Episode 7 - Beyond the Crystal Cavern

## Episode Summary

Having just fought off two giant demon fiends, the party are tired, bloody, and about to face 30 smaller flying demons that have just appeared in the ritual ground above the **Citadel**. There are some very small ones and some larger ones. They all bear a resemblance to cicadas.

As the party prepare once again fight for their lives, the sounds of battle drift up to them from the **Citadel** below.  **Arcturus** and **Ak’athla** notice that the **World Tree** seems to be glowing brighter and repelling the bloody beasts. Some of the beasts seem to be making their way to the ritual circles, the areas with the runes inscribed on the ground underneath.

**River** calls on the power of lightning and zaps a large creature that looks like a giant cicada mixed with a scorpion. However, the beast uses it’s tail stinger to absorb and neutralize the damage.

**Ak’athla** zaps one of the creatures with Moonbeam, its bloody skin blisters, cracks and bubbles at the touch of the light. It flaps and flops around, near the ground.

**Ah’Beng** moves up to the creature that **Ak'athla** attacked and kicks at it, the beast dodges...but Beng maneuvers round and stomps on its chest, squishing it dead.

**Mila** masterfully draws and fires two arrows, they zaps one in the eyes like eyestalks, killing another.

**Hari** the young City Guard looks around in mild panic at the swarming demons.  He readies his crossbow and moves closer to **Ak’athla**. He shoots but the wind pushes his bolt out of the way, and it thunks into the wall.

**Arcturus** asks what the heck the ritual circles do and why the monsters are heading towards it.  **Hari** stammers that the priests use them to call reinforcements.  **Arcturus** curses - if the priests can use them , the demons probably can as well.  He moves towards the circles and shoots at one of the smaller flying baby demons, which explodes into a shower of ichor.  He shifts his aim and shoots at a giant cicada.

**Rio** pulls out a huge roll of paper and folds it into a massive paper crane.  The human-sized paper bird flies toward the giant cicada, and Rio blasts it with a firebolt from his wand. The huge flapping firebird smashes into the monster with a shower of sparking paper and enflaming the creature. One of the little burnt pieces of paper flies over to **Arcturus**, transforms into a small paper cicada, and lands on his shoulder for bardic inspiration.

The giant cicada moves towards the party and poisons **Ah’Beng**.

**River** quickly dispatches another flying baby demon that was heading towards a ritual circle. She pivots round and casts Wall of Flame across the northernmost circle. The flames react in a way she’s never seen before:  As they cross the ritual circle, the fire jumps higher and burns with a dazzling white heat.  The runes under the circle start to glow through the sand covering them.

**Ak’athla** casts his Moonbeam onto the cicada, doing what damage he can. **Hari** follows behind him, and starts singing “That’s Amore”, trying to express his ever-growing affection for **Ak’athla**.

**Ah’Beng** winds up like a baseball pitcher and slaps the face of the giant cicada, rocking it’s head back on segmented neck plates.  As he winds up to slap it again, The cicada reaches out a segmented limb and swipes his hand away

**Mila** puts Hunter’s Mark on the giant cicada and then shoots two arrows causing some damage

Hari’s blood, which had spilled and soaked into the sand, starts to behave strangely: The blood starts to rise out of the sand like a bloody ghost! Two pseudopods extend from the amorphous blob and grab **Hari**.  He gets hoisted up into the air by his waist and feet, and in bad shape.

**Arcturus** dashes forward towards the giant cicada.  He slides on his knees in a pool of ichor, obviously showing off. The blood that covers his body starts to feel like it’s crawling...  He slices across the creature, coating **Ah’Beng** with a spray of nasty ichorous blood.  To his shock and horror, **Ah’Beng** can also feel a crawling sensation on his skin.

**Rio** pulls out another large roll of paper and creates a human sized, four legged beast with a flower shaped head and he tells it to “GO”.  As it comes to life, he runs and jumps into an opening roughly where an anus would be while at the same time casting polymorph.  The paper creature grows and expands, turning into a Triceratops around him, who then runs towards **River**.  He commands the Triceratops to 'poop' on top of **Ak’athla**, with a small paper insect for bardic inspiration.

**River** is confronted with a cockroach looking monster and she cringes in disgust as she absolutely hates cockroaches.

The giant cicada reaches around and grabs at **Arcturus** but it does minimal hurt to him.

The two ritual circles that aren't on fire start to glow, and a dome like shape starts to form over them.  The small cicadas that are hovering over the circles seem to be pulled by an invisible restraint of energy, and begin moving slowly in the growing domes.

**River** jumps on the back of the paper triceratops to escape from the terror of the cockroach creature.

**Ak’athla** slashes at the blood monster holding **Hari** captive, smashing it with a halberd, and then hitting it with some thunder damage. The blood monster starts to loosen its grasp, and **Ak’athla** finishes it off with Smite. He sees that **Hari** is weakened, but his eyes are open at least.  He winks a blessing at **Hari**.

**Ah’Beng** wipes the blood off his face, and lashes out with a ferocious kick at giant cicada.  As his foot connects hard, bits of exterior shell start falling off of it’s body.  He sinks his foot deep into its thorax, and yanks it out, finally ending the giant creature’s life.  He then runs over and hops on the Triceratops with River.

