Rise of Tiamat! The game begins with – Krixxix?!

DM: Krixxix! You have been jailed!
Krixxix: I’m innocent, I tell you! Innocent! I’ve been framed!
Maldrake: You’re in the jail from Judge Dredd.
DM: No. The gods themselves have pointed the finger at you through the might of divination.
Krixxix: The gods don’t know what they’re talking about!
DM: You’ve been subjected to the spell Zone of Truth, in which your falsehoods are broadcast for all to hear. In short, our guilt is absolute. You’ve been tossed into the depths of a dungeon. Your only consolation is, they refuse to let you go in shadows, thinking you’ll get up to shit you don’t want to deal with, so it’s brightly lit down here.
Krixxix: Damn it!
DM: However, you wear nothing but a robe. All of your items have been taken away.
Eben: Can I use my robe to hide, and get a sneak attack?
DM: Stay out of this, Krixxix 2.

Krixxix attempts to smuggle a lockpick in his built-in pocket; the DM cheerfully informs them they searched there. They were very thorough and had very low standards when it comes to Krixxix. How long it’s been has been a mystery to Krixxix.

Krixxix: I have time to pick that lock!
DM: With what?
Krixxix: My fingernails, that have been growing!
Thalynmar: What, are you gonna tongue the lock? (demonstrating this, unsettlingly)
Maldrake: He did take Hasten Fingernail Growth.

Krixxix spends a while getting the lay of the land and trying to judge the guards; the DM calls for a Perception check.

Thalynmar: Mounted Combat? That’s perfect at this time of game!

Krixxix tries to identify a guard with underworld ties; the DM takes great pleasure in informing him the Lords’ Alliance doesn’t employ corrupt guards.

DM: You while away the time there. You have nothing, you’re not allowed to whittle. It’s almost as bad as being imprisoned in a dwarven kingdom for the crime of being a human.
Krixxix: Ah ha! Fucking dwarves.
DM: But the first eventful thing that happens to you down there is the distant clangor of an alarm.
Krixxix: “What’s going on out there? What is it? What is it?! TELL ME SOMETHING I’M GOING CRAZY!”
DM: At the sound of the alarm, the guards exchange a look. One of them turns and rushes out, up the long stairs that head down to this dungeon.
Krixxix: Sounds like something good is happening! Sounds like something good!
DM: The other pulls a bowstave off of her back, and leans into it to string.
Krixxix: Hey baby, I got something else you can string while you’re at it. Like some clothes so I can get the FUCK OUT OF THIS PRISON CELL!
Maldrake: Dude, he’s in the space magic prison! Fortress 3, baby! Fortress 2, sorry, Fortress 2 was in space.
Krixxix: “Listen, if you’re arming for combat let me help!”
DM: The guard, without looking your way, says, “You want out?”
Krixxix: “Yes! I want to help!”
DM: “I don’t want you to see my face.”
Krixxix: “Then don’t look my way.”
DM: “Why don’t YOU not look this way?”
Krixxix: “Fine. I will accept those terms. I will keep my eyes downcast as much as possible.”
DM: “Turn your back. I don’t want you seeing anything about me so you can’t identify me.”
Thalynmar: The dagger enters your—
Krixxix: I know, that’s what I’m worried about!
Eben: If you don’t comply they’ll just find a way to knock you out.
Krixxix: All right—
Eben: Roll a saving throw! A Wisdom saving throw, can he overcome his own… militant insubordination!
Krixxix: He’s looking up to see, does this count as crit damage?
DM: I know it counts as crit damage.

A weirdass Muppets sketch erupts in the moment the DM turns his attention away from the group. The DM has no idea what adventure they’re in and mostly gives up, leading them to lapse into mostly poor-quality impressions.

