Slain by Elf

'You wake up after having the undead skin grafts.' That's a relief! It would have been quite a ruse to kill the heroes of the adventure whilst unconscious after agreeing to cosmetic surgery. Maybe we can even turn the situation to our advantage.

'Does the operation count as an extended rest?' Apparently not. But two of us have a mummy eye to gain darkvision, another has a replacement zombie arm for increased strength, and we all have tattoos that grant allies bonuses when using action points.

Now we have some nifty undead parts we need to work out how to get the hag to agree to help us with the ritual to gain access to the ziggurat. 'We don't actually have to kill the hag, we just need to read her own tattoos', notes Lughar.

'Yes, all we need is some Lothario to seduce her and get her naked', I say looking across to Adran, making him cough and splutter. 'Then you can take rubbings, so to speak'.

'Have you seen her?!' Adran isn't keen with this idea, it seems, 'she's a hag!'

Lughar is quick to point out that 'you've had worse'. I'm not convinced that's quite true, so Lughar changes his wording a little. 'You've tried to have worse.' Adran still isn't keen with the plan. I suppose we'll be getting in to another fight.

Baldran is defeated and he agrees to assist us with the ritual. But only on the condition that Arath, priest of Orcus, personally gives him the order. That's okay, we are off to talk to her next.

It doesn't take much convincing to get Arath on our side, not when I wield and turn in to Nightbringer before her eyes. Even so, she must have some proof that she is not working against Orcus, 'I need some kind of act of dark faith'.

'Like a blood sacrifice?', I ask, eyeing Adran, Nightbringer perhaps affecting my moral compass a little too much.

'Yes, I was thinking along those very lines', the priest replies.

'We have brought an elf...'

'What? Artoo, you're playing the wrong message!'

Luckily for Adran, we find some other hapless charge to sacrifice, one that satisfies several requirements. He is already a minion of Orcus and so is evil, yet he is ready to betray Orcus and so is a good sacrifice, he can be tricked in to revealing his intentions, and with him out of the way I get to keep Nightbringer a little longer. Even though we participate in a blood sacrifice, it is seen as part of the greater good.

Finally, Baldran is subdued. Using the magic nose, Lughar chooses not to make the final blow lethal, knocking him unconscious instead. We revive him and start to negotiate for his assistance in the ritual, after proving our power to defeat him, but our fight has caught the attention of guards from the citadel, who are now moving to the square we are in.

Rather than face more resistance, and perhaps reveal our identities to the boss earlier than desired, we withdraw for now to return to this negotiation a little later, when the fuss has abated. 'We retreat in that direction', away from the approaching guards.

'And Adran retreats in the other direction.'

'I'm not retreating anywhere!' Oh, even better.

'Okay, Adran stays here to deal with the guards alone', and we go off and sensibly hide. But apparently Adran was quibbling over terms, wanting to make a 'tactical withdrawal' and not a 'retreat'. I remain unconvinced that the right time to argue semantic differences is when armed guards are rushing to the scene of a bloody fight.

'Can I fire my bow from prone?'

'You can do almost anything from prone, except move your normal speed.'

'Okay, it's just that you couldn't fire a bow from prone in 3.5e, which seems somewhat more realistic.'

'I think it says a lot about 4e that it has taken away the 'realism' of 3.5e.'

Our fight with Baldran the demon continues, and it looks like it will last even longer when 'the brute on the floor lets out a wail'. It seems we have another monster to fight. And the brute hasn't finished, as it 'explodes in a burst of necrotic damage. The other brute, as part of the death wail, attacks you!'

It's no ordinary whale, it's a death whale! We wait excitedly to find out what its attacks are going to be.

Actually, we wait quite a long time. Adran strikes Baldran viciously with his next attack, scoring a critical hit. The supposed swiftness of combat of 4e may mean it only takes five seconds to roll a critical hit, but it takes a good five minutes to work out the damage from the resultant hit. And still he only deals 99 damage! Where are the three digit hits, Adran?

Our fight with the demon leader Baldran continues. 'We need to knock him unconscious and negotiate with him!' I may have spotted a flaw with this plan, but as Baldran has cast a zone of darkness, impenetrable to our senses, we have more pressing matters. Thankfully, every now and again we tempt him out, or spot his tail and are able to land some solid blows in the rough direction we think it's attached to his body.

And Adoni's powerful blasts of energy not only hurt the demon's brutes, but push back Baldran himself. This gets the demon's attention, and he turns to Adoni as his next target. Baldran's whip lashes out and wraps around Adoni's leg, the demon yanking the whip backwards to pull our companion in to the darkness.

