TODO – clean up and complete these rough unfinished notes.
Callie, Bec, Freki pass save and see through shadow conjuration illusion. It’s a magical construct.
Bec: “So you didn’t believe in it enough though to actually come here to stop us?”
Tybalt: “It’s doesn’t matter whether I am here… what matters is that he is.” And he floats up anime-style, manifesting Janus.
Freki: “They’re not real!” and shoots an arrow at Tybalt’s eyepatch, thinking it will go through… but it thunks! Then he shoots another one, and it’s deflected by some invisible shield.
Oz (bluffing): “Apologies, we’re still not used to these forms… We’ve taken the forms we believe to be most beneficial to our cause…” Trying to convey that they are actually doppelgangers. 32 persuasion.
Janus raises an eyebrow, seemingly unconvinced and ignorant: “What nonsense is this?”
Oz: “Oh come now, don’t be coy, we all know what we’re talking about here.” He moves in front of Sartus.
Bec: “Who else is involved in this? Are the guards up there on our side?” She moves behind Sartus.
Sartus: “Run, you fools!” He takes some steps back, then turns and runs.
Dark Oz appears! Tells the monkey to fuck off. Then to Oz: “And now for you” and channels the dark ghost lady! She points the Hornblade at Oz, and Oz looks down and believes his Hornblade has reverted to the Cornucopia horn.
Janus: “Begone, unworthy!” and does mind blast. Everyone is blasted back five feet. Freki fails the save and takes 13 psychic damage and is stunned for one round. He is bleeding out his nostrils.
Cal recognizes that his undead sense is not tingling. He lashes out with his whip, grabbing Tybalt/Janus and pulling him into melee with Oz and himself.
Callie receives a sending from shadow-Gavin: “Help! There’s a crazy guy wrecking our shop! I tried to stop him but he sprayed me with blood! I feel… so itchy… and hungry…”
Callie decides to cast calm emotions to make Sartus stop being stupid. It also helps Freki shake off the stun, and Oz finally see through the illusion. Cal almost sees through it, but not quite. The monkey is also on the edge of the magic and stops fleeing.
The Brucolac appears. Callie and Freki don’t see through the illusion. But Bec sees through it fully. “I have a gift for you” the Brucolac says to Bec, and pulls a ball of feathers?! out of his bag, and throws it down. An owlbear samurai appears in front of him! “What? No!” he explains, and tries again, this time producing the corpose of Letharil Galere.
Freki transforms into hybrid form, and moves up to the ghost and owlbear.
Oz attacks Janus with his dagger of venom, misses, and fancy footworks away from the ghost toward the owlbear samurai. “You’re next, you limp-cocked pig rapist!” Oz taunts the dark-Oz-ghost. Then he stabs the Hornblade into the owlbear!
The owlbear’s an enemy, right? Right?!
Owlbear: “Oz! What are you doing, I know I annoy with my spells, but please!”
Bec casts dispel magic on Cronus! His conjured will tries to resist but fails, and he dissipates. So does the shadow Letharil, and the residual shadow energy around the owlbear. Bec realizes that all the effects are linked in a chain.
If you can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!
Sartus comes back and stands next to Bec. “Thank you, and I’m sorry. But it’s all up to you now—I need to save my magic for when we get the Book.” And he draws a longsword.
The dark Oz-ghost moves up to the OG Oz: “Let’s dance!” she smirks.
Stabs Oz impotently.
Owlbear: “I don’t know how to deal with that!” He steps back, and attacks the dark Oz-ghost. Hits, but it’s only half effective. He does, however, see through the shadow conjuration effect. But he doesn’t know what it is…
Cal is possessed by Janus. He throws sartus out of the room with the whip.
Callie casts spiritual weapon next to the Oz-ghost lady, and hits her! It is fully effective. There is a flash, and they see another woman in gold and green in a negative instant. Only momentarily.
Phoebe finishes casting a summoning spell, and six pixie knights appear with shortbows. They shoot at the dark-Oz ghost, but only one hits.
Phoebe then casts dispel magic on Janus-inside-Cal. Oz makes a choice to cleverly sidestep the challenge of continuing to battle the dark-Oz ghost… and they disperse!
Bec then dispels the unconscious Tybalt, who is the only remaining shadow conjuration, and the spell collapses.
Vondal-as-Owlbear: “What is with these awesome sunglasses?”
Meanwhile, Phoebe heals Cal.
Oz: 22 deception “You cockroach shit-sucking cowards! We’re your relief sent by the Queen. Now open the door before we break it down and report your beligerence to the Queen.”
Unfortunately, this is not a believable lie for multiple reasons.
Male guard (sounding amused): “Heh heh hmm hmm”
Female guard: “If you come in here, we will be forced to fight you. We have our orders.”
Oz suddenly remembers about his monkey, and decides to go back and look for him quickly. He finds the monkey in statue form lying on the ground just outside the treasury building. When he picks up the monkey statue, he feels a wave of assurance and relief wash over him.
Lorissa: “If you take this book, it will do immeasurable harm. Nothing good will come of it.”
Vondal-as-Owlbear: “Sartus, explain why this is not bad plan. Sartus maybe not most popular, but pretty big brain boy over here!”
Sartus explains the plan: erase the writings in the Book.
Oz (panache): “Look into your heart, you know we can be trusted. I know it can be hard to bend the rules sometimes, but when all this is said and done, you don’t want to have regrets that you didn’t do everything you could to save the Queen.”
Book is encased in translucent crystal.
TODO – describe how the party got the Book out of there, and performed the ritual to erase the writings.
Meanwhile, Oz steals the Ioun Stone of Mastery! But he accidentally cracks it when he uses the Hornblade to split the crystal casing. It has 9/10 HP remaining.
Callie’s Journal
There is some heavy-duty illusion magic going on here with Dark Oz/Janus/Tybalt. Sartus is totally taken in, maybe because this is what he feared would happen. He yells at us to flee, and runs towards the door himself.
These things are illusory, but whatever they really are, they’re sending waves of terror out at us. I cast Calm Emotions at level 2 to try to reduce the effect.
A giant appears and tosses two things out of its pack or pocket: a samurai owlbear and Bec’s father, all disconnected from the tree and looking very undead.
I cast Spiritual Weapon at level 4, so damage is 2d8 plus my spellcasting modifier (7).
After the battle, Freki and Vondal were pretty wounded, so I cast Prayer of Healing at level 5. 4+5+4+8+7+(7) = 35
As we all pray/cast ritual magic on the book, I am forced to contribute 3 more spell slots toward the spell. I contribute one level 4, one level 3, and one level 1.