DM: The arrow enters your kidney! You take 42 points of damage!
Maldrake: Wait, what the fuck happened?
Krixxix: I trusted this bitch to let me out of prison.
Eben: This is how they get you out.
DM: And you must make a Constitution saving throw.
Krixxix: It’s poisoned! What the fuck, dude – it’s poison, she really is trying to get you out!
Eben: It’s how she gets you out. ‘This person needs medical attention.’
Thalynmar: Oh that likes 1 point of Con and you’ll lay around like two rounds. That poison probably costs like 10000 gold.
Krixxix: I did NOT like how many dice that just sounded like.
Eben: I don’t think they should make poisons suck just because they want to discourage them because it’s baaaad. Running someone through with a sword is bad, but they don’t nerf swords.
DM: 52 points of damage from the poison.
Raven: Dang. That’s rough.
Thalynmar: …apparently poisons got a lot better in 5th edition.
DM: It was purple worm poison. You let out an involuntary scream as the poison enters your body. What do you do?
Thalynmar: Scream some more!
Krixxix: I’m still in the cage, though.
DM: That’s correct.
Krixxix: How was she able to hit me if there’s still—
DM: There’s bars. She shot through the bars. You’re not in a glass thing.
Thalynmar: You’re not Magneto.
Krixxix: I turn around—
DM: You turn around to see the woman smirking at you with a wicked gleam. She reaches to her belt, lifts a dagger slightly out of its sheath, and you recognize it as a dragontooth dagger, symbol of the cult.
Thalynmar: Oh. I thought this was the lady you gave the gonnasyphilherpalatis to.
DM: “You’ll be pleased,” she says, as she draws back the bow, aiming at you. “I had to assassinate the guard who was posted here and assume his position. A trick worthy of you, wouldn’t you think?”
Krixxix: “…Yeah!”
Thalynmar: Krixxix is now resigned to his fate.
Krixxix: I can’t deny that!
DM: She fires an arrow, but you dodge, trying desperately to get out of the way, and the arrow clatters into the bars.
Krixxix: Can I grab it?
DM: Yes.
Krixxix: Excellent. I have something but it’s not going to do me any good.
Thalynmar: Isn’t it like a dart at this point?
Krixxix: Unless I can throw it, but I can’t throw it with enough force to hurt her.
Thalynmar: Sure you can!
Maldrake: ‘I won’t give you the joy!’ (mimes killing himself)
Krixxix: Is there anything in the cell with me?
Thalynmar: Well, Krixxix, it’s been good playing with you.
DM: You might be able to hold off long enough till someone realizes the guard is missing.
Krixxix: I’m gonna grab this arrow and I’m going to basically tip the bed, so I can use it as a block so she can’t keep shooting arrows at me. The only way she’s going to get me is if she comes in here!
Maldrake: It’s a pity he was in the jail for the giants. The solid steel, 300 pound bed was too much for him to lift.
Krixxix: It was bolted to the floor… It’s just a mattress on the floor, glued down…
Thalynmar: Your bed may not have been filled with weevils, but it was not exactly thick…
DM: You grab the bed and tip it. It struggles against the chains that bolt it to the ground, to prevent prisoners from trying to use it. Make a Strength check, in fact, make an Athletics check.
Krixxix: Of course it was…
DM: What? You could beat some other prisoner with that, they don’t want that.
Maldrake: He’s been rolling like a champ. LIKE A CHAMP!
DM: The arrow strikes you. You take 11 points of damage from it. You gonna try again?

Lacking better options, Krixxix dives into the straw of his bed to hide and try to avoid being shot. The DM lovingly describes the sound of an arrow being lit on fire, Krixxix’s brief confusion, and then the bed erupting into flames.

Maldrake: This is fucking porn for the DM! He’s all, ‘I’m gonna bring him in here, and I’m gonna kill him in a little box! There’ll be no escape!’
Krixxix: This is when he says, ‘oh by the way, Krixxix, roll a new character.’
Maldrake: You’re dead, he’s like, ‘Get the fuck out of my house.’
DM: Oh by the way guys, I didn’t mention this earlier, I’m unilaterally kicking Krixxix out of the house. I know you guys pay rent here too, but everybody gets one, remember? We agreed on that!
Krixxix: Is there smoke, like, filling up—
Maldrake: You’ve got a piss bucket! Use it, man! Use that piss bucket!
Thalynmar: Throw it on her.