Just before he disappears from sight, Adoni shouts, 'Fly, you fools!' But we're not going anywhere. There's no chance of us letting him take all the credit for subduing this winged demon.

As predicted, the moment we step in to Baldran's open area we are challenged by the demon and get in to a fight. We don't even get to introduce ourselves, which just isn't cricket. And although no onlooker dares to step in to the square, a large crowd forms to watch the spectacle of some idiots getting killed by the demon. As they jostle to get a good view but are careful not to enter the square, the crowd acts as an effective wall of people. They may stop us from leaving, but they also provide targets.

Adoni casts rebuke undead, a close blast that reaches out twenty-five feet and happens to spill in to the crowd. As we are in a town partially populated by undead there will be consequences for this holy energy searing the crowd. Whilst the rest of us are concerned about how it will affect our popularity, Adoni is asking just how many undead he happens to catch in the crowd. 'I get +1 damage for each target I hit.'

The GM tries to dismiss the crowd as 'non-combatants', but acquiesces and offers a suitable number of extra targets gained from rebuking a wall of undead. Adoni's power blasts from him, seriously injuring the three brutes that Baldran summons and vaporising a small section of the crowd. I don't think his robe disguise will hold out for much longer.

'Where the devil were we?' turns out to be a pertinent question, as we are in the realm of Orcus, trying to make a deal with demons to prevent an army's attack. To get the key to a fortress we need the co-operation of three lieutenants. We decide to get Baldran on our side first, the reason being that if we die trying at least we won't have wasted our time with the other two. And we are definitely going to get in to a fight. As Lughar notes, 'I don't know why I'm saying a glib limerick [to help his diplomacy skill] when going to meet Baldran, as we're only going to have to get in to a brawl to prove ourselves'.

I wonder aloud if he's been reading the adventure, but Adoni points out that 'No, he's been playing 4th Edition'. We may be speaking in tongues, but it helps resign us to the fate of rolling initiative before we can even say hello. This doesn't stop us from coming up with a plan, though.

Lughar is going to impress Baldran by dropping prone as a free action then standing up as a minor action, which may work if the demon is a fan of Harold Lloyd. And deva Adoni is 'wearing the impenetrable disguise you got me of a robe'. This goes part of the way to explain why our plans fail.

Moments before we get to approach Baldran, a ghoul from the crowd haplessly wanders in to the demon leader's clearing. 'How dare you come in to my square uninvited', the demon growls.

'He just means his five-foot square', Lughar says, explaining that Baldran likes to maintain some personal space. I'm not convinced, as the demon looks large to me. Before we can digress further, Baldran lashes out with a massive whip and cuts the ghoul in to two halves. 'Oh, that was just a minion, he's only proven he can do one point of damage.'

In Hordethrone, we need to find somewhere to rest. Our adventures have taken us from the underground drow city to the desert, across a bone bridge and through a gate of putrid arms. Our combat powers have dwindled and we need to recharge. The only problem is that this city has no accommodation. Even the inn is merely a covered pit selling distilled tar. But we are told that the ramshackle huts are free for the taking, as long as we have the mettle to take one. That sounds easy enough.

A hovel is picked at random and we confidently open the door and stride in to claim it as our own, at least for the night. A couple of robed humans, backed by ghouls, take exception to our entrance. 'Get out. This is ours.'

'It's ours now', I tell them, 'you get out'. We are asked to make an intimidation check, for which I enlist the aid of my bardic friend.

'Grr.' It is maybe not the best intimidating Lughar has performed, but it may do the trick. Lughar is asked for his will defence score, but sees right through this ploy. 'I'm not telling you that! You can't just ask me such things and expect a straight answer.' But apparently it is the GM who is asking, not the NPCs, so that's okay.

The robed cultists do not seem terribly swayed and need more convincing that they should leave. I think I can help them out. 'We specialise in killing undead', I say, pointing out their undead companions, 'your ghouls mean nothing to us, which just leaves you to torture slowly before we have a restful sleep.'

We are asked for another intimidate check and Lughar rolls a 40, which should do it. 'Adoni-zedek makes some 'turn undead' motions and convinces the cultists to leave the hut to you', the GM tells us.

'Oh right, I forgot that we can actually do that, making it a more effective bluff that I had hoped.' Better still, we get to rest for the night and regain all our powers. We'll need them, in order to deal with Kalarel's lieutenants.

A wayward roll of a damage die sees a D8 skitter off the table and on to a player's lap.

'That one's cocked.'