RQG 215 - Tower Defence

## Content Warnings

Physical violence & injury, Heights, Fire, Bombs, Hivemind, Discussions of: death (inc. character death), magical transformation, Mentions of: zombies, blood, dismemberment, suicide, SFX: wind & rushing air, wingbeats, rumbling & rattling, clanking, roaring, explosions, building collapse

## Summary

Join Alex, Helen, Bryn, Lydia, and Ben as they hold their ground against a sea of enemies.

This week Zolf starts the setup, Hamid has a staring contest, Cel starts working on the swarm, and Azu makes use of an old investment.

## Synopsis

The battle is in full swing now, with Guivres hurtling toward the tower and Hamid. The horde creatures have realized something is up, and start heading toward the tower, climbing up the sides. Zolf, meanwhile, gets Babbage to the center of the roof and sticks him in place, starting the machine up. The entire party just needs to fend off the attacks for a minute while Babbage works, at which point the failsafe will properly activate.

Guivres takes a fly-by shot at the tower, but everyone weathers the fire and isn’t badly injured. She continues on until she comes right up at Hamid. Cel takes this chance to start bombing the root creatures climbing up the tower, taking care of the northern side and leaving the south side to Zolf and Azu. They both protect Babbage; Azu gets off Topaz and activates her armor, growing to become over 12 feet tall.

Hamid attempts to call down lightning and strike Guivres; while the strike hits, Guivres is unharmed, and the lightning passes over her scales. Hamid is carefully flying around her, staying close to her so that it’s harder for her to get a bead on him and attack.

As he’s flying around, Apophis appears, an illusion conjured by Wilde, and Guivres gets distracted by the presence of another Meritocrat; she goes for Apophis’ neck, but he dissolves into light particles around her.

Cel continues chucking bombs while Azu and Zolf cast protective spells on Babbage, just in case anything comes for both of them. Hamid attempts to restrict Guivres’ movement by casting Constricting Coils, but she’s immune to the spell and goes after him again. Before he can react, she breathes fire at him; he manages to dodge it just in time, flying through the cone of fire to minimize the damage he receives.

A dark shape appears in the clouds, which reveals itself to be Apophis, hurtling down with an incredible amount of speed directly for Guivres.

## Dice rolls & mechanics

Cel and Azu make a perception check when Wilde jumps: Cel gets 18, Azu gets 15

Skraak makes an Escape Artist check: 18 [Note: after this roll, Alex does all the rolls for Skraak in secret]

Hamid makes a knowledge arcana check on Guivres: 37

## Combat Breakdown

Initiative rolls from last ep: Azu gets 20, Zolf gets 24, Skraak gets 24, Hamid gets 9, Cel gets 10 (Wilde rolled lower than 9 but the amount is not said)

Wilde leaps off the edge of the tower, toward Cel and Guivres.

The entire horde of creatures swarm toward the plant that Hamid attacked. Some start moving toward the tower.

Azu moves to hover above the doorway and drops her entire bag of marbles down the stairs. A few break windows on the way down. She then flies up onto the platform.

Zolf tells Babbage to start walking him through what to do, moves toward the platform, and uses his boots of levitation and his glaive to drag himself up the platform and meet Azu. He puts Babbage down in front of him.

The root creatures begin to hurl themselves up the walls and climb quickly.

Guivres beelines toward Hamid, passing the tower, and turns her head and breathes fire at the tower. Hamid and Cel make a reflex save: Cel gets 18, Hamid gets 17. Zolf and Azu make a reflex save: Zolf gets 24, Azu gets 10, Topaz gets 16. Everyone on the roof takes 122 damage, which is reduced to Topaz taking 1 damage and Zolf taking 3.

Cel moves within 15ft of the root creatures close to the top of the tower and throws and exfoliant bomb at them. They get a 29 on the attack roll and hit, dealing 29 damage (+14 splash damage). The root creatures notice Cel and all turn toward them.

Hamid casts a maximized Lightning Arc (using his Rod of Maximize), shooting up from the a person on the roof and arcing through Guivres. He gets a 24 on spell resistance, which isn’t enough to succeed, and the spell fails completely on Guivres. The person on the roof gets 78 damage. He then flies around Guivres’ side, staying close. Hamid makes a 26 on a Fly check, succeeding, and notices that Guivres is clumsy and struggling to track him that closely.

Everyone makes a perception check: Zolf gets 28, Azu gets 20, Cel gets 22, and Hamid’s isn’t said. Zolf notices Apophis throw himself up from the city and beeline for Guivres; Apophis is not blue veinsed.

The swarm is moving up the tower and will reach the party in about a round.

Azu casts Shield Other on Babbage, tells Topaz to protect him, and activates her armor - she is now 12’12’’ tall, and her axe has grown to match. Her armor is also covered in carved roses.

Zolf hits the switch on the device and casts Resist Energy (30) - Fire on Babbage.

The first root creature breaches the top of the tower, still looking mostly at Cel.

Guivres goes after Apophis, going for a bite to the neck; Apophis (a Wilde illusion) dissolves into motes of light and reappears 250 feet away from the tower.

At the top of Cel’s turn, the creature Cel hit gets an additional 14 damage and falls off the tower. Cel throws a bomb at another one of the creatures, hitting on a 24 and dealing 23 damage (+14 splash damage). They throw a second bomb, missing on a 20. They throw a third bomb at the other creature, hitting on a 25, and deal 27 damage (+14 splash). This creature collapses and falls.

Hamid flies 200 ft away from Guivres, heading south and trying to lead her away from the tower. He casts Constricting Coils (an illusory dragon that wraps itself around Guivres’ form), and succeeds with a spell resistance roll of 29. Guivres, however, is immune to paralysis, breaks out of the coil, and succeeds the will save to avoid damage.

Everyone makes a perception check. Zolf gets 31, Azu gets 15, Cel gets 32, and Hamid gets 28. Zolf and Cel notice something large and dark starting to break cloud cover above.

Azu holds her action.

Zolf draws a circle around Babbage, casting Sanctuary. He steps sideways.

4 root creatures make it above the parapet on the south side. The rest of them are starting to swarm toward + up the tower.

The cloud cover breaks; Apophis appears again, plummeting down from cloud cover, and starts to go at Guivres.

Guivres notices Apophis and ignores him, sweeping toward Hamid instead. She takes a deep breath; everyone makes a reflex save: Zolf gets 15, Azu gets 19, Topaz gets 30, Cel gets 27, and Hamid gets a nat 20. Hamid takes 58 fire damage.