Maldrake gets really excited, envisioning Krixxix being forced to drink from his piss bucket, while Krixxix decides to try to pick the lock with the point of an arrow. The audio is briefly lost, but Krixxix of course fails to pick the lock. Maldrake takes gleeful pleasure in the idea of the DM spewing hateful rhetoric while remembering this in the future in public.

DM: It’s my lines in a play, haven’t you ever heard of –
Maldrake: Hitler on Ice?
Lualyrr: Springtime for Hitler?
Thalynmar: Hitler on the Roof.
DM: Yeah, it’s the story where Hitler won’t marry who his father tells him to. Goosestepping on the Roof. What do you do, Krixxix?
Krixxix: I don’t know what else I CAN do.
DM: Panic sets in!
Thalynmar: How well beyond the bars is she, out of curiosity?
DM: Good 20 feet.
Thalynmar: Yeah. Smart woman.
DM: Sadly they did not send a stupid assassin.
Thalynmar: Throw the arrow at her!
Maldrake: Maybe she has like 1 hit point.
DM: Aww, I min-maxed her too much.
Thalynmar: Put up your butt, get some feces out of there.
Krixxix: ‘Die later of infection!’

The DM cheerfully tells Krixxix the bolts holding the bed to the floor are failing. He resignedly dumps his piss bucket on the bed, takes another arrow to the back, and drops to bleeding out!

DM: As you lie there on the ground, the assassin comes over. If you roll your death saving throws, you’ll find it doesn’t matter, for the assassin empties another vial of oil onto you, strikes stone to tinder, and ignites your body.
Maldrake: (howling in laughter) He just brought you here to kill you! This is the best DM ever!
Thalynmar: It’s better than being hung.
Maldrake: Oh my god! “I can’t wait to have Krixxix can buy, I’m gonna have a nice long ten minute death sequence.”
DM: Unfortunately, you are too dead to see her walk back upstairs, get into the confiscated item vault, and ride your flying carpet out.
Krixxix: You bitch! Noooo!

The rest of the group has a chance to act, in preparation for the dragons’ descent. They find themselves standing outside of a large warehouse, as the DM describes the buildings around them and places doors for them. Maldrake briefly ends up in a farm somehow, then Thalynmar smashes through the warehouse doors.

Thalynmar: Do I have a crowbar – I do have a crowbar. I throw it away!
DM: You have advantage because of your crowbar.
Thalynmar: Let’s see if I can roll higher than that.

The warehouse is full of grain. Not flour, as Thalynmar hurriedly ascertains. Somewhere, Bahamut sighs in weary exhaustion. Lualyrr and Raven hear a faint whimpering in the distance, and track it to a pair of small feet sticking out of a hay bale!

Thalynmar: Children?! Delicious children.
Lualyrr: A child?
DM: Probably, yes.
Lualyrr: “Child, what are you doing here?”
DM: You hear a shriek from within the bale, and the feet begin to kick and squirm. Outside, on the street, you hear… Whump, whump…. (placing down three very divergent miniatures) They’re all the same size.
Maldrake: WHAT SIZE?!
DM: Large.
Thalynmar: Why you using the huge one, then?!
DM: What one do I have, Thalynmar? What one do I have?
Thalynmar: Pull one out from the fucking Temple of Elemental Evil if you have to!
Krixxix: Don’t you all wish you had me and my dragonslaying arrows?
Maldrake: God, we do!
Thalynmar: You only have ONE. There’s THREE of them.
Krixxix: Still, better than zero.
Thalynmar: I have to admit, I miss crushing your shoulder.

Initiative ensues, even as Eben feels a pulse of horrific hatred that tells him someone on his list is nearby! Krixxix ponders his own battle.
Krixxix: Let me ask you something. If I had gotten SUPERB rolls and had actually been able to get out, pick the lock, stab her in the neck or fight back-
DM: That would have been pretty awesome!
Krixxix: But theoretically, had I won that fight… I’m wondering where you would have taken it.
Maldrake: He didn’t plan on that.
Krixxix: He’d have been like, ‘the backup assassin came in to finish the job!’
Thalynmar: HE probably would have come up with someone off the top of the head real well. That’s something I would do. ‘Uhhh…. The BACKUP assassin.’

