Sunday 29 May 2016

GURPS Free Cities Session 8: Mindflayer Attack

Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (272 points)
Aurum Red Brand - Human Wizard (270 points)
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (276 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (269 points)

Day 9 (Cont.)
Mor'ath walked through the door and towards the purple, tentacle-faced humanoid, while Zaxod readied his axes, and then followed (at half speed due to his injuries).  Arc started to stand up while Aurum ran out into the hallway towards the noise.  The thing launched a flurry of telekinetic attacks towards Zaxod, driving him back into the negatives, and lazily levitated on its disc towards the rune-trapped stairs.

Zaxod was unable to close to melee before it was over the threshold of the stairs, and switched to throwing axes while taking enough psionic lashes to kill any other member of the party.  Aurum started casting a Fireball, and Arc began walking towards the fight, not that he was sure what he'd do with 1FP and a dry power item.

The humanoid used some psionic ability, but everyone resisted it, so it continued to assault Zaxod and retreat.  Mor'ath followed the humanoid down the stairs, and managed to nimbly avoid the runes.  Zaxod missed with his first two throwing axes, while Aurum managed to hit Mor'ath in the back with a 4d Fireball (oops).  Arc continued making his way towards the fight while the humanoid began to retreat around a corner at the bottom of the stairs.

Just before the disc went around the corner, Zaxod successfully removed the humanoid's left leg with a thrown axe, and it fell off.  Arc started charging a free Sunbolt, while the prone humanoid crawled out of sight.  Mor'ath continued following it, and knelt down beside its head.  Just before it tried to grapple his skull and dig in, however, he managed to break free of the mind control.

Zaxod grabbed Aurum and got ready to throw him across the stairs while the humanoid called out in some foul language and then lashed at Mor'ath 4 times, mortally wounding him and leaving him 5 HP from instant death.

While Aurum flew through the air, he saw more of the grey, faceless humanoids arriving with greataxes, slightly before he slammed into the ground and was stunned thanks to the falling/throwing damage driving him down to -8HP.  Zaxod began walking across the runes, was severely electrocuted thanks to his halved dodge, and started attacking the faceless.

Arc landed his Sunbolt on one of the faceless, and it charged up the stairs at him, but was electrocuted on the way and missed horribly.  With its back turned, he landed a hit to the torso, and shortly thereafter landed another hit to the neck, killing it.

Aurum recovered from his stun and retreated away from the greataxe of one faceless, but backed onto the runes, and was electrocuted.  He then cast Levitate to get out of harm's way.

Zaxod began cleaving arms and killed the rest of the faceless, and rounded the corner just as the purple humanoid was taking a bite out of Mor'ath's skull (leaving him with exactly 1HP remaining).  Luckily, he was able to decapitate it before it finished Mor'ath off.

Combat over, Aurum investigated the bronze disc after sweeping one of the dead faceless off of it, and discovered that it had two command phrases in an unknown language etched into it that told it to wait or follow, but no obvious way to have it carry you around, as the purple humanoid had done.  Zaxod then stole its breastplate.

Arc grabbed up all the rest of the team's stuff and then walked around the outside of the building to the hole in the wall, which was right above where the rest of the party was resting.  Aurum Levitated Mor'ath, himself, and Zaxod up after resting for a while to regain FP, while Arc cast Suspended Animation on Mor'ath to keep him from (possibly) dying from his wounds (in 12 hours).  After resting for another half-hour or so, to get everybody back above 1/3FP, the party then began the trek back to the surface, with Mor'ath's body riding on the disc.

The party made it outside just as the sun was setting, and headed to Odwen's cabin.  Arc said that they had slain many foes, but had themselves been greatly wounded, and asked if they could stay the night.  Odwen reluctantly agreed, but then asked how many enemies they had killed, and how many yet remained.  Arc had no idea, but Aurum and Zaxod agreed that they had killed "about 20" things in the tunnels.

Aurum got Odwen to read his etching of the runes above the door, and was informed that they said "something about home" in a very old dialect.

Arc cast Healing Slumber on Mor'ath and Zaxod, followed by Major Healings on Mor'ath and Aurum.

Notes:
They seemed to get the "don't rest in a dungeon" thing, except for Aurum, who was all for resting inside the dungeon again.  With one party member mortally wounded and 1HP away from death, another at -44, and both casters almost entirely out of FP.

The entire 3 hours was pretty much one fight.  The lesson here is to stay together.  Aurum and Arc spent the first 4-5 rounds just getting to the same room as everyone else (for the second time).

There was much debate about taking the purple humanoid's head to harvest alchemy bits, but it was ultimately left behind.

The purple humanoid should be better at eating brains.  It failed to penetrate 2 DR multiple times because I didn't give it any Striking ST or something similar.

Zaxod spontaneously spent 4 points on Throwing to make sure he landed Aurum on the far side of the runes.

The faceless had blind-fighting, but had no reasonable way to be able to dodge ranged attacks, nor to avoid the runes.  At least one died to the runes without getting hit by a single PC.

Zaxod rolled HT something like 30 times and never failed.

Aurum almost refused to use the FP in his staff to Levitate people up, until he was reminded that he has Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions).

XP:
2 for success
1 for roleplaying
2 for the hardest fight (the purple and the faceless)
0 for completing quests
0 for loot (a single breastplate)
MVP was Arc for "getting his first kill", though as I recall he already has at least one

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