The session started with the party locked in combat with the remaining undead wights.
Felix Traidor and his transmuting wizard and vampire spawn eyed the party as they finished off the wights.
Felix stared at Nix and said, “Well, you are a hard one to find. Your father sends his greetings. You aren’t going to offer us any refreshments. We have been looking for you for months.” He looks at Belladonna, “Aren’t you going to let us drink from your faerie?”
In the blink of an eye, Felix had Belladonna grappled, and Felix’s gaze never left Nix’s eyes.
Felix slowly lowered his fangs towards Belladonna’s neck and said, “Nix, I would love to rip your spine up through your face and slowly milk your deliciously looking friends. Let’s start with your friends.” Felix sunk his fangs into Belladonna, and blood oozed from her neck. Felix looks to his wizard and said, “I would like some privacy so I can finish my meal.” The wizard started to cast Fog Cloud (level 4), but Nix used his reaction to counter-spell and succeeded! (DM note: If he had gotten that Fog Cloud spell off, Belladonna probably would have been killed as he would have completely drained her in the fog, as being in fog produces the “blind” condition.)
Zephry, who was cut off from the party, ran down an alley (and off the map) and re-entered the map 2 rounds later, closer to the party. The party rushed to try to break the grapple, with Aswan, Zithgar, and Bob the Blind all surrounding Felix. Belladonna cast “erupting earth,” damaging both Felix and the wizard, but it was not enough to break the grapple. Nix cast bloody hands on the wizard (which probably prevented a total party wipe) and says, “I am the one you want; take me.”
Felix said, “Poor Burnhilda,” and clicked his tongue in a chiding way. “And poor Thurmond. Oh, wait Nix. You haven’t yet told them what happens to your friends?”
Karwl was rushing into combat, laying down monstrous hits and dashing back out. Felix said, “You know, your drunk friend here was smart. She didn’t pose for the paintings that Sheik Ba’rabab painted by that oasis. After a few bites, Ba’rabab told us everything, plus we were able to get good visual descriptions of your party. Knowing what you all look like made it so much easier to find your group. That painting shaved months off our search for you.”
Felix took another long bite from Belladonna, knocking her unconscious. He dropped Belladonna to the ground and said, “Your Queen Reborn … you know that she is THE Queen Reborn, right? She has restricted my ability to harm you directly. She has made certain arrangements with your father. After all, this is HER Coven, and I see that you are part of it.” Felix pointed to the citizenship bracelets the party has. He then rushes toward Zithgar and grapples him.
Belladonna failed a death save. At this point, the vampire spawn and transmuting wizard attacked the party. The Bloody Hands spell that Nix had cast on the wizard dissuaded him from casting polymorph or fireball, but he did shoot acid from his hands (three times per round), and the bloody hand condition caused him to miss many of his shots (DM note: each shot was averaging around 16 points of acid damage), but he does hit a few of the characters. During the next round, Aswan or Bob the Blind healed Belladonna (DM Note: I was on my 3rd drink, and I can’t remember), saving her from making a second death save.
The vampire spawn tries to grapple Bob the Blind and Zithgar but was unsuccessful, but she did get a couple of life-draining bites in.
Aswan was casting various spells to do radiant damage (which was critical to keep Felix from regenerating at the end of each round), and Zephry was using silvery barbs and bardic inspiration.
During the fight, Nix was able to bite Felix! Felix’s blood tasted an awful lot like faerie.
The fight continued, and the party was slowly whittling down Felix (he was only able to regen twice given that he was taking radiant damage during some of the rounds), the vampire spawn, and the wizard. The party noticed, however, that Felix never attacked Nix.
During the fight, Felix rushed from person to person, trying to grapple and bite, and said, “You know that during the Purge, the Blackbull was infused with void magic and death magic, creating us. He then made two vampires who were lovers.”
Felix continued, “All vampires trace our roots back to those two lovers. Your father was a creation of one of those.”
When Nix gave only a smack-talk response, Felix added, “Oh, you don’t know, do you.” He grinned evilly and said, “The Queen Reborn is your grandmother.” Then he sunk his teeth into the grappled Zithgar, knocking him unconscious.
A combination of Zephry and Aswan was able to heal Zithgar after he failed a death save.
Felix, who had taken a ton of damage from the party, specifically from Karwl’s quarterstaff attacks, said, “Nix, your father has an offer. Find the artifact in the necropolis and return it to him, and you will be restored back to good standing.”
Nix said something to the effect of “hell no,” and the fight continued. The wizard tried to cast a spell, but crit failed, and suddenly a wild bear appeared and charged the wizard [Love those crit cards]!
DM COMMENT:
Back in Session 3, Nore told you that there had been a deal struck between the vampires of Per-Bastet and the Queen Reborn. The deal was that if you pledged allegiance to the Queen Reborn you would receive a citizens bracelet and the vampires were not allowed to feed on you.
Well, hopefully that makes more sense now.
Teak D’Hara (DM)
Felix rushed towards Zephry and tried to grapple and bite her but was unsuccessful. The Karwl landed blow after blow on Felix. Nix cut himself to get a spell slot back, raised his hands, and quickened a solitary fireball into Felix. Nix followed that with a firebolt that CRIT Felix, who had used all of his legendary saves already, failed the save and fell face-first on the street. But when he hit the pavement, his body dissolved into mist and slowly moved away, heading southwest into Per-Bastet.
With all of the enemies dead or fleeing, Zithgar started peppering Nix with questions about who Felix and his companions were. Zithgar was angry, and the party, who was really hurt and beat up, stumbled back to the Bast temple for a long rest, and the session ended.