Raven charges into the fray, realizes the dragons weren’t as close as he thought, and backs way up retroactively. He uses Rally to give Lualyrr some temporary HP. The DM makes a joke about the TV show Seven Days; don’t think for a second it was popular. Lualyrr rolls a furious if disadvantaged Persuasion check to calm the kid down, and comes up with a 21. They haul the kid out of the bale. A dragon breathes fire into the warehouse, dealing no damage to anyone as they hide behind walls, but igniting the warehouse!

Maldrake: Please don’t draw fire. I’m going to judge you on your fire drawing, so be aware.
Thalynmar: No one in this room can draw fire.
Maldrake: And I judge every single person. Even myself. All right, guys, there’s some red spaghetti, they’ve summoned red spaghetti.
DN: Maldrake has permanent disasadvantage. Eben, at the same time, you can act!
Eben: Fire!
Maldrake: Hang on, April!
DM: There is a thing you wish to kill, across the street in the inn!
Eben: Isn’t that like a disadvantage…?
DM: No. I can’t think of what reason that would be.
Maldrake: Is my disadvantage over?
DM: Sure.
Maldrake: The fucking arrow thing.
DM: Oh! Yeah, yeah. I thought you meant the disadvantage I punished you with for being an asshole.
Maldrake: I thought that was always there. Because I’m a permanent fucking asshole. But I told you I would make fun of you for this fire!

Maldrake does his best impression of a dragon displeased with his categorization as ‘young adult’. Eben hurls a Circle of Death at the dragons, rolling a weird number of doubles on his damage dice.

DM: On the back of that dragon, a mage appears, his concentration disrupted by the abrupt wash of damage that has slashed over him. He throws his hand up as if to protect himself, then realizes he can see himself, and curses you with a foul tongue.
Maldrake: Maybe that’s the person we’re supposed to kill.
DM: From across the street, you hear the abrupt screams of people coming from the inn.
Maldrake: ‘I told you people to get the fuck out like five minutes ago, Jesus Christ!’
DM: “I didn’t let them! Come out and meet your doom, or sacrifice more innocents to the swords of my men!” You recognize this voice, or at least Thalynmar and Eben do. You last heard it on the floating castle Skyreach.
Lualyrr: Is that fucking Rezmir?!

It is! Maldrake spends a good while assessing his options, then steps out to engage the dragons personally and bashes the nearest one! A mage lobs a fireball into the warehouse, catching Raven and Thalynmar for 32. Another fireball fires blindly into the gray, catching only one of them and baffling everyone as to where it came from. Maldrake succeeds, and determines that it came from above the dragon – Thalynmar failed!

Thalynmar: ‘He’s on the other back!’ ‘Oh, I see it now!’
DM: He didn’t say anything! You’re fully welcome to communicate…
Maldrake: “There’s another one above us!”
DM: ‘No there’s not!’
Maldrake: “There might be one on the other one too!”

Thalynmar hurls a Javelin of Lightning through the fray, missing a mage but shocking both dragons and knocking the other invisible mage out of invis. He then draws his glaive and attacks, infuriating the red dragons who see that said glaive is MADE out of red dragon! Dragonbreath catches Thalynmar and Maldrake. 63 points of fire damage ensues, though only Thalynmar takes damage, and only half of that. The group argues with the DM that a different red dragon cannot possibly breathe fire on Eben along with the others, accusing him of bending physics. RAVEN joins the brawl, hacking away with his vorpal axe and trying to trip the dragon--

Thalynmar: How did you roll a 4 damage? What’s your strength at?!
Eben: He rolled a -2.
Raven: I forgot to add my Strength bonus…
DM: The weapon strikes it, knocking a scale aside, but its balance is not disrupted.
Thalynmar: Stupid strong dragons.
DM: Ho ho ho, travelers.
Thalynmar: I see you got the staff of Magnus for me!
DM: ‘Give me the decanter, and no one need get hurt!’
Thalynmar: ‘Okay.’
DM: (maniacal laughter) They open it, Tiamat comes out.
Thalynmar: Huh. That’s why it was so loud…

Lualyrr grabs the kid and scrambles away to rescue him, reaching a door in the back she luckily finds! Rezmir emerges from the inn, along with a small army, and blasts Thalynmar with an acid spell bolt.

