Episode 1406: It's just a little hug, right?

When last we left this group they were traipsing through a wizard tower, looking for a turncoat cultist who has an item we need. We've encountered some bands of cultists and destroyed them. As a reminder, this party consists of this motley crew:

Tsedek, our charming Tiefling Rogue

Itanis, a devious High Elf Wizard, fond of controlling any situation we may find ourselves in

Leoven, our quiet but effective Wood Elf Ranger

Magnus, the Human Paladin of Heironious, he has followed a vengeance path

Elle, the small but sparky High Elf Wizard, fond of blowing things up with lots of fire

After collecting the dragon skull from the bonfire room, we returned to the teleportation circle and hit the next button on the list, the star. As expected, this took us back to the observatory, and all the cultists that we killed there were still in fact dead.

The next button on the panel is a rectangle, so we hit that next. This led to a room that may have been nice at one point, but now was worse for wear. Mostly just more dracolich research. Tsedek paws through everything trying to evaluate if they are sellable, but realizes they're not that valuable and the customer would be super shady. So Magnus asks Elle to destroy the research. After a bit of back and forth, as it pains Elle to destroy books and information, Magnus emphasizes that the only use this research is good for is to create an evil undead dragon. So Elle tosses a bonfire spell under the gathered research and we left.

We returned to the teleportation circle and looked at the panel again. The next button was hourglass shaped. We double check to make sure we have the hourglass shaped key, and hit that button.

This led us to a small room with a hallway. Nothing interesting here, so Tsedek and Leoven bicker a little then sneak up the hallway to see what's up. Tsedek wanted Leoven to stay behind, Leoven did not like that plan. After a few moments the rest of the group snuck up the hallway, surprisingly well.

Tsedek indicated we should stop, turns out the next room had a fire elemental and two earth elementals in it. Magnus is like "Well Elle, you're going to need to sit this one out since all you do is fire." Well, that sat wrong with her. "Fire?! I only do fire?! I did lightning in the last fight! I used to follow your thunder with lightning! ugh!"

Don't know if it was Magnus and Elle's disagreement, or the earth elemental's ability to sense vibrations, but they knew we were there. Tsedek did something he rarely does, he used his Tiefling ability to create magical darkness around the elementals. Not even dark vision can see in magical darkness, and to combat we go.

Leoven immediately runs up a wall and around a corner and lofts a couple of arrows to wear the elementals were, as we hadn't heard them move. Elle, still muttering about only doing fire, promptly blankets the darkness zone with Ice Storm, doing cold and bludgeoning damage to the elementals.

Tsedek wades in and proceeds to whip one of the elementals for a fair bit of damage, then scampers over near Leoven. Itanis pulls a trick out to change the terrain in the room. The room now has ankle deep water and several waterfalls around to hopefully disguise the vibrations of us walking about.

So then the elementals start moving. The fire elemental immediately scampered over to Tsedek and Leoven and lays the smack down on Leoven, catching him on fire. One of the earth elementals comes out and attacks Tsedek. The other one tries to come out but had Tsedek's sonic bubble around it so it took sonic damage as it moved.

Magnus does what he does best and waltzes in and lays the hammer down, so to speak. He proceeds to smash one of the elementals.

Leoven is not really a fan of being on fire or in direct melee, proceeds to nope out of that mess to the other side of the room, and puts himself out with the water Itanis had created. Elle, now that she can see what she's dealing with smacks one of the earth elementals with her fire bolt. Tsedek lays the smack down again on the fire elemental. Itanis creates a wall between the earth elementals and the rest of the melee. So Magnus smashes the fire elemental, and it dies.

The earth elementals, deciding a mere stone wall was insufficient to contain them, decide to be all tricky. One of them reaches through the stone wall, grabs up Tsedek, and pulls Tsedek through the wall. The other one tries to smash at Tsedek but fails mightily.

Leoven and Elle hold at the ready for Itanis to change the field of play again, and as soon as he dropped the wall we both let loose. Leoven with his quite deadly arrows, Elle with another firebolt. The elemental that had Tsedek lets go of him, so Tsedek repays that kindness by whipping him some more, killing him. That leaves one elemental left, and Magnus turns his hammer's attention on it. The elemental decides he's not fond of that and returns the favor.

At this point Leoven is feeling quite full of himself and tries some tricky wall-walking arrow shooting flair, looks about as graceful as a seal on ground, but manages to still hit the remaining elemental. Elle lets loose with another firebolt but misses this time unfortunately. Itanis decides this fight is over and proceeds to wander down the other hallway to see what there is to see, while Tsedek finishes off the last elemental.

And that's where we ended this week!