RQG 214 - Guivres

## Content Warnings

Fire, Hivemind, Injury, Building collapse, Discussions of: death (inc. character death), Mentions of: heights & falling, body horror, being trapped/buried, SFX: occasional beeping, wind & rushing air, flapping, explosions, smashing glass, continuous pulsing note, static, screaming & roaring

## Summary

Join Alex, Helen, Bryn, Lydia, and Ben as they race for the tower while avoiding draconic destruction. This week Hamid plans to cause problems, Zolf gets a lay of the land, Azu may be in just the wrong place, and Cel is feeling a bit rattled.

## Synopsis

**(Quick note: the party is in initiative for the entire episode but combat proper doesn't happen until the very end, so it's all in the synopsis instead of in a combat breakdown section)**

Guivres unfolds from the tower, a golden dragon with blue veins running crisscross over their skin, and her eyes immediately turn toward Skraak as it starts to track them. Skraak seems to veer away from the dragon, still invisible, but the party is no longer able to follow Skraak’s movements. The rest of the party waits with bated breath to see if Guivres leaves the tower, as she is covering the rest of the tower.

On the ground level, all of the blue-veined people stop and immediately turn toward the same exact spot that Guivres’ eyes are trained on - interestingly, the group of people who don’t seem to have any markings of the blue veins do not, and seem to be mobilizing, in a sense. The party continues to wait, and watch as Guivres takes a deep breath before immediately turning away before bright white firelight streams out from her mouth. It’s followed by a shockwave of hot air; no one loses their footing, but the fire is incredibly destructive. It melts everything in its path; one of the rooftops is stripped bare. After the fire stops, she leaps up from the tower and starts following the path of her fire, presumably going after Skraak. As she flies, it’s clear that she doesn’t seem to be elegant with it, but she’s fast.

The second Guivres lifts off, Topaz (carrying Azu and Zolf) rockets forward, followed quickly by Cel, Wilde, and Hamid. As they go, they begin to hear commotion from the houses of Parliament themselves; it sounds like the entire building is being ransacked, with lots of fighting happening in many different places. Cel veers off a bit, about halfway between where Topaz and Skraak are heading, so that they can run interference if needed. Hamid veers as well, heading more over the houses of Parliament to get ready to start attacking the plant if Guivres turns and notices the party.

Topaz continues moving, and Zolf and Azu notice that the windows of Parliament are starting to get smashed outwards. More activity seems to be going on inside, and some of the strange clicker creatures are crawling out of the building, looking like they’re also heading in the direction of Skraak.

Guivres, meanwhile, continues following Skraak at a very quick pace; Skraak keeps running away from her as well as they can. Cel continues on their same path and plans to overshoot Big Ben once they get there. Hamid pauses over top of the houses of Parliament, waiting over the plant that’s taken over the building. He notices that there’s a deep, pulsing blue glow in the center of the plant that seems to be accelerating. Additionally, there are a few non-blue veined individuals wandering around the roof, and some of the strange root creatures patrolling around. Nothing seems to be moving toward the tower at the moment.

Topaz makes it close enough to Big Ben for Zolf to examine the location; the tower itself has a relatively flat roof, good enough for all of them to land on, and in the middle, there is a glass-roofed area where you can look through and see the mechanism of the tower. There is a small staircase leading up to the top of the clocktower proper, and a small landing area within the glass that seems like it would be a good place to set down. There are plants around the building, but none of them seem to be sentient or able to fight. Any of the guardians that the party have encountered are only on the smaller levels. The staircase has a doorway leading up to the roof, which Zolf plans to cover with a wall of stone. He grabs Babbage’s headphones and puts one in his ear so that he can chat with him while they maneuver in, and then tells Azu to drop him off near the top of the staircase. Babbage tells Zolf to get him up to the roof, as that will be the best option.

