This is the story referenced in the last paragraph of the TLP:
Quick background: We were returning from a major battlefield (one in which we were not involved in fighting; we just came across it) with 4 very large covered wagons full of magical weapons, armor, cloaks, rings, etc... A dragon flew out of the sky and stole all four wagons. We followed the dragon to talk to it, knowing we could never kill it, but wanting to see if we could get our treasure back. The dragon asked us to get its eggs back from Zhentil Keep in return for our treasure. Long story short, we got the eggs and had returned with them.
We gave the eggs to the dragon and were talking about the return of our treasure, when the eggs exploded. The dragon attacked. We managed to kill the dragon, though it was a very tough battle. We had gotten really lucky, too: with some fortuitous use of healing spells, the Paladin didn't die (he seems to have a habit of that - 6 times this campaign)! We had been alone with the dragon, but its high-level generals had marshaled the troops, and they were preparing a massive trap for us. We were in a very large, hollowed out mountain. It was about 600 feet long at the base, about 400 feet wide, about 300 feet high, and had a 150 foot diameter hole in the ceiling that was offset to the far end.
The high-level guys used pulleys and what amounted to railcars to pull huge tanks of combustibles up the hill, and the tracks they used were spaced evenly around the hole every 47 feet (this is important). At the same time, there was a group of 8 of the bad guys who were attacking the only exit we had yet found. We had closed the heavy doors and barred them, then moved lots of heavy stuff in the way of the doors, and the 8 were using a battering ram to break down the door. The sorcerer's bird familiar flew up to investigate the noises we heard, and described what was happening on top of the cliff. We didn't have time to do much of anything before ten large amphorae full of oil and other burning nastiness came flying down to smash on the ground, followed by 35 regular man-sized dragon-lizards, and 10 of the big, nasty generals (9 feet tall, hugely proportioned, heavily weaponed).
Six of our group had been in the act of barricading the doors at the end of the room, and three of us were in the process of looting the chests we had found. Four chests, each one 3' x 4' x 6'; one was full of platinum bars, one was full of gold pieces, and one was full of small-to-medium emeralds. The fourth was full of darkness, with a ladder descending into it. My rogue pushed on the chest to see if it was some sort of dimensional door, and the chest fell backward to reveal a hole in the floor. We dropped a torch down and it hit bottom about 30 feet later. It was at precisely this moment that the amphorae dropped and the bad guys busted in through the door. 'In for a penny; in for a pound,' thought I, so all three of my characters climbed the ladder. We quickly investigated the room and found it to be safe of traps or anything dangerous, so I called to the rest of our group and had them come down.
After a bit of figuring, we found a magical door that, after some experimentation, ended up taking us to the hallway on the other side of the double doors, ***about 5 minutes in the past.***
We walked down the hallway toward the guys who were at that point just beginning to use a heavy ram on the door. One of us cast web on them, locking 6 of the 8 in place, and preventing the other 2 from getting past their friends to get at us. Several fireballs later, we had 7 cooked bad guys and one volunteering to help us. We rescued the elven prisoners we had heard rumors of through a druid who had just joined our group, and then devised a cunning plan: The sorcerer was going to use his boots of levitation (with a bit of assistance from a druid using Wild Shape - Eagle) to fly up within fireball range of the guys on top of the hill, pop off a couple of fireballs from extreme long range (600 feet), then use a scroll of invisibility to avoid getting killed. The idea was to create a diversion so the bad guys would follow me and try to kill me, leaving the bad guys to end up coming through the only ground-level entrance to the cavern instead of coming through the hole in the ceiling.
We offered the Elves armor and weapons if they would help us, knowing that it would be a hellacious fight (the big guys are TOUGH). So 100 elves volunteered to help us out, and they came back into the cavern with the rest of the party. At that point, Walkul (the sorcerer) cast his first fireball. He fired it at one of the amphorae, intending to cause as much confusion as possible. After some figuring, the DM decided that each amphora exploded in a 50' radius. Then he rolled a die to figure out if that explosion touched off the amphorae to either side of it. It did. And they set off the others, until all ten amphorae had exploded and were burning. 35 of the lower-level dragon-men died instantly. The remaining ten generals died within three rounds because they couldn't get out of the flames in time.
Our DM did the math, looked at me and my co-conspirator and said, "Y'all suck!"
His idea was that we would have all the elves helping us, and all the XP would be divided out amongst each one of us. Instead, Walkul and the Druid will get some massive XP for carrying out the plan, and the whole team will get some massive XP for winning decisively against overwhelming odds. On top of that, we've got the dragon treasure, which, though I left before all the counting was done, just the platinum pieces ended up at 800,000 gold worth of platinum. There was still a chest of gold, one of emeralds, and the four wagons full of magical treasure that we were there for in the first place.
All in all, 'twas a lovely evening, and our DM is angry at the both of us who were there. :-D |
