Well, well, well. This one was a biggie. Let’s jump straight in.
We jumped into the session with the big fight against Ma-Ma. She was tough – in theory – but the party stepped up, focused on her and not on the several giant spiders she created throughout the fight, and absolutely mulched her. Kipth’s first shot, which was also the first attack of the fight, was a natural 20 that did 75 points of damage and that really set the tone for the rest. He got another later on that did 70, Brakken was rolling crits left and right all session, and Monk… well, Monk got stuck in some webs… several times. He still helped take Ma-Ma down with his many, many attacks, just from the restricting influences of webbing.
After Ma-Ma was dead, the building around the party began to rumble. As Brakken freed Emerald and Monk from the webs Kipth tried to get Mallard, but he couldn’t break him free before a massive chunk of ceiling began to fall towards them. Unable to move, they braced themselves for the impact, but were protected as a massive green wing deflected the stone. Using her bulk to protect the party, Emerald withstood the total collapse of the building before shrinking down into a humanoid woman with long eyebrows and green hair and collapsing herself.
The party didn’t have long to think on this, however, as they realised they were in the large, open space where the large building had once stood – of which there was not a trace, not even rubble. Sharing the space, surrounding the party, were hundreds of giant spiders, wolfmen, and other nasty creatures. They began to turn on the party, but Brakken threatened them with extreme violence which gave them enough pause for the cavalry to arrive.
Bursting from the treeline, the party saw a large metal bull come crashing through the ranks of baddies. Upon its back, Amber fired streaks of light from an amber bow. In their wake, a dusk unicorn nimbly weaved its way through the carnage, Poppy on its back. And above them a flaming phoenix swooped from the air, cutting a swathe through the crowd with every pass.
As the unicorn got close to the party, Poppy raised her staff and flames burst from the ground all around them, incinerating the closest monsters and surrounding them in a wall of roaring fire. By the time it faded, the monsters were all dead or fled and standing just on the other side of the flames were Poppy, Amber, Ruby, Adamantine, and Amethyst, who quickly hurried to Emerald’s side to check on her.
In the aftermath of the fight, on their way back to the amethyst forest, it was explained to the party that Ma-Ma’s death had not only unfrozen everyone in the Dream, but also removed whatever barrier had existed between the Dream and the Nightmare, allowing Poppy and the others to enter. Once everyone was back at the forest they had a nice long rest and a feast before Poppy gave them her staff. Leaving Mallard, who needed several more days of recovery before he would be back in fighting form, the party used the cube to travel to the Plane of Air, with the intention of returning straight back to the Dream once they had the next staff so Amethyst could send them to the Wailing Mountain – where Brakken had realised Mithral was located.
Fortunately for the party, their trip to the Plane of Air was brief and extremely successful. Finding themselves in the Opal Clouds, the party climbed up to a cave sculpted like the mouth of a dragon. Seeing the opal staff within, they entered but were forced to fight against a strong wind suddenly blowing against them, while simultaneously, one of the remaining insane shards of Opal – a great beast known as an Elder Tempest – was suddenly alerted to their presence and began to race towards them with unfriendly intentions. However, Brakken’s strength proved him worthy, and even as Kipth and Monk were nearly blown out into the open air (a fate both dexterously avoided) he held firm and was able to grab the staff and teleport the party back to the Dream with the cube before the Tempest could reach them.
Upon returning, the party was not in the Dream long. Seeing that Mallard still needed further recovery before he was ready for what would be ahead, Amethyst agreed to send him to the keepers so that he could meet the party once they arrived to complete the ritual. Then after saying their final goodbyes, he teleported the party to the Wailing Mountain.
However, as the party was being teleported, they felt a sudden tug, like the spell had been hijacked. As they arrived, they found themselves in the Wailing Mountain, rather than nearby as Amethyst had been aiming for, and before them was the massive dragon form of Mithral, or Tim, as the party once knew him.
Few words were exchanged before the short, brutal fight began. Before anyone could act, Mithral looked at Monk and the halfling was suddenly teleported to a silvery plane from which he was unable to escape on his turn. Then Mithral roared with furious anger and Brakken and Kipth were pummelled by his force-dealing breath weapon, though only Brakken took damage as Kipth managed to Evade it completely.
Moving into their positions (ie. Brakken as close as possible and Kipth as far away as possible) the party members still in the room began their attack, rapidly tearing chunks out of Mithral. As the next round began, Monk returned to the room and joined in on the damage-fest. Mithral retaliated in kind, hitting both Monk and Brakken but doing more damage to the latter.
On the third and final round, Monk found himself teleported away again before Mithral tore into Brakken, almost but not quite bringing him down. Then retaliating with not one but two consecutive critical hits, Brakken managed to hack through the last of Mithral’s hit points without even needing his third strike. As Mithral died, he reverted back to his Tim form for long enough to tell the party that it didn’t matter, as they’d never defeat Arcanite, before Brakken finally silenced him for good.
Once the party’s blood lust settled, a voice calling from another room reminded them that Mithral had a bunch of prisoners they were also supposed to rescue. Following it, they found the eight surviving members of the Council of Fifteen currently chained to the wall, with streams of light running to each of them from the mithral staff in the middle of the room, currently planted into some kind of technological device.
Being told the staff needed to be removed before the council members could be let down, Kipth tried to pull it out but failed his strength check. Then Brakken stepped up and proved his superior strength, taking an intense amount of damage as all the energy was momentarily redirected into him (though his Relentless Endurance saved him). It was only after this that the party realised there was an off button on the device.
Getting the council members off the wall, the party members accompanied them as the blind woman – the seemingly wisest member – teleported them to Fallen Star. There, they planned for the assault on Arcanite and his army to happen the next day and collected Freb and Purphoros to accompany Bov as their stand-ins to complete the ritual. With the blind woman teleporting the party to a strange new world for a moment in order to use the cube – the only way for them to return to the keepers – Brakken activated the cube and they found themselves back in the ritual chamber.
Without too much ado, the party, along with Mallard, Bov, Freb and Purphoros, conducted the ritual. They planted their staves into the corresponding places and the wall opposite lit up. Eight small dragons appeared in the light, seven of which split off from the wall and flew to each of the ritual conductees, flying around them for a few moments before entering their chests. Then the light faded and the ritual was done.
With the enemies about to breach the defences, the high keeper wished the seven luck and teleported them back to Fallen Star. Once there, the party members took a moment to reflect on their experience. Each of them, in turn, found themselves speaking to Adamantine, Ruby or Amber respectively, who said a few words of goodbye before fading, apparently able to move on now that their replacement was finally ready.
And then the party joined the army, Brakken said a few inspiring words about ‘unfucking the world’, the blind woman opened a portal to Oldfather’s city, and the army charged through. We ended the session there.
So, looks like one way or another, the next session will be the last of this campaign. The party have defeated Ma-Ma and Mithral, unlocked their ultimate power, and all that’s left is to take on the big cheese himself. If you want to see how the final battle goes and whether Brakken, Monk and Kipth have enough power to defeat Oldfather once and for all, and whatever happens in the aftermath of what is destined to be an epic battle no matter the outcome, you’ll have to tune in next week.