Expedition 81: Don't Fuck with Me

## Summary

We fight and kill Bruxxvalos, and enter the dragon's lair. At the bottom, we find a room housing the draconic chain. Nexrin tries to break it, and is turned into a pen. Bea successfully breaks it, but is killed. Yezra revivifies her, after a staredown with the god Nerulla.

## Detailed Writeup

### Part 1: The White Menace

The group prepares to fight Bruxxvalos, gearing up with magical items and putting on freshly-purchased Nerulla Block.

Nexrin leads the group, and we decide to try and fight Bruxxvalos on the lower slopes. We try to get his attention, first Yezra tries to shout "Chromatic dragons suck!" to no effect, but Damien takes this idea and runs with it, creating massive drumbeats with minor illusion and screams terrifyingly into the air, his voice carrying and echoing (nat 20), getting the dragon's attention.

Yezra suggests we go to the border of the truewood so we can hide behind trees from the breath weapon. We all wait, and the dragon dives - only to fly above our range and head east, diving into the Truewood. We hear it crashing through the trees, and issuing a challenge in common. We advance into the wood after the dragon.

*Fight!* Tolyr peppers it with animated pebbles and attempts 12th level disintegration, though it makes its save. It is obscured by the trees, so we all close in, unable to see it as it hovers above Tolyr. Tolyr then casts Earthbind successfully, as a column of earth comes up and lashes it to the ground. It then blasts a breath weapon at Tolyr, Nexrin, and Yezra for 61 damage, and Yezra is immediately felled, though is protected by Uzmir's magic. Tolyr loses concentration on Earthbind, and Nexrin absorbs elements.

The dragon rises into the air again, and goes into a rage. We then do incredibly badly at damaging it, but this is good, because it loses its rage - or so we think, but we misunderstood rage rules. It then goes after Damien, who immediately goes down, but thankfully avoids being devoured. It then turns on Tolyr. Yezra casts Aid on herself, Damien, and Tolyr. Uzmir finally attacks with Mind sliver and Mind Thrust, allowing it to only dash or disengage on its next turn (we are trying to break its rage). Recently awakened, Damien successfully casts Tasha's hideous laughter on it, and it rolls on the ground laughing low growls. After two rounds of us not attacking him, his rage finally drops as he comes back to his senses.

Bea savagely attacks with Fafnir, and pins herself to the dragon (nat 20). Yezra attacks with Stormpierce, bloodying the dragon - an ethereal, shimmering shell then closes around Bruxxvalos, which Tolyr recognizes as a Ward of Tiamat. Nexrin attacks with his greatbow, and Uzmir and Damien attack with Mind Sliver and Eldritch Blast. Not wanting to lose the pinned Fafnir, Bea pulls out her trident and attacks. Tolyr binds it to the earth once again. The dragon leaps towards Yezra, and viciously attacks her, felling her instantly, though not devouring her (exactly similar to what happened to Damien). It then burrows into the ground, and Bea follows as she is pinned to the creature. Damien heals Yezra to 1hp. Bea, being dragged under the earth, attacks with a mundane shortsword, only barely not killing it.

Tolyr dimension doors both him and Uzmir *into* the earth adjacent to the dragon, with arcane precision. Bruxxvalos finally gets his breath weapon back, and blasts the three underground heroes with his icy breath. Uzmir slashes into the dragon's mind with a hand on his snout, and fells the white dragon, as it slumps over in the grave it has dug itself.

Tolyr dimension doors Bea out, and the rest of us spend some time digging Uzmir out, but it's ok because Uzmir doesn't need to breathe. We decide to leave the dragon here for now, as it is well-buried.

### Part 2: The Lair

We aim to find the dragon's lair, and hopefully the chain as well. We enter a skill challenge, which is skillfully handled by Bea asking birds where the dragon lives, and Nexrin plotting a path up the mountain.