Back at the houses of Parliament, the root creatures are crawling out of the room, heading in the same direction as Guivres, for the most part. As they move, Guivres takes another deep breath and aims at a building, letting out another stream of fire. Everyone closes their eyes quickly to avoid getting blinded, and the building that Guivres blew the fire at is completely demolished. [Editor’s note: at this point, Alex rolls a lot of dice for something happening off-screen]

Cel continues moving toward Big Ben, still on their same path so that they’ll be heading toward the tower on a NW angle. Hamid flies a bit more north so that he’s closer to the rest of the party, whispering “please be okay” as he goes. Wilde lands, placing himself on the NW corner of Big Ben; his attention is completely fixated on Guivres. Azu and Topaz drop Zolf off on the north side of the tower and return to the sky. Some of the root guardian things start making their way to the top of the tower, and a few of them are inside. The ground floor is awash with them, but they haven’t started swarming yet. Zolf steps off and casts Shape Stone, creating 1x1 bars that crisscross across the doors to block all entrance to the roof. His glaive lights on fire.

Guivres finally starts surveying the area and turns their head to look directly at the tower, having noticed Azu. Cel moves to the west to be prepared to draw attention away from the tower. Hamid flies north again, and then goes up, grabbing his belt around his weight and drops a maximized fireball in the middle of the root creatures on the ground. A huge section of the roof implodes, revealing that much of the roof is plant matter. The main body of the plant takes some of the fireball damage, and there is a sudden cry as every single blue-veined creature begins to scream. Cel becomes shaken. The plant begins to knit itself back together, and Guivres looks right into Hamid’s eyes.

## Quotes

**Bryn**: "I'm also not going to take the straightest possible route towards the tower. I'm actually going to veer off in a different direction, slightly, to head over the houses of Parliament?"
**Alex**: "Yeah, yeah."
**Bryn**: "So that's a completely different angle again, and if Guivres decides to turn around, I'm going to make a *real* nuisance of myself at the big plant."
**Alex**: "Yep."
**Bryn**: "I'm going to make a *real* nuisance of myself, Alex."
**Alex**: "I totally get you, I see where you're going with that. I'm picking up what you're putting down, and I'm hoping it continues to explode."
―Hamid is planning to make a real nuisance of himself.

**Lydia**: "Don't let me kill anyone!"
**Alex**: "No, no, no. I'm now bringing up the satellite view, because I wasn't aware you could measure distance with it, and I mean, how often do I get the chance to use satellite imagery to assist my imaginary game!?"
**Ben**: "(*slightly deep voice*) Our podcast is augmented."
―The players do some measuring.

**Alex**: "At the risk of popping behind the curtain- yeah. Dragons are real good at spotting when people are full of nonsense. They don't like hobbits, and they're really good at spotting when nonsense is happening."
―Guivres has noticed Azu.

**Alex**: "But, interestingly enough, hasn't noticed the halfling."
**Bryn**: "Don't worry. She's about to notice the halfling."
―Hamid is about to cast a maximised Fireball.

## Dice rolls & mechanics

*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)*

Everyone makes a perception check on Guivres: Hamid gets 28, Azu gets 20, Zolf gets 25, Cel gets 19

Everyone makes a reflex check while Guivres breathes fire: Hamid gets 21, Azu gets 15, Zolf gets 21, Cel gets 29, Skraak gets 25, Topaz gets 21

Zolf and Azu make a perception check on Parliament: Zolf and Azu get 20

Everyone makes a perception check while flying: Hamid gets 19, Azu gets 14, Zolf gets 19, Cel gets 23

Zolf makes a perception check around the tower: 20

Everyone makes a reflex check while Guivres breathes fire: Hamid gets 16, Azu gets 23, Zolf gets 25, Cel gets 16, Skraak gets 28, Topaz gets 21

Skraak makes a fortitude save: 18

Skraak makes an escape artist check: 19

Everyone makes a stealth check after Zolf lands: Hamid gets 46, Azu gets 41, Zolf gets 27, Cel gets 49

Everyone makes a will check against the plant: Hamid gets a nat 20, Azu is immune to fear and doesn’t roll, Zolf gets 30, Cel gets 24, Skraak gets 27