DM: The red dragon attempts to act, foolishly not realizing that many of you have Sentinel.
Thalynmar: Three of us here. I don’t think that dragon’s going ANYWHERE.
DM: All right, all of you make your attacks, as the dragon attempts to move away from you.
Thalynmar: Wow, this is wild.
DM: He had no idea.

The dragon has to think, and the players are amazed to discover these dragons have no legendary actions!

DM: He snaps his head left to right, considering the three combatants facing him—
Thalynmar: Half-dragon! Half-dragon! I’ve been hit like 4 fucking times!
DM: “Yes! And I see what weapon you wield, mortal!”
Thalynmar: Damn this weapon.
Eben: What is your…?
Thalynmar: It’s made out of bone. Dragon bone.
DM: Red dragon bone and scale, yes. He recognizes it, and infuriated by it—
Thalynmar: “Was this one of your partners, or yer mother or father? Which one of yer family members is stabbing you in the gut?”
DM: “IT’S PRINCIPLE!” he roars, unleashing a withering blast of flame on you.
Thalynmar: Ooh, I saved again.
DM: Eh, way to hit that Reflex that isn’t your good save.
Thalynmar: I’m a remarkable athlete like the Homestar Runner, so I do get half my proficiency.

87 before saves, and the warehouse takes some serious damage. Somehow this becomes a Total Recall reference, except for Raven, who is busy casting Final Fantasy Spells. Eben tries to lob a lightning bolt, only for a mage to Counterspell wth a girly shriek.

DM: (setting down miniatures) These guys, the Knights of Conformity as I’ve labeled them, come marching out. ‘We. Make. Holes in teeth. We. Make. Holes in teeth.’ Stomping out from the inn where they’ve been putting people to the sword. Maldrake!

The paladin estimates his foes’ strength, but the numbers are starting to bring him down, and he speculates Thay betrayed them. The DM tells them it was the Cult’s divination actions, which he doesn’t particularly like. Maldrake heals Thalynmar.

DM: A mage rises, ooooooh, and flies over here! The dragon gives a look at him and says, “Don’t you dare—“ but it’s too late! The mage speaks words of power and an epic blast of –
Eben: I dispel it!
DM: Counterspell?
Eben: Yeah.
DM: Epic blast of cold fizzles out.
Eben: No, I just wanted to say it. Just to see what it felt like.
Maldrake: He doesn’t have Counterspell.
Eben: You know I don’t have it.
DM: I thought your staff might have given you that.
Maldrake: Unless you suddenly retroactively gave it to him, he doesn’t have it.
DM: I don’t remember the list of things on the staff.
Eben: I just wanted to step on his moment, that’s all. Now he can kill us in peace. I wouldn’t be so angered by it if I could actually employ it.

The group hopes for a high hit, because a dragon got caught in the blast. Thalynmar and the other mage act simultaneously, so he bashes the dragon and actually misses the dragon once, to the dragon’s surprise. The mage lobs a fireball into the fray, promptly lowballing the damage. Another dragon enters melee to attack Raven.

DM: Oh, that’s an interesting series of rolls. The bite lands upon you. It deals 14 piercing damage and 3 fire.
Raven: Remember, I can’t be crit.
DM: I thought you changed out of that armor!
Raven: I don’t believe I ever had…
DM: Eh, my misremembering. The claw strikes you for 7 points of damage, and such is the force with which he struck you – you stagger slightly but the armor absorbs it – the dragon however, was not prepared for his attack to be brought up so ineffectually. He drops to one knee and you see his limb bend awkwardly underneath him.
Thalynmar: Ooh.
Raven: Ohhhh!
DM: He gets back up, shaking it, but it appears he has to favor it now, as he sprains it, taking a point of Dexterity damage. And fire washes over the three of you once again.
Raven: I need heals, plox!
Thalynmar: We ALL need heals.
DM: A figure appears in a flash of black-violet light over there. It’s a figure you might be wanted to see – Lord Neverember has appeared on the battlefield.
Thalynmar: Yaaaaay! As he destroys us all.
DM: Surprise!
Eben: Yeah, he doesn’t like us.
Raven: “Hii!”
DM: The mage glances over, screams out a profanity, and yells, “Kill the heroes! Kill them before we’re killed ourselves!” Raven!
Raven: Huzzah! Now I have two dragons at me?
Thalynmar: …Three.
DM: You are surrounded!

