A Violent Turn: Campaign Diary

So what now indeed? A score of Athar warriors stand opposite our planewalkers, some hypnotised, some ready to attack. It’s M’narr’s turn to act in initiative, and the Gith is still feeling deadly paranoia. He draws his sword, and prepares to fling a fireball right at the centre of the Athar crowd. Ragados cries out for 12-Bar to stop him. 12-Bar readies a counterspell, but something makes him pause.  He lets the spell go off. The fireball explodes, and all but one of the Athar are incinerated.

Ragados is stunned by what he’s just seen, but regains his composure in time to run up to the last standing Athar soldier – the flustered leader of the group, now stunned and horrified – and knock him unconscious. The path to the church now surprisingly clear (if you ignore the sea of dead bodies on the ground), 12-Bar seizes the moment and runs for the front doors. Inside, the modron sees the bare walls; the five curious stones built into them; the rubble on the ground; the quiet dilapidation. Nothing else. Ragados and M’narr pile in after them and barricade the door. Ragados searches in vain for a portal as a second wave of Athar gather outside. M’narr grabs Ragados and the two vanish through his dimension door, appearing somewhere on Alehouse Row and sprinting away through the crowd. 12-Bar is left alone in the church to escape.

Casting fly on himself, 12-Bar rises up to escape through the church ceiling. Breaking through, he suddenly freezes up as he hears someone on the ground cast a spell. Gripped by magical paralysis, he loses concentration and falls back into the church. The Athar lieutenant calls out for 12-Bar to come out of the church. 12-Bar awaits his imminent surrounding and death, but it doesn’t come. For some reason, the Athar don’t enter the church. Shaking off the Athar wizard’s spell and climbing to his feet, 12-Bar polymorphs himself into a raven and attempts a second rooftop escape. He makes it half a block before a single stray Athar crossbow bolt knocks him out of the sky. He plummets again – but this time, he’s made up enough distance to escape.

While Ragados and M’narr flee, 12-Bar desperately searches to join them and escape the Athar. What reckoning will occur when they reunite? Will M’narr ever return to his senses? What will he do once he does?

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