Spoilers: A Narrow Door and a Long Hallway

[glaucusrex]

It's lovely when a plan comes together.

Well, I returned to the Duergar encampment after becoming an associate of the Black Ravens. You didn't actually think I could cooperate with those slavers did you? I proceeded to prepare for wiping out the duergar.

I reconnoitered their facility trying to choose my ground for the battle that they did not suspect. Knowing that I would be outnumbered I wanted to control how many I would fight at once, so I looked for key terrain--easily defended chokepoints. At first I thought the storage room would be best since if was undefended. I could occupy it and fight from there. But then I realized that the altar room at the end of the hallway would offer spectacular fields of fire down that long hallway. It would be more difficult to secure since it was occupied by five. But, if I could slow the relief force I should be able to eliminate them quickly and set up my kill zone from the altar.

Well, I did some basic buffing of my party--protection from evil, bull's strength, cat's grace, mirror imaging, and the tale of three heroes. My druid started summoning his allies to block the doorway. I think I wound up with a spotted lion, a dire bear, a worg, and a dire wolf. With everything ready I set the wheels in motion.

I proceeded to loudly thieve the crypt in the altar room, knowing that this would turn the duergar against me. As they did so, my dwarven fighter and aasimar paladin hacked away at them, my thief twanged her bow from the altar, my mage launched quick deadly spells like magic missile while my druid fired alicorn lance and sol's searing orb.

One flaw in the plan, of course, was my animals tended to attack and stray from the door. This allowed some of the rescuers to leak through. Mostly, however, they were slowed and scattered which allowed us to focus on them individually as they came through. Eventually, we secured the room and got the animals back to block the door. My bard was able to dominate 2 of the duergar and send them back against their own kind.

At this point I lined up my mage and druid to be able to fire down the hallway. My bard and thief stood on the altar to hit enemies who got in with crossbow and bow. My paladin and fighter stood to either side to melee any penetrations.

As the rescuing duergar packed into the hallway, and my animals were near death, I opened up with a thorn spray from my druid and a confusion from my bard. The thorn spray did massive damage to the already injured duergar. The confusion turned them against each other and made their pack in the hallway a muddled mess, even without animals to block the way. With missile file I cleared the hallway of the first wave. I knew however, that it wasn't all of them. I hadn't seen the orc archers. I summoned a couple more critters to block the way, and sent my thief out to attract the attention of the second wave from the lobby of the duergar encampment.

As they charged down the hallway, the orc archers and duergar bolters stopped when they were in range to hit my people. In one way, this was more dangerous. They were able to hit my people from a distance and did significant damage. My people had hardly a scratch up til then. It also made them another nice pack of targets in the narrow hallway. Another confusion spell from my bard made them an inert mass.

I moved my paladin, fighter and animals out of the way and let rip with a lance of disruption. It rippled through a pack of duergars 8 deep. Now this group was heavily wounded. For the coup de grace I lined my mage up directly behind my druid. Simultaneously, they launched a smashing wave and a fireball. This crushed the remaining resistance. Now it was mopping up time. Only a couple survived, and they were almost dead.

Take that you slaver scum!

That was one of the most fun battles I've had in a long time, because the duergar were dangerous: they had beaten me up badly before when they get to melee range. And rarely does your plan come together so perfectly against a worthy opponent.

Like a good bard, I thought that I should tell the tale of Kralad Deep, Adrastes of Evenstar, Grafeen OakenPine, Celdrina Marat, Rhiannon Rheged, and L'Aura of the Wood.

[Tharan]

Oh very nice, now you inspired me to tell the story of one of my encounters, this was against the 6 of the lost followers.

I decided to get the mighty holy avenger right before entering the domain of Lord Pyros. Carefully studying the medallion from the sword I had a vague idea of how to go toe to toe with the lost followers at the graveyard, so I set out on my mission.

Once the party arrived at the graveyard, I re-read the medallion and stumbled on the Death's Hand's death, so it was someone with blunt damage that could kill him, and also the necromancer that had her own allies against her. So I summoned few undead, buffed both of my paladins with bull's strength and gave bull's strength to my barbarian. Emotion: Hope and Mass haste and I was ready for the bloody battle to come.

Once the Holy Avenger apeared, the younger of the Paladins grabed the sword wich he put into his main hand while his off hand held Bastard Sword +4, he went for the necromancer along with couple of the summoned undead.

The older paladin and the barbarian concentrated on the other wizard, the Cleric and The Fighter both using ranged weapon assisted the two.

The necromancer fell swiftly, and so did the mage. After that I noticed that my Archer was being pelted by the archer of the lost followers, so with full force I attacked the enemy archer. While all of that was happening, several of my undead minions were keeping the enemy monk occupied, while my mage who was mirror imaged was standing there looking at the evil dwarf who was pounding away at his mirror images.

The Enemy archer fell, but my barbarian and the older paladin were injured from the Evil Knight who was hacking non stop at my forces. My cleric imidiatly healed both of them and yet again everyone attacked the knight. He fell after a few attacks and then everyone turned their attention to the monk who was wounded badly. Did not take long to kill him and then everyone turned to the dwarf who was in perfect health still trying to destroy the mirror images. Equiping my archer with Arrows wich did blunt damage the party set out to work. And after a little time the last of the lost followers lay dead, again, on the ground.

The party cleaned up and rested and with the holy avenger in hand they left the graveyard.