it out of there immediately and fly back towards camp. Genuinely don't know how the hell we got out of there alive, it took all of our luck for the next year to make those rolls. If we had missed just one roll we would have been a tpk. Kaleesia got 8 corruption, Guy got 4, Shape got 4, and Seth got 4-5.
On the way out, Seth hears the voice of the wolf asking if he really plans to run away, he needs to go and pray to the armory and claim his power. Seth chooses to leap back onto one of the towers of the fortress to continue in Part 2: Fort Galax.