Raven fails to land a blow, but only one of his three – he strikes the dragon down, soaking himself in blood in the process. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appear for no reason, as Lualyrr gets the child free through the back door of the warehouse. Maldrake and the DM exchange cruel insults as Rezmir blasts Thalynmar again.

Thalynmar: “Feckin’ coward.”
DM: “YOU TURNED ME INTO A LIZARD!”

He endures 23 damage, plus a very bad pun that is unworthy of repetition. Eben gets his spell counterspelled by his own decree, but ends up hurling a fireball into the midst of the Knights of Conformity. Raven explains deals at the Longhorn Steakhouse for some reason. Many mooks charge into the fray, with only one able to act! Thalynmar takes a small blow from him, and is down to 22 hit points! Maldrake promptly empties his Lay on Hands pool into Thalynmar, for 100.

DM: “Boo!” boos the dragon, “boo!”
Thalynmar: Time to take all these mooks out!
DM: “Boo!” boos the dragon.

The DM calls for a Wisdom save through from Thalynmar, but Maldrake’s aura helps him and he passes! Then a fireball enters the fray, and more saving ensues! Thalynmar gets bashy and a rules argument erupts, because polearms are weirdly good in this edition.

DM: The two dragons look at each other. In Draconic, one says, “Shall we give them the honor?” “Yes. Let them die for the glory of the Dark Queen.”
Maldrake: In case you don’t understand, they’re going to kill them anyway. So uh…
Thalynmar: “I’m not surprised.”
Maldrake: I’m happy you did that! I thought you were gonna be, “See Maldrake, he’s gonna do a cone attack, but he’s just going to catch you guys. Somehow.”
DM: You would not have let me. You would have flipped the table.

Dragonfire ensues! The heroes are still holding on somehow, mostly because shield-evasion and good rolling is negating a shocking amount of dragon. The DM is fairly bitter.

Raven: Raven time!
Thalynmar: Oh god…

Expending Second Wind, Raven heals, while Thalynmar takes 33 points of acid damage and bitterly knocks over Rezmir’s mini. Lualyrr re-enters the fray! Raven uses a Maneuvering Strike to get Lualyrr properly into the battle. Lualyrr casts a heal on Raven!

Raven: How much did I get healed for?
DM: WE DON’T KNOW YET!

Healing washes over… actually everyone, it turns out it was a Mass. Everyone wonders what the hell Neverember is doing.

DM: He ran into the fray.
Thalynmar: ‘Cast a fucking spell!’
Neverember: ‘I’m not a caster!’
Thalynmar: ‘Huh!’
DM: ‘Look!’ He holds up his greatsword.
Maldrake: Wait, is this the elf who hates us?
Thalynmar: No, you’re thinking of… um, what’s his name.

We never find out. Violence continues to erupt, and Eben deploys his eldritch blast to pull a mage into the fray with the draw-in invocation.

DM: When you shot the mage, aaaaah, his head blew off. It came forward, the rest of him did not.
Eben: Oh god!

Eben is so horrified, everyone gets a cheap laugh. The DM rules that he reflexively catches the head.

Eben: We’re all gonna have PTSD after this fight.
Thalynmar: I already HAVE it.
Raven: What do you mean by, we don’t already have PTSD?
Thalynmar: Just call it by what it was back in the day, shellshock.
DM: You’ve got Post-Traumatic Stress De-Dragononification.
Raven: I’m pretty sure after this we’re going to chop off the head of any dragon that we see.

Some blows are exchanged, including yet another shot from Rezmir onto Thalynmar, to the general confusion of the group.

