Attendees:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was a glowing orb, it was an orb of darkness.
We begin by buying a few “combos” for our powers and spending loose XP before crossing over, since there likely will be no mentor on the other side. Then we crash the gate.
On the other side is a world of darkness with no sun and no moon. Sound familiar? Well, that’s what they claim the last world is like. Truthspinner can see in the darkness and warns there are four beings of chaos nearby. Some glowing ice from the last world shows the group that they are beings of coal. They don’t stand much of a chance against the heroes. Turns out that it’s a good thing we skipped the natural inclination to set the coal on fire, because it would have created plumes of toxic, diseased smoke.
The gate is basically in an underground cave and goes in 3 directions. The plinth, when located, directs us to the left. We start funneling the hordes of troops and normals to the left as they come through.
Then comes the rumbling and the ground opening and the giant ant. Yup, a bus-sized Ant breaks the ground and drops 9 of our folks into the pit he made. It settles on the biggest essence user currently and charges. As Stings, JT, and Defender are at one end, of the cave that’s where he heads. Truthspinner is able to advance up the cave and attack from behind (to pretty much no effect). The group kill the giant ant.
The underground appears to be a labyrinth. It may have been made harder to navigate by the fact that there are dark elves lurking about and they *may* have figured out clawspeak, so who knows how much they’ve misdirected things. But there are so many groups of patrin coming through that we often crisscross one another and compare notes on what was in each direction.
During the trip, one young woman jumps off of a ledge and into a chasm. We (primarily Defender) provide some counseling to keep morale up. A few days later while people are still pumped, another woman commits homicide, killing her own baby. Fortunately, JT does not fly into a rage. Interrogation reveals that she was having horrible dreams. At first some of the group suspect maybe Rogan (the elf) was responsible for eating her dreams, but then she wouldn’t be having ANY dreams. Heck, if this kept up, I was going to suggest that Rogan eat any nightmares he comes across for a while until we solved this. But that wasn’t necessary. Seems that there is a Mindflayer/Roper creature who is causing this to happen. We feign a cursory search of the area when we know exactly where he really is, then close in. It’s actually smacked down pretty quickly, before it can compel any of us to do something dangerous to the others.
Our glowing ice is melting. Quickly something is put together to help stave that off, involving a legendary minotaur horn as storage. We can take them out for a short while but then must put them back and take out others. This rotational scheme keeps them alive for a while longer.
One cave seems to have spider webs surrounding much of the ground inside it. Various sensory charms reveal that somewhere in the darkness are small spiders and one big one. So it is suggested that since we’re not under immediate siege that we bring up the arbalest. We do this and a short or two are launched into the darkness, perhaps hurting some. The big spider launches an area effect web from which our arbalest is hauled in order to make it useful again. They rush from the webs and some hand-to-man hands ensues. We trash them and everyone stays conscious, which is nice. We didn’t get any giant-ant-versus-tyrannosaurus action earlier, but we make up for that with T-rex-versus-the giant spider, which as a spider-American has me torn. But ultimately I root for the T-rex, who grabs the spider in his mouth like a dog with a chew toy. We smack it around while it is held helpless.
Then come the drow and drow-ninja. Our entourage encounters a room full of shrooms, beyond which is another larger room full of armed drow. Their initial attack with darts misses, and we pull back around the corner. We again move the arbalest to the front. It’s not easy to wield such a thing under dart-fire, but with defender up front absorbing dart shots, JT poking his head around the corner long enough to absorb a few, and Stings triggering the small clouds of fungi as he tries to sneak toward the bad guys, Truthspinner launches a shot that injures half the foes. About then, their big magic-type sends out a pulse that cancels all our non legendary and non artifact magic. This means we’re in the dark. Fine for Truthspinner who still manages to nail the group with the second shot. After blasting a patch in the fungi, the group jumps there and goes across to face their caster. She has a duo of archers, who don’t get to do all that much. She is in a “glowing orb of darkness”, which is kind of egg-shaped really, and is kind of translucent as we determine that within she has many, many, shadow copies of herself, thus making it harder to be targeted. She is also casting something. Truthspinner snipes her with a few bowshots from the ceiling, JT leaps up onto the ledge where she’s perched, T-rex sticks his nose in her business, and assassin-scorp goes in for the sneaky kill. We get her, but not before she manages to successfully cast her spell, bringing forward a sword of darkness that fights for her. But it goes down after she does. The archers are no problem after that.
This leads us to the mass combat. You see, we’ve gotten word that the first and most nasty of the patrin, Lilith, has cracked the exit. This means that even if we die now we are ensured our existence. Our hearthstones have been fading because the worlds behind us are collapsing. This makes every patrin do a mad rush to the exit. So there are patrin who have abandoned their people in order to make it. There are patrin who have smaller, less-successful groups because they tried this dimension-crossing thing solo. And then there’s us… 310… er, 304 people strong.
After much juggling, we wind up with each of us leading a group and King Phillip leading the helpless folks.
Forgive me if I have our groupings a little off, but I think I’ve got the thrust of it:
(All units are size 3)
VERSUS
Our advantages: Range, speed, and maneuverability. Their advantages: Manpower and overwhelming magnitude in a face-to-face confrontation.
The arbalest fires the first shot but the enemy is in loose formation and it doesn’t do anything. Their size seems to be keeping them safe from most such blows. Maybe once they’re smaller they’ll be easier to harm.
Jade Tiger’s group blows past one unit which continues toward Defender’s group. Defender performs a leap over that unit to engage from the back, but unfortunately that group gets one shot on him first. They don’t do much of anything, fortunately. They land behind the unit and begin pecking away. Meanwhile, Jim performs manipulation on opposing units, feinting them into turning the wrong direction. The arbalest continues its shots from safety but really has little effect until Defender and Jade Tiger manage to knock the unit down in size.
Our biggest help by all accounts is the manipulation. Getting those units to run in the wrong direction helps protect Truthspinner’s ranged group and King Phillip’s helpless running guys. There are only two direct attacks on units by the enemy due to our sneakiness… That first attack on Defender simultaneous with his leap, and a small (magnitude 2) unit attack on the magnitude 3 arbalest group headed by Truthspinner, which caused no damage.
The rest was all basically our groups outflanking the enemy, steering them in the wrong direction through manipulation, and a “unit chasing its tail” sequence with a massive unit turning in circles to try and get the smaller unit.
We crush the enemy with no noted casualties.
We crash the final gate. What do we find outside the known universe?
There is an angel. A dark angel. Seems he used to be our friend, the echidna—the missing 5th member of our group. Seems this is the 2nd circle soul, a being that has somehow been imbued with our friend by the labyrinth.
He is there to convince us that we can be protected and saved if we join him. Seems there is social combat afoot. Next game.