Battle of Silverymoon

December 21, 2020

Raz jumps to action, going after the phaerimm.  He heads out of the Golden Oak and starts chasing after it.  Drewgan, Marcus, and Dakxer also head out.  That's when the ambushers drop the fireballs on the inn.  Shyrrik and Volhoric feel it and Volhoric gets going outside as well.  Volhoric exits via a window, rolling and then jumping and twisting as another fireball rocks the Golden Oak.  Volhoric isn't sure if Shyrrik is taking his time on purpose or not as both blasts didn't get to him but did singe the whole building and started several small fires.  

As most of the group is outside and they are being attacked, Drewgan flies up and gets a look at the city.  The block to the west of them is on fire but he sees the phaerimm to the north.  He tells the rest of the group.  Raz starts running toward the phaerimm, telling the others that the fires can wait or can be put out by others.  The phaerimm will start more if they don't stop him.  While the rest of the party agrees, by the time they start following Raz on the road, a wall of force is blocking them!  Dakxer tries to go to an alley way, which fills with a foul smelling stench and a yellow green cloud.  Dakxer is about to try another alley when five beams of fire blast into him, dropping him!  

Raz ran past someone attacking and told the others to tie him up.  He seemed to be acting against his will in attacking them.  Volhoric only had rope and used that as well as he could.  Then he saw Dakxer go down and before he could rush over, a wall of stone appeared.  Volhoric knew about the wall of force from Marcus and hoped it didn't but up against the wall of stone.  He was able to get past both and over to Dakxer to help.  Then got blasted himself by fire but managed to survive.  

Raz kept following the directions Drewgan was giving to find the phaerimm.  He hoped the others were close but knew from the ring that they had been pinned down near the Golden Oak.  As he approached the block, two huge orange, red, and yellow birds, with thirty foot wingspans appeared!  They kept trying to grab him in their talons and either missed or went after the duplicate from the cloak.  He kissed the cloak and kept going, hoping Tymora stayed with him.  

Shyrrik found the tied up Eldritch Knight, who's name was Steel Soul, and tried to help.  Then more spells rained down on the area and Shyrrik turned to try and find the casters.  Seeing nothing, they must be invisible!  He cursed and moved to help.  Steel Soul also cursed, as the compulsion had been taken care of by Dakxer, and so helped by boosting Shyrrik, including True Sight, allowing him to see the mages.  He barely got off a few shots, though, when it happened.  Shyrrik had never been targeted by mind control before and so was unprepared, compared to Raz, to have his thoughts invaded.  He suddenly had the need to attack his friends.  Friends?  Ha.  They laughed at him and joked at him.  They thought he hadn't know when he was doing when he went to Tanshan's grove in faerie and that had all worked out.  His bow hummed as he shot, happy with warning shots that missed as much as ones that hit.  

Raz kept asking for help as he crashed through into a back courtyard area and found the phaerimm.  He managed a shot that cut off a good six feet of its tail, including a stinger, but then got frozen for his troubles with deep cold from the phaerimm.  One of the hands had turned, revealing an eye in the palm, and sent the razor shards of ice at him.  He kept going, still avoiding the birds and calling for his friends.

Marcus didn't want to stick around anymore.  He rushed over to Volhoric and Dakxer, both up and taking a few pot shots at the casters.  Marcus touched both them and teleported north to the road.  That probably saved one or two of them.  As they disappeared, Shyrrik was ordered to kill Steel Soul.  And he did.  Four arrows thrummed and struck true, dropping him.  Shyrrik merely shrugged and waited for more orders.  

When the group saw the meteor strikes take apart the block, they decided to hold back.  Dakxer sent healing magic through the ring to Raz.  They were hounded by one of the casters but managed to take him down.  Another meteor strike came down and they kept sending to Raz, who had just gotten out of the way.  Raz was close to cutting down the phaerimm when Tymora left him.  The phoenix managed to grab Raz and take off.  Then the other did the same to Dakxer and Volhoric.  Volhoric's daggers cut deeply into the phoenix and spells burned it.  It dropped and they fell to the ground, breathing hard.  The caster appeared and this time used conjured azure bolts and lightning spears.  Again, they didn't like that and with spell and dagger struck him down.  

