Comeback kid

a tale from the table

2021-09-01

I’m writing this right after wrapping up a game that I play weekly with some of my friends because I am wired and want to write this down.

It was one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Dramatic, intense, wild ups and downs.

So a priest, a thief, a fighter, and a sorcerer are exploring some underground catacombs coursing with dark magic that has corrupted and taken possession of the holy protectors of the dead. We’re looking for a small group of city guard that came down here for some reason and have gone missing.

Down in the belly of the catacombs, we find them holed up in a room, but they refuse to leave until we recover the body of their leader who was swallowed up by a jelly to the south.

So we head over there and find not a jelly, but a sixteen foot tall armored humanoid mass of tentacles puppeteering the captain nestled deep in its ribcage.

We send in Fighter, and the horror summons a jelly (so there is one after all!) that drops from the ceiling and starts dumbly going after the fighter. Thief starts stabbing, Sorcerer starts blasting, and Priest discovers that the armored horror is especially susceptible to holy damage.

Armored horror does not like the damage that Priest is putting out, so swings across the room on a tentacle arm like Bionic Commando and lays the priest out unconscious. Then expels the captain from its ribcage, tentacle grabs Priest and sucks him into its ribcage and then starts siphoning Priest’s spells and casts a nova healing on itself, restoring it from worn and weary to nearly new looking.

Party is disheartened. Armored Horror With Priest Powers knocks out Thief and then Sorcerer.

Fighter is miraculously holding his own, going toe to toe with it while evading the jelly (which has split into two at this point because Fighter at one point tried slashing it with his axe). But he’s on his own and getting worn down, and TPK is a forgone conclusion.

And then right as things look most dire, Fighter manages rolls exactly enough damage to take down the Armored Horror, which expels the Priest. Fighter pours a healing potion down Thief’s throat as the jellies pummel him. Thief wakes up and Fighter shields her as she does field medicine successfully enough to wake up Priest. Priest drops a nova area effect heal and restores everybody practically to full health. Jellies suddenly become non-threats and we clean up.

We grab the captain, who is actually still (barely) alive after being suspended between life and death by the horror, and retreat back to the room with the guards, slam the doors shut, and proceed to be thoroughly traumatized by recent events.