Zoom 2024-04-07 21:00

The party may in big trouble: The front line fighters (except Umar) have started to ascend the stairs, when 6 well equipped giants burst out of the study and reagent store, and charge towards the ‘soft underbelly’ of the party still on the landing.
Hold on a minute: Did the DM just say that a group of giants started charging towards the bulk of the party’s spellcasters? They might as well have shouted out “Oh Goody – Mages!”.
Well one round’s worth of Lightning bolts, Fireballs, Walls of Ice and Slow spells later, the poor giants are very much bewitched, damaged and bewildered. They are easily finished off by a very enthusiastic Umar, a somewhat less enthusiastic Dougal, and an as-enthusiatic-as-Umar Hamish.
Mind you, what actually kills the last giants are firebolts from two fire elementals that have come up from behind them. The fighters re-assess their enthusiasm against these critters and beat a hasty retreat – leaving Garaf to interpose his familiar between them, who enjoys blowing raspberries at their fire attacks, while Garaf attacks them with other spells.
Meanwhile, Francis, Brokev, RiffRaf and Joshua have got back down the stairs and confronted another pair of the fire-elementals – which they can deal with as they have been prepped with Fire Res spells. (Note for future reference: Create Water does D6/lvl damage to these critters, but causes a steam explosion that damages everyone surrounding.)
When all the elementals have been dealt with, we proceed to the Summoning circle – with Hamish and Dougal getting there first. They find a really gigantic fire elemental just about constrained within the circle, and a very worried giant mage (the one we first met when we entered the tower) reading a scroll with a look of panic and pain on his face – we hold off attacking him long enough for him to mouth ‘Help’ at us. So we start questioning him, with Garaf ESPing his answers, and discover the elemental is almost out of his control. If he finishes reading the scroll (which he is trying not to do), is interrupted or loses concentration, or loses sight of the elemental then it will be entirely free (and hostile to all!). He has been tricked into reading this scroll by the Hobbit, who must have known the consequences. We discuss using Erase on the scroll, but Garaf has a better idea – the rooms/door on this level are immune to magical effects, so we could just close the doors and the elemental won’t be able to get out. He can even save the giant mage by Levitating him, and moving him to the door so he won’t lose concentration. So we do this, and as the mage loses sight of the elemental, we slam the doors shut just as the elemental releases a large burst of heat – but with the doors closed, there is silence!
The mage collapses from exhaustion, but is ‘encouraged’ awake by the party and he is happy to answer our questions as he has been betrayed by the Hobbit (into reading this scroll). The Hobbit has already left the tower without finding what he was looking for. Then the giant rears up in pain and dies – there is an ugly scar in the shape of three talons on him. We recover a magic wand and a ring off the dead mage, and ensure that all the other giants stay dead.
We proceed on up the staircase – there are more glyphs as per usual that we have to deal with on the way.
We reach the library floor, but decide that we should make sure we have a clear escape route to the top of the tower before looking for magic books and loot, so continue up.
More glyphs are dealt with – and Joshua hears noises from the observation room. Some sneakery and clairvoyance show that the observation tower has two giants with crossbows behind sturdy overturned tables, and two other giants (one looks like a mage) further back in the room. The room is mirrored all around – except for one wall which is showing a view of the main party in the stairwell. So they know we’re coming.
We put together the following plan:
Have a suped-up Twoo (haste+strength+MI) with a cont-dark rock, within 5’ of Garaf who has a globe of invulnerability plus other protections. Go up the stairs and machine gun them to death from within the darkness.