On the way up, we notice some boulders that look familiar... it's the Earth Elemental we knocked off the mountain, back for revenge! Bea pushes it closer to the cliff, and Yezra with Thunderous Strike pushes it 10 feet away from her off the cliff with a hit from Stormpierce. We may have to deal with it later, but not immediately.

We reach the platform the birds spoke of, which opens up into a glittering cavern of frost, which slopes down deep into the mountain. We have found the dragon's lair. We travel down the slope, getting lost in tunnels, and avoiding some icy stalagtites and pit traps. We notice that these traps are going to make it harder for things to get out, not for things to get in. In the depths, we hear the rattling of manacles.

Tolyr sends Annie to investigate. There are many pits filled with corpses, three of which have three humanoid figures still moving inside. We approach, and find a dead warforged in a pit, and try to communicate with the living creatures. Tolyr moves closer, and falls into a pit, to notice that these creatures are not living... they are ghouls.

Bea rushes forward and joins Tolyr in the pit, escaping surprise with rage. They die easily, but explode on death in a fountain of poison damage. Uzmir also slips in, and Tolyr misty steps out. We easily kill the others in the other pits.

We investigate the pits, and find three items of interest: a belt with ceramic plates, a decorated silver sword, and a pair of white gloves with words on them.

We continue onwards, seeing numerous mangled creatures sealed in the ice along the passageway, including a frost giant, beasts, umberhulks, orcs, whales, etc. We note that this amount of food may be able to make a dent in the Kiore food shortage.

Continuing onwards, we see several offshoots from the main path, containing strange things - dragon eggshells, tiny frozen dragons.

We continue onwards, to a large chamber with two large statues. One is a copper statue of Mae'ra, the other is a golden statue of Pelor shaped in a somewhat dwarven way. Between them, a large tangled nest with three large rods of black metal pinned into the ground. As Tolyr goes to investigate them, he bonks his head on a sharp shard of true glass. We splash red water on them to illuminate them - a trueglass lance, spear, and pike, all baned against humanoids. Nexrin investigates the nest, and finds two platinum pieces and a large cache of diamonds (750gp).

We find a tunnel out from this chamber, but it is filled with ice. We build a fire and heat our miners' picks to chip through the many feet of ice. Meanwhile, Uzmir identifies the objects we found and Tolyr. Tolyr is not under the effect of any curses.

In the small room underneath we find the skeleton of a metallic dragon wrapped around a knot of iron chains. Uzmir detects many abjurational auras as well as an enchantment effect in the room. Tolyr steps in, and succeeds a wisdom save. Yezra fails to dispel the glyph, but a warning voice booms out, which carries a regal tone and sounds like a giant.

"Little mage... You try to mess with my defenses. You should run."

Tolyr then successfully dispels the enchantment effect.

"Well, congratulations. One defense down, among dozens. Good luck with the rest."

Tolyr exits the room, and we all exit the tunnel, leaving Nexrin to shoot the chain with an arrow.

(Things are never good when the DM asks you to leave voice chat)

We hear Nexrin's bow, and then a click. We look down the tunnel, but do not find Nexrin. Down in the room, we find the arrow broken by a magic missile. We then find a nice writing pen, inscribed with the words "Don't fuck with me."

The party is angered, and upset at the realization that Nexrin has been transformed. Bea is angry, and wants to attack the chain again. Tolyr and Yezra try to physically stop her, but she insists, and we let her try.

We hear Bea's bow go off, and a huge rumble, and ice falls from the ceiling of the cavern. We start to run away, but Tolyr goes down and finds Bea, dead. Yezra rushes down to revivify.

As she casts her spell, she feels a cold touch of a grey, withered hand on her right arm. She is face to face with Nerulla, the goddess of death. Nerulla says, "I was told to make this one stick."

Yezra stares into Nerulla's eyes, and wills Bea back to life, against the wishes of Nerulla (with a truly epic nat 20 charisma check).