Struggle against Fate itself
Spoiler: DM NOTE
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Zophiel consists of three aspects; the Maiden (the young woman), the Matron (the giant tree) and the Crone (you’ll see shortly)
The Maiden is the fastest, and starts the fight with a
Mass Suffocation. I had evil giggly thoughts of instantly taking out the entire party except for Puck and Spotter, but Angelena, the Dawnstar, and Talvosh make their saves, only being staggered as the air is ripped from their lungs. Unfortunately for Sona, she fails and immediately starts suffocating.
The Matron lumbers forward, and with a wave of her hand calls for monstrous writhing roots. 6 of the giant things burst from the ground and surround the party, hideous mandibles growing randomly from the bulging roots.
The Dawnstar sweeps forward and calls forth a
Firestorm, but fails to beat any of the goddess’ spell resistance. So it’s an anime-style moment as the smoke clears to reveal the fire had no effect!
Puck and Talvosh hack away at the roots, shredding several of them - they also find out an unfortunate ability. If anyone ends their turn close enough to the roots and fails a save, they are forced to dictate their next turn to me right then, and are forced to hold to those intentions even if they aren’t valid or useful anymore. They pass at first, but this ability messes up everyone at one point or another during the battle.
The dangers of battling an Architect of Fate…in addition to this, I’m forcing rerolls all over the place, up to three a round even.
Emerging from the darkness underneath the Matron’s roots is what seems to be a swirling cloud of absolute darkness. In between the clouds can be glimpsed the silhouette of an old woman briefly, and then a hideous arachnid shape, and then an ominous nothingness.
The Crone floats forward, and the only magical effect Puck can see on his visor is, “Oblivion.”
Angelena dispels the magic suffocating Sona before she dies, but because Sona failed against the
Dictate fate ability, the sorceress spends an extra turn flopping on the ground trying to not die of asphyxiation before entering the fray.
Sona and the Maiden snipe spells and hexes back and forth with each other,
Acid fogs and
Cloudkills and such flying back and forth to hinder each other. Spotter warps and darts to flanking positions, but all of the goddess’ aspects prove quite difficult to hit.
The Dawnstar swoops at the Matron, and the giant avian and even more giant Matron begin a Kaiju-style brawl! Meanwhile the Crone floats ominously closer, and a nearby piece of scenery brushes against her and simply - vanishes. Even with this ominous foreshadowing, Puck gets up within range and charges the Crone! Even with her AC and incorporealness, he lands some heavy blows and resists being simply turned to dust by her retaliatory strikes.
However, when Puck lands several massive crits (his dice performing as usual and throwing double crits out like candy), the Crone simply
Twists Fate and makes it so the blows never happened. I get some serious cries of B.S for that, but I just counter with, “Well, yeah: it’s the final boss.”
After tussling back and forth (and meteor swarms and firestorms and walls of fire), the Matron smashes the Dawnstar to the ground one final time, and the Phoenix moves no more. But that was numerous rounds, enough time for Talvosh to shred all of the Tree root monsters and charge the Matron!
And an AOE sends him flying back :P
But the fight goes into a brutal slugfest, with the party throwing everything they have into Zophiel. Only the most powerful magic and most accurate blows manage to get through, though.
Puck is getting dangerously close to the point where a single touch will destroy him, save or not, when he lands another set of crits. This one can’t be undone, and then Spotter pops up and launches one of the shrunken
Anathemic Lances from his bow.
You know, those horrible spears that could harm a deity? Yeah.
The Lance pins the Crone’s arm to a nearby root, then expands with a thunderous detonation. The Crone’s arm is blown apart, but she is still seemingly pinned in place, and the oblivion swirling about her fades!
Spotter gets some nasty magic hurled his way for that, and beats a hasty retreat out of sight to begin lurking about again. This gives Puck enough time to briefly fall back, regain his sense to burn a Vitae, then kick it into Overdrive (Frenzy) again and hurl himself back into the fray!
Angelena and Sona keep blasting away with everything they have, hurling
Cometfalls,
Bolts of Glory,
Wings of flurry, Heightened
Disintegrates,
Dimension Steps, but Zophiel keeps coming. Talvosh hacks away at the Matron, and even he has a hard time cutting into the bark. Puck keeps wailing on the hindered Crone, noticing that the blows landed on her reflect onto the Matron. Even armless and trapped, she’s still a danger, though. Spotter fires another Lance at the Maiden, but it shoots through without expanding and pinning her.
Then the Maiden gets close enough to
Heal the Crone, and things look dark. Swarms of silvery spiders are called forth, and the party has to contend with their poison again before
Wings of Flurry blows them apart. Multiple Vitae are burned to reroll saves and attacks, and keep the fight going. Sona dies, but Angelena is right next to her and
Revivifies her immediately. I like to see it as her catching Sona’s escaping spirit by the throat and chokeslamming her back into her body...
Spotter repositions and manages to shoot the Maiden in the back of the shoulder and pin her into the Matron! They both scream with agony and are stunned briefly, and everyone keeps pouring the damage and attacks out. Painfully, the Matron manages to yank the Lance out of her back (freeing the Maiden) and hurls the Lance directly at Angelena!
Luckily for her, Sona is close enough to extend a
Wings of Cover, though the force drives them into the earth. Puck and Talvosh keep battling the Matron, only able to endure her massive blows through sheer will to keep killing. The ground is shaking and beginning to break apart, fissures opening everywhere! The Maiden is absolutely livid at this point, and she divebombs towards Angelena and Sona, baleful magic crackling between her hands.
And Spotter pops up after retrieving the third Lance and shoots it straight through the Maiden’s chest. Then it EXPANDS and does a mortal-Kombat style fatality.
With that, there is a ear-bursting shriek! The Crone’s darkness completely engulfs her, and with a shockwave, begins to slowly pull and compress everything around it. The Matron-tree is crushed and compressed slowly into nothing, and the party fights to keep their footing and not be pulled into the Event Horizon (supermarine music). They need to get out of
here!
Well, everyone except for Talvosh apparently. As the rest of the party flies, jumps, runs, and scrambles epic-parkour style for the edge of the clearing, Talvosh swan dives into the blackness.
*shrug* Admittedly he was at something like -300 health, but still *shrug*
The rest of the party manages to escape, piling through the rapidly narrowing portal and spilling back out into the spherical chamber. As they back up further and watch, the black prison sphere compresses and crushes in on itself, continuing to tighten and shrink until only a fist-size ball remains. Then it falls to the ground and leaves a 30 ft crater as it impacts!
As everyone lays sprawled out, gasping for air, they feel a burning sensation in their left hands. As they watch, the Mark of the Curse slowly
fades away, and with it, their souls are whole once more.
Angelena seizes the last moment to burn several Vitae right before it’s too late, and forcefully
Yanks Talvosh back to the land of the living. He reappears, but with part of his body horribly frostbitten and scarred.
Spoiler: DM NOTE PLAYERS KEEP OUT
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And a permanent Tomb-tainted soul feat thanks to being touched by pure nothingness, but we’ll find that out later
A survival check from Spotter reveals that the Moon is moving, and getting faster. They need to get out of here. Luckily, Sona has enough teleports left that while they can’t go from one Ward to another, they can warp to the gate separating each ward, and turn an entire day of running into a few minutes. When they reach the Fire, it’s barely a candle of light, fitfully trembling. At their approach, though, the flame grows and shines into a Portal. One more walk between fires, even without the Curse empowering them. They step through slowly, returning to Adremmelach’s Throne Room.