Raz saw that the phoenix had steel bars jammed into it's body and while it probably hurt in the short term, climbed up using them, pulling them out as he went.  After taking out four, that seemed to clear enough of the phoenix's mind to realize he was helping.  Raz managed to pull out a few more and then the phoenix was nearing the phaerimm.  Columns of flame came down from the heavens and slammed into the phaerimm, burning it more.  Raz leapt from the phoenix, it was only thirty feet up, rolled and attacked the phaerimm.  Then got back out of there, by climbing up a balcony and leaping back onto the phoenix.  The phaerimm sent a beam as cold as the grave just missing Raz but slamming into the phoenix.  It died instantly and Raz had to jump off or crash with it into a building.  More healing arrived from the ring, and the others were headed his way but the phaerimm had taken the opportunity to start creating a gate!  It was calling forth something from the depths of the Abyss and would not be good.  Several columns of near dragon breath hit it and between the two of them, the phaerimm couldn't hold the spell and the gate collapsed.  Then Raz was on it and cut it down.  

Shyrrik was ordered to kill one of the other mages and had no problem putting four arrows into him.  Then the caster had Shyrrik join him at his side.  Shyrrik's heart leapt that he had helped his friend out.  Now they were going to loot.  Shyrrik liked loot.  Before they looked at Steel Soul, though, the caster, it's weird how Shyrrik didn't know his best friends name for sure.  Poul?  Andre?  Phillipe?  It kept leaving his mind.  But his friend asked for his bow.  No, demanded it.  This wasn't a friend asking to see it, this was someone asking for his bow.  From Tanshan.

HIS.  BOW.

That snapped Shyrrik out of the dominate and walking toward the caster, holding out the bow as if offereing it, Shyrrik whipped out the sword of the planes.  Using his own abilities, Shyrrik tried to open a portal into some Fey Court.  Hopefully the Queen of Air and Darkness herself but even near it would be good.  Shyrrik managed to create the portal next to the caster.  This caught the caster off guard and the kick from Shyrrik sent the caster tumbling into the portal, which Shyrrik promptly closed.  

As healing emerged from the rings, along with the soothing sounds of a tavern, the group realized the fighting was done.  However, Drewgan reported it was only the fighting in their area.  Several other places in town were on fire.  As people realized there was no longer any threat due to the group, they started coming out to fight the fires.  Drewgan had summoned a water elemental to put out several fires and it had saved the Golden Oak Inn as well as the buildings to the west.  There were still more fires.  

115,000 xp

GM Notes

• The phaerimm prepared by casting time stop and then casting a bunch of other defensive spells on itself before moving away from the group.
• The group responded quickly enough to the phaerimm, that they didn't have to figure out how to stop normal citizens, who would have been charmed or dominated, from attacking them, attacking other citizens, or burning more buildings. 
• This may be one of the best battles I have run.  It truly felt epic. 
• d20Pro did really well by allowing me to switch between the city map and the area map around the Golden Oak. 
• If anything, I'm almost annoyed I didn't have a few more zoomed in maps ready that we could have used for other hot spots.
• There was some delay but not too bad in switching between the maps and it worked well.
• In part due to the group being spread out, but still being able to help each other or fly or teleport around, even split, they could help. 
• Marcus teleporting three of them away from a dominate Shyrrik worked mostly well. 
• The phaerimm's spells and items were also quite epic, doing a lot of damage but nothing that was instantly deadly.  Raz could take the damage it was sending.
• In the end, really happy with how well this played out.   
• Now to see if this will have the group retire to Nesme and the bar they have, maybe getting some land in Silverymoon?  Or will they keep going?  Find out next time.  Same bat time.  Same bat channel. 

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