**Mila** sees that two of the ritual circles have baby cicadas inside them, red tendrils coming off their bodies.  She shoots twice at the bugs inside the dome. She yells “Arcti, do you see this?”

**Arcturus** hears voices in his head, and starts to sing a song called “Psychotic Cicada”, he takes some shots with his crossbow and slams a bolt into one of the trapped bugs.

**Rio** backs up in his Triceratops and runs forward, trampling the cockroach creature that made **River** scared. He runs forward to the northern circle with the flame wall and sends a mental image to **Mila** to head to the circle as well.

**River** jumps off the back of the Triceratops and drops her concentration on the wall of fire. She moves over to a golden circle with a dome over it.  Inside the dome, a giant hulking red monster is forming.  She decides to encircle the entire dome with flames. The flames leap insanely high, causing the runes to glow. The monster screams in rage and pain.

**Ah’Beng** dashes as close as he can to the blue circle towards the southern summoning circle.

**Mila** moves right up to **River** using misty step, joining her in the northern red circle.  She knows there’s a monster in the gold circle to the east, but can’t see it well through the flames.  She shoots anyway, as there’s only so much space the monster could be occupying.  One of her bolts hits it’s mark and the monster cries out again.

**Hari** sees the large monster everyone is concentrating on, and trudges towards a monster appearing in the southern blue circle.  He squares his shoulders and does his duty, and shots at it with his crossbow.  He manages to  clip the creature which looks like a 4-armed dog beast.

**Artcurus** also runs to the southern blue circle, and shoots at the creature. His bolt seems to slide off it’s back.

**Rio** thunders forwards to the southern blue circle and attacks the demon with a giant roar but the monster’s aura crashes through his paper Triceratops shell, breaking his concentration. The Triceratops starts to flake and fall apart, crumbling into flakes of paper again. **Rio** is left standing outside the blue circle, a pile of paper flakes at his feet.

The demon in the eastern circle tries to cast dispel, the flames around it dim slightly, but they roar back damaging the monster.

**River** stands in the northern red circle, and uses the lighting wand to attack the eastern gold circle.  She feels a burst of energy and a gout of energy blazes into the demon. It seems the circles amplify the magic used in them.

**Ak’athla** aims his moonbeam right on top of the dog-faced demon.

**Ah’Beng** runs up to it with the intent on doing more punching and kicking.  Despite their size difference, he takes a shot, punching around the infernal torso. He manages to enough damage before the creature brushes him aside like a small pest.

**Mila** moves her Hunter’s Mark to the southern beast, and shoots it for a small amount of damage.

**Arcturus**, on the higher level tier of the summoning grounds, runs forward with his sword Naomi, he leaps off the tier onto the back of the southern monster. 'Hey, it worked well before...  It would work pretty well this time too'.  He leaps and lets out a war cry, slicing into the fiend.

**Rio** kneels down and scoops up remaining scraps of his triceratops.  Holding them in both of his cupped hands like water, he tosses them in the air towards the southern blue circle monster, and yells 'PAPER CUTS'.  The power of the circle magnifies the spell and the paper sharpens into diamond hard shards around his head and chest.  As he tries to leave the circle, the beast smacks him with its lower hand, then grabs at him with an upper claw, drawing him in.  **Rio** doges his own flying shards, and yells at **Arcturus**.  “You’re the Captain, don’t let me down”.  A paper shard detaches from the cloud and flies to circle Arcturus’s head  for a Mote of Inspiration. A demonic voice appears in his head whispering “why do you seek to protect this pitiful plane, you are throwing your life away”.  **Rio** tries to fake out the demon by flattering him and agreeing with him, which the demon believes “Good”, and releases Rio.  “Kill them all, we have a ritual to complete”, the demon finishes.

Ak’athla’s moonbeam touches the demon and rips at it’s skin with holy light.

The eastern demon flies straight up into the air and over the fire, landing outside the flaming circle, damaging itself briefly.

**River** steps forward a few feet, and casts Shatter on the demon out of the circle. She casts it while the beast is still in the air coming over the flame, and the creature falls to the ground painfully.

**Ak’athla** gets as close as he can to the creature and whips out his dagger.  He throws it all his might at the demon, while casting Divine Smite.  The dagger flies straight and true from his hand, stabbing deeply into the demon's arm. A giant chunk of flesh comes off its arm.  **Ak’athla** looks over at **Hari** and grabs his crotch in celebration, and then tosses him a saucy wink.

**Hari** looks back at him slightly confused, but also kind of hopeful.

**Ah’Beng** keeps punching the monster.  As it staggers sideways, he grabs it’s horns and smashes the monster right in the side of it’s head, ending it. He grabs Ak’athla’s dagger and races towards the remaining creature near the Eastern Circle.

**Mila** aims and shoots, her arrows thwack into the remaining demon, where it crumples to the ground, finally dead.

The divine gods tell the sweaty, tired, dirty, bloody warriors that they have leveled up. They let out a weak cheer, and then **Mila** tells the divine voice, “but we’re only level 7”.  The divine voice must have been pleased with their works this day, and booms “You know what?  Fuck it, you’re a level 9.  You want to be a level 9, you’re level 9”.

The session ends with the sounds of battle drifting up from the Citadel below...

END OF SESSION

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