Five Hour Fight

Session 16 of Tomb of Annihilation

The PC's:

Shaun the Kobold, Cleric (Light of Kossuth) 6, Criminal from streets of Port Nyanzaru, Zhent
Varis, High Elf Wizard 6 (evoker), acolyte of Oghma
Adran, Wood Elf Bard (Lore) 6, Entertainer and Bagpiper from the cold northern forests, Zhent - unconscious at start of session from sleep gas toward end of last session
Angry Agatha, Half-Orc Barbarian (Totem Bear) 6, Harper, bodyguard and long time associate of Sembian Sam
Shummp, Half-Orc Fighter (Champion) 6, Soldier from the North seeking wealth in Chult
Are, Moon Elf Druid (Circle of Moon) 5, Young refugee from overrun northern village, now travels in company of Darius Foreshot
Darius Foreshot, Human Fighter (Eldritch Knight) 5, Outlander/Hermit, Seeking fortune in Chult
Farout, Tortle Druid (Circle of Land - Beach) 5, Traveling up from Snout of Omgar in far southern Chult, following rumors of source of death curse.

PC's Not Present:
Sembian Sam, Human Rogue 5 (thief), Ranger 1, archaeologist, Harper - unconscious after inhaling sleep gas toward end of last session


NPC's:
Vorn, a Shield Guardian found in the jungle now under the command of Varis, who promised to eventually return the shield guardian to Wakanga O'Tamu in exchange for a spell book.
Itch, the kobold who introduced party to kobolds of Omu.
Cormyran Kandy, a rival archaeologist and former lover of Sembian Sam, had been hired by the Red Wizards but now working with the PC's - unconscious from inhaling sleep gas last session.

This is kind of a tough one to write up, as we had a pretty much continuous combat encounter that took place over five hours of real time, actually more as it was a continuation of the battle from last week as the Yuan Ti sounded the alert throughout their temple complex in response to Shummp's picking a fight with a Yuan Ti minion after half the party was immobilized by the sleeping gas. Shaun quickly brought Agatha out of it with a lesser restoration but he has only so many spell slots to go around. While Agatha shrugs off the near fatal pertrification from the basilisk, Shump, Vorn, Darius, and Varis are largely able to assist her in downing the basilisks, the broodguards, and their Yuan Ti minder before retreating back down the hall as they hear a commotion to their north of forces gathering and Shaun and Are note movement in the halls below as they hide with the unconscious party members down a side passage back toward the store room where they had defeated a giant talking snake last week. However, as the others retreat down the passage to join the others they are noticed by a snake headed Yuan Ti accompanied by two large muscular humans. He both threatens them (from afar) and suggests surrender as their most logical course of action. Shummp charges is intercepted by one of the humans, who turns out to be very tough. The other human is sent for reinforcements while the snake head retreats down the hall to fire his bow at Shummp, who soon retreats after taking massive damage and is replaced by Vorn, who chases the human and the snake headed Yuan Ti further down the hall way, past an intersection and he ends up cut off as reinforcements charge down through the intersection...

In the meantime, Farout the Tortle runs into a kobold (Itch) as he wanders around Omu, wondering where the magical T Rex killers he had lately been associating with had gone. The kobold showed him the secret tunnel they had disappeared into, suspecting that his friend Shaun may have run into some trouble down there. Farout then made is way through the wreckage from last week, making his way up the hallway the Yuan Ti were now running down from the other direction, but he had the presence of mind to cast pass without trace so he was hidden and could observe and choose his moment for getting involved, as does so as the reinforcements arrive, summoning a wall of water to smash them before they get into the passage. As they recover (still not noticing the hidden turtle creature) they split three ways, some going through the passage to the room where Farout was hiding to flank the party, while others go to face them head on, while the human minion goes after Vorn and the snake headed guy, who disappear through a door after Vorn finishes smashing the first human to pulp and continues after the next enemy in front of him.

Farout then changed into a spider and got ahead of the Yuan Ti flankers, joining the some of the party in the cave behind the store room. Are stood ready to close and lock the door behind them but much of the party was still scattered holding off enemies in the passage to the store room or the store room itself. Farout summoned a pack of eight wolves to help defend from the flankers a couple seconds before those Yuan Ti came into the cavern from the only other exit. The wolves proved very effective, with their pack tactics doing fairly massive amounts of damage per round. A few more enemies trickled in that way during the fight but the main action was down the hall way to the store room, as a massive scaly Yuan Ti with a big shield and a loud voice took command and dove through the door as Are was paralyzed with indecision about whether or not to close the door as Varis was still in the storeroom, now beset by two additional Yuan Ti (several others had died in front of these). Vorn was still cut off, attempting to fight his way back down the tunnel, fighting one or two enemies at a time in the close confines of these Yuan Ti tunnels was going fairly well for the construct, as the Yuan Ti damage per round was just barely exceeding Vorn's regeneration per round. Shaun attempted to revive Sam but ended up (perhaps it was the will of her diety, Kossuth?) reviving Adran instead.

Since the party had only had a short rest and a couple tough encounters prior to that they had already burned through most spells and Agatha was out of rage. Soon the fighters had burned through their action surges and second winds and other abilities and remaining healing potions were being burned through as well. The big scaly fighter guy eventually was dropped, but then more snakemen started to arrive. Are charged forward in dire wolf form, snapping at one, only to take a couple bites and slashes in return that not only knocked her back into her elf from but then dropped her as well. Adran used his new animate dead spell on a dead Yuan Ti and sent it shambling down the hall. Darius attempted to blast the Yuan Ti with a firebolt as he moved up next to the fallen Are and dropped one, but he was then dropped himself by a couple arrows from another Yuan Ti after the zombie was ripped apart by a broodguard who just arrived. And Vorn had nearly made it back when more enemies arrived! At this moment Agatha slammed the door shut and spiked it in place, and the remainder of the party retreated down the tunnel to the back entrance, leaving Adran to shove a crate in front of the entrance to the store room while he tried hiding behind another. Vorn then turned around as Varis seemed to be behind him and went out the other entrance; the snake men were at this point glad to let the construct go...

Thinking from the Yuan Ti perspective they kept feeding in more troops and losing them along with a couple senior leaders, they are feeling nearly as chewed up as the party with notably less intelligence on their enemy than they party does on the Yuan Ti... it will be interesting to see their attitude to the PC's going forward, but they do have prisoners now to pump for information... and one of Are's acts in the tunnel was to take the puzzle cubes off Sam for safe keeping (Sam is now the "safe" one, being carried out by Agatha). Now that the snake men have Are, they also have all the puzzle cubes...