Slain by Elf

We encounter some hags in a swamp. This can't go well for us, but let's see how much we can make it worse.

Duncan the harrier faces up to the large hag, and starts to use his increased movement to build up some defensive manoeuvres. But he pauses.

'I have all of these cool harrier abilities, letting me move freely around the battlefield and making me harder to hit when doing so, but I haven't done a full-round attack yet. Let's do that.'

Duncan stands toe-to-toe with the hag, swinging his scythe viciously backwards and forwards with impressive intent!

*swish*
*swish*

'Great. Now I'm standing next to a large, uninjured hag without my boosted armour class. Why do I listen to myself?'

'This is the part of the adventure where you guys really need to focus on making some saving throws.'

'And by 'focus on', you mean 'roll a D20 as usual'?'

'Yes. But really focus on it.'

'I was thinking about taking the 'cremate familiar' feat.'

On the demi-plane between the planes of fire and water, we sense we are nearing the final encounter. We have checked one place where the villain might be and he wasn't there. There is just one more place to check.

'Let's use these scrolls of resist energy before going through these double doors', says Boycey. 'There seems little point in wasting them, and now is probably the best time.'

We agree, and use the scrolls to cast resist energy on each of us, choosing fire as the energy to be resisted. It's not a difficult choice when on this demi-plane, particularly as water isn't an energy type. 'Okay, let's make an entrance.'

'You open the doors, and...'

'We explode! Ha ha!'

'...you kinda do.'

'I was joking! It was a joke!'

'Not a funny one, Aramil.'

A burst of fire envelopes us as the doors open. 'What a great leader we have! Good job on suggesting the scrolls, Boycey', says Boycey, and in his moment of hubris forgets to dodge, failing his reflex saving throw and getting fully engulfed by the fireball.

Before us stands the villain, holding a necklace of fireballs missing its most expensive bead. An extended surprise round continues with him monologuing, an NPC class feature, apparently. His little, self-promotional speech ends with, 'I will let you choose whether to burn or drown!'

'Burn, please!'

'Inside the chest is a staff.'

'How many?'

'Um, just the one.'

'That's a small staff. Maybe he only needs a butler.'

'That's how useless wizards are.'

'Oi!'

'No, Wizards of the Coast. They've put the medium outsider Azer miniature on a small base.'

We defeat the wizard, don't get vaporised by the protective wards, and switch the steam back on for the city. It's a simple matter to return to the surface and report back to the Lyceum.

Nearing the end of our debriefing, Aramil admits that 'I never trusted that bloke, he looked shifty from the start'.

'You are clearly more discerning than most', he is told by a grateful steward.

'Never trust a wizard, that's what I say.' Yes, that is what Aramil says, in the heart of the Lyceum, building of the city council, run by wizards, and devoted to teaching magic. Maybe this is why we choose to leave soon after and help our new fire elemental pal to get back to his home plane.

With the help of our rescued companion, and a little fiery fellow, we find the evil wizard who has disabled the heating system for the entire city. Of course, he starts monologuing. Typical.

'Can't we just attack him? He's kinda distracted.'

'I think you need a feat to interrupt quest text.' We learn all about the wizard's scheme, whether we want to or not, until 'the evil wizard finishes his spiel. Can I have initiative rolls, please?'

'We don't even get a chance to reply? We listened to all of his crap. Bah, whatever. The next thing he'll hear is me shouting '21!'.'

'What's that?'

'With any luck, my initiative.'

Heading in to the underground tunnels that form the steam system reveals what appear to be lived-in passages, lit by torches. We were led to believe the whole system would normally be filled with steam, so this is not quite what we expect.

'Can I make a knowledge check to see how long these torches have been lit?'

'Yep.'

'How about knowledge: engineering?'

'Sure.'

'I don't have it. Knowledge: dungeoneering?'

'Why wasn't that your first choice?'

The underground steam system that heats the city has failed. No one really knows why, partly because the system was constructed centuries ago and has never even needed maintenance, so no one alive knows about its workings or topology. This means that it's up to us brave adventurers to investigate.

'Why us? Do we have a reputation?'

'Ah. I did happen to spend all of our first day in the city regaling the students of the Lyceum about our exploits in getting here, perhaps embellishing them somewhat.'

'Great. We've been hoist by our own petard.'

'It's pronounced "retard".'