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Armies & Archmeneses

Last week, the party joined into battle with Mammon and her army of ghosts in the tunnels of Prax's Labyrinth. The ghosts rushed for the party's backlines to hit their more vulnerable allies while Mammon blasted the whole area with giant meteors and debuffs. Between Millie's critically effective flame serpents (which earned extra approval from Andreth), Ayala's massive tides and army of friends, Gregory's sweeping sabre, Diplo's reaping of the ghostly harvest, Chort's relentless falling over, Simon's chonk, and Mikolash's general flailing, the party was able to easily dispatch the ghosts. They started started to rush down Mammon, but she laughed haughtily and asked the party if they thought that her augmentations only worked on humans. Her question was answered by an ominous rumbling from the ground that quickly resolved into two colossal worm-like creatures that appeared to be heavily magically augmented with spikes, armor, and general nonsense. The worms flanked the party, with one spawning at its backlines next to the Cultists of the Aboleth and the other next to Mammon, ready to attack anyone foolish enough to threaten her.

Naturally, the party was foolish enough to threaten her, and the second phase of the battle was joined. The party's spellcasters tried Mammon's defenses and found that she was effectively invulnerable to magic, so they focused on taking down the giant worms before they could completely annihilate the party's allies while the martial characters congregated on Mammon to keep her pinned down. Ayala rushed to defend the archers and cultists in the backlines by face-planting against the worm personally, which was very dangerous for her but did succeed in distracting the worm for long enough that the cultists were able to retreat to comparative safety in the middle of the pack. However, the worm eventually tired of eating nothing but non-tasty water and thrashed through the whole tunnel, bringing four of cultists to the brink of death. The remaining cultists nearly broke and fled, but Ayala's encouragement kept them going, and the cultists left standing helped finish off the worm quickly afterwards. Mikolash waffled for a bit about saving the cultists when he was already nearing serious injury himself, but Ayala solved the ambiguity for him by grabbing him and rocketing him directly into the cultists, allowing Mikolash to heroically return three of the four from the brink of death with his legendary Medicine skill.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the tunnel, Chort and especially Diplo were struggling against Mammon's natural resistance to magic, which went so far as to disable their magic weapons if they hit her. Millie tried using her extremely relevant anti-magic zone to block Mammon's spellcasting, but for some reason Mammon was completely unaffected by it. With the help of Ayala's army of friends, Chort, Diplo, and Gregory were able to overwhelm Mammon with sheer numbers, and they made good use of their limited attack opportunities with a few vital criticals. They slowly whittled Mammon down while she and her worm were unable to seriously hurt them in return thanks to Chort's resilience and Diplo's incredible dodging ability. She identified Diplo as the primary threat thanks to his incredible ability to take advantage of her distraction while casting spells and started fighting more defensively, which prevented her from continually blanketing the rest of the party with meteors and powerful magical effects. Diplo tried using his weaponless round to grapple her, which failed completely, but it inspired Andreth to come join and grapple her successfully with her fancy whip.

With Mammon now bearing a couple of vital wounds and grappled in the middle of a horde of enemies, she decided that the time had come to flee. She allowed herself to be swallowed by her augmented worm so it could burrow into the ground and take her away to rest and plan her next move. However, she made that decision slightly too late, and the party was able to kill the worm before it burrowed more than a dozen feet underground. Diplo crawled down into the tunnel to retrieve her, and after a brief and uneventful confrontation, she agreed to come back to the surface under the impression that she would wisely guide the party in restoring the world to ensure that the magical calamity she foresaw would not come to pass. The party, for their part, was unimpressed with her idea that she was somehow now an equal collaborator instead of a defeated nemesis.

Join us next week to finally stop the ritual beneath Praxis and set the world right!

Stupid Awards

Diplo: Mikolash: Chort: Millie: Ayala: Andreth: Mammon: Vena:
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