Thalynmar: I’m not the one who polymorphed her and threw her off a castle!
Maldrake: Come closer! He’s over here!
Thalynmar: “Yer aim is real bad, he’s right behind me!”
Maldrake: ‘I’m gonna drain yer paladin of his mana!’
DM: You’re in range, and if she moved to hit Maldrake, Maldrake’s a fucking copper and she’s doing acid damage!
Maldrake: Oh right – ha ha ha! I forgot about that!

Maldrake keeps healing, as the mage fireballs the PCs, and the dragons regain their breath weapon (while the DM is amazed at his luck). Thalynmar actually fails a saving throw, probably the first one failed in this fight yet, and goes down at last.

DM: Jeez, Lord Neverember, what the fuck’s with you?
Thalynmar: Is he failing?
DM: He missed once, which is REALLY unlikely, but nevertheless there you are. His greatsword snicker-snacks out, leaving two great wounds on the side of the dragon, who shies away in reflexive pain! Raven!
Raven: Yes!

A pause.

DM: It’s your turn!
Raven: All riiiiight!

Lualyrr delightfully decides to chain-lightning the dragons, while Raven wails on one repeatedly, burning Action Surge to unleash a punishing hail of blows, then taking damage from Rezmir. 60 and 30 points of damage go into the dragons from the lightning, then Maldrake heals Thalynmar.

Thalynmar: “YER WRECKED!” That’s all I shout.
DM: ‘Yer-wrecked-shun!’
Thalynmar: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he liked to have Sherlock and Watson ejaculate a lot. Come on, Arthur, that’s not even how you use that word!

Eben hurls a Shatter! Maldrake beats the shit out of a dragon and caves in his skull, while Thalynmar realizes the word ‘Indomitable’ on his character sheet means something.

Thalynmar: God damn it.
DM: What?
Thalynmar: I could have rerolled saves.
Maldrake: Try it, let’s see if it would actually have helped.
Thalynmar: (rolls)
Maldrake: Nope.
Thalynmar: That’s another 7.

Thalynmar, now ready to act, tries to run up the wall to kill the mage. He fails, and though he tries to attack the dragon, it doesn’t go too well. The DM pleads with the players to just accept that the mage can target his cone of cold from a vertical height and not hit the dragon, without making them all try to math out exactly how the hell he does this with a CONE at a vertical ANGLE. In a weird turn of events, Maldrake is okay with this and Thalynmar is not.

DM: JESUS CHRIST! JESUS –
Thalynmar: Unless you’re rolling 18, it doesn’t even matter…
DM: 32 points of cold damage, save for half. And at that point Lord Neverember steals your kill.
Thalynmar: We got two others, that’s fine.
DM: Hammering his greatsword into it – oh wait, I – I take it back, he might not steal your kills. Jesus Christ.
Thalynmar: For fuck’s sake – just FUDGE THE ROLLS, DM!
DM: Lord Neverember hacks at it so violently that by the end of it he’s bleeding himself for some reason.
Thalynmar: Hacked his toe off. ‘Whoops, that was a little zealous!’
DM: He takes 1 point of bleed damage, a pinprick. Comes out of it looking faintly dazed. ‘I didn’t know I had levels in barbarian…’

Lualyrr goes for a cast of Mordenkainen’s Sword, while Eben casts Feeblemind on the mage, dropping his Intelligence and Charisma to 1. No more spells. No more flying.

DM: JESUS CHRIST!
Maldrake: All 6’s? Really?
DM: No, but enough. (slapping his hand on the table to symbolize the mage’s final falling moments)
Eben: Oh, so he doesn’t take the psychic damage… Hey look, Rezmir, someone died from fucking falling, you should try that!

Lualyrr tries to go attack Rezmir, but Rezmir snaps a magic wand and disappears! The field is theirs, despite Thalynmar’s stubborn attempts to die repeatedly. The game ends with Krixxix in hell, or at least Pandemonium or Limbo or one of those really chaotic planes – till he hears a call summoning him back to life, and awakens in the Lords’ Palace.

Thalynmar: On a slab of ice.
Maldrake: What, did they Universal Soldier him?

The game ends with the DM bemoaning that they hadn’t died horribly. Oh well! NEXT TIME!