This week finds Melgarin still being held by the sneaky person. Hilde enters the cave to get eyes on her, and notices that she is a small, fat woman with brown hair that is greasy and cropped right above her ears. Hilde hits her with a lesser orb of fire, pissing her off. She runs over to Melgarin and hits him with “harm”, bringing him to the brink of death.

Harm
Necromancy
Level: Clr 6, Destruction 6
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will half; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes
Harm charges a subject with negative energy that deals 10 points of damage per caster level (to a maximum of 150 points at 15th level). If the creature successfully saves, harm deals half this amount, but it cannot reduce the target’s hit points to less than 1.

Hilde then hits her with another Orb of Fire. This pisses her off (but distracts her from Melgarin), so she runs at Elanor and hits her with Slay Living, which she successfully saves against.

Slay Living
Necromancy [Death]
Level: Clr 5, Death 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
You can slay any one living creature. You must succeed on a melee touch attack to touch the subject, and it can avoid death with a successful Fortitude save. If it succeeds, it instead takes 19 (3d6 points of damage +1 point per caster level).

Melgarin suddenly becomes “un-held” (he successfully rolled a will save against all odds), and Hilde blasts the bitch with a cold blast that kills her. Loskid does Melgarin a solid and heals him a bunch before they proceed down a corridor. Hilde spots a Quasit and throws an orb of lesser fire at it. This pisses it off, so it casts enervation on Melgarin.

Enervate
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray of negative energy
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
You point your finger and utter the incantation, releasing a black ray of crackling negative energy that suppresses the life force of any living creature it strikes. You must make a ranged touch attack to hit (attack = 22). If the attack succeeds, the subject gains 3 (1d4) negative levels.
If the subject has at least as many negative levels as HD, it dies. Each negative level gives a creature a -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks, and effective level (for determining the power, duration, DC, and other details of spells or special abilities).
Additionally, a spellcaster loses one spell or spell slot from his or her highest available level. Negative levels stack.
Assuming the subject survives, it regains lost levels after a number of hours equal to your caster level (maximum 15 hours). Usually, negative levels have a chance of permanently draining the victim’s levels, but the negative levels from enervation don’t last long enough to do so.
An undead creature struck by the ray gains 1d4×5 temporary hit points for 1 hour.

They continue to chase the quasit down the corridor, and when Elanor opens the door, she and Hilde are both in a field of tentacles that grabs both of them, followed by a cone of cold. Melgarin uses Benign Transposition to swap locations with Hilde. She then uses greater dispel to get rid of the tentacles and summons a badger. The team can now see a troll, the quasit (Xarthyx), and a guy (Thearynn Louvel). The quasit then casts enervate on Elanor, to which Hilde responds with a lesser orb of fire, to which the Troll casts Harm on Melgarin, again bringing him to the brink of death. Elanor heals Melgarin, and a Tyrannosaur pops in beside the badger and eats it. Thearynn then casts Baleful Polymorph on Loskid, attempting to turn him into a toad, but failing.

Baleful Polymorph
Level: Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates, Will partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes
You change the subject into a Small or smaller animal of no more than 1 HD (such as a dog, lizard, monkey, or toad). The subject takes on all the statistics and special abilities of an average member of the new form in place of its own except as follows:
The target retains its own alignment (and personality, within the limits of the new form’s ability scores).
The target retains its own hit points.
The target is treated as having its normal Hit Dice for purpose of adjudicating effects based on HD, such as the sleep spell, though it uses the new form’s base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and all other statistics derived from Hit Dice.
The target also retains the ability to understand (but not to speak) the languages it understood in its original form. It can write in the languages it understands, but only the form is capable of writing in some manner (such as drawing in the dirt with a paw).
With those exceptions, the target’s normal game statistics are replaced by those of the new form. The target loses all the special abilities it has in its normal form, including its class features.
All items worn or carried by the subject fall to the ground at its feet, even if they could be worn or carried by the new form.
If the new form would prove fatal to the creature (for example, if you polymorphed a landbound target into a fish, or an airborne target into a toad), the subject gets a +4 bonus on the save.
If the subject remains in the new form for 24 consecutive hours, it must attempt a Will save. If this save fails, it loses its ability to understand language, as well as all other memories of its previous form, and its Hit Dice and hit points change to match an average creature of its new form. These abilities and statistics return to normal if the effect is later ended.
Incorporeal or gaseous creatures are immune to baleful polymorph, and a creature with the shapechanger subtype (such as a lycanthrope or a doppelganger) can revert to its natural form as a standard action (which ends the spell’s effect).

Elanor tumbles through the Tyrannosaur and then starts carving it like a turkey. Thearynn then casts Phantasmal Killer on Loskid, which he miraculously sees through and survives.

Phantasmal Killer
Illusion (Phantasm) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One living creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will disbelief (if interacted with), then Fortitude partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes
You create a phantasmal image of the most fearsome creature imaginable to the subject simply by forming the fears of the subject’s subconscious mind into something that its conscious mind can visualize: this most horrible beast. Only the spell’s subject can see the phantasmal killer. You see only a vague shape. The target first gets a Will save to recognize the image as unreal. If that save fails, the phantasm touches the subject, and the subject must succeed on a Fortitude save or die from fear. Even if the Fortitude save is successful, the subject takes 3d6 points of damage.
If the subject of a phantasmal killer attack succeeds in disbelieving and is wearing a helm of telepathy, the beast can be turned upon you. You must then disbelieve it or become subject to its deadly fear attack.

Hilde summons in an earth elemental, which punches Thearynn, and then casts an orb of cold at the Troll. Loskid runs up and heals Melgarin. The troll then dispels Hilde's earth elemental, while Elanor continues carving the Tyrannosaur and dispatches it. Then the quasit enervates (unsuccessfully) Elanor. Melgarin slices and dices the troll (though doesn't kill it), and Hilde hits the guy with an orb of electricity. Elanor then finishes off the troll. Another damn Tyrannosaur pops in, as Hilde starts summoning an earth monolith. The troll that Elanor killed pops back up and casts flame strike, bringing Melgarin to the brink of death.

Thearynn then casts defensively and disappears, which Loskid recognizes as “planeshift”. Melgarin charges the newly resurrected troll and stabs him, rendering him “dead” again. Elanor's earth monolith pops in and starts beating on the Tyrannosaurus. Elanor is grappled by the Tyrranosaurus which then eats her, killing her.

Swallow Whole (Ex)
A tyrannosaurus can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of up to two sizes smaller by making a successful grapple check. The swallowed creature takes 2d8+8 points of bludgeoning damage and 8 points of acid damage per round from the tyrannosaurus’s gizzard. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 12). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out.
A Huge tyrannosaurus’s gizzard can hold 2 Medium, 8 Small, 32 Tiny, or 128 Diminutive or smaller opponents.

Melgarin attacks the troll with his frostfire greatsword in an attempt to set it on fire. Hilde's earth monolith takes a swing at the tyrannosaurus trying to free Elanor, but is unsuccessful. Loskid heals Melgarin, hoping he will somehow be able to free Elanor from the tyrannosaurus. Melgarin attacks and does damage, but does not kill it. Apparently the Quasit has cast displacement on the Tyrannosaurus, making him nigh impossible to hit, though finally the earth monolith dispatches the tyrannosaurus. Loskid realizes that the troll is healing, and starts rifling through Elanor's corpse looking for something to set the troll on fire with. The quasit flies over to the troll and makes him invisible. Melgarin hits it several times with Alakast, and Hilde throws an orb of fire at it, missing. Loskid casts purge invisibility so that he can see the troll again, making the quasit visible at the same time.

At this point the quasit runs away and hides, Hilde casts a spell at it unsuccessfully due to the displacement spell, and Loskid smashes his lantern upon the troll. Melgarin continues to hack at the troll with the Flaming Frost Greatsword. Hilde chases the quasit, and Loskid chases Hilde. Melgarin tries unsuccessfully several times to hit the Troll to finally kill it. Finally it stands up reads a scroll, and disappears. Hilde and Loskid continue chasing the Quasit, even after it tried to surrender (and Hilde continued trying to kill it). The damn thing runs through a hidden door that Hilde spends an inordinate amount of time looking for, and once she finally opens it she finds a room full of lava and no quasit. Hilde returns to Melgarin and Elanor's corpse and casts limited wish, raising Elanor from the dead.

The team realizes that Elanor has died, and all they have to show for it is a caster who planeshifted away, 2 dead summoned tyrannosauri, a quasit that ran away, a dead “cleric” (though that woman's exact skillset was never really explored), and a troll that just refused to die the true death.

Shackled City Home
Last time: Session 76
Next time: Session 78