New Pantheon 9: Death of a God and the Fleet

Back to the action! This was a session where, for whatever reason, nearly half of the attacks were criticals.

The Alchemist is headed straight for another major ship in the royal Armada. Ayslyn has disappeared into the waves, and Swaggles has disappeared into the skies.

Semprona and Layric fire their cannons, largely hitting their targets, two large ships that have moved into position. They brace for impact.

Rache and Jeptha continue looking for a magic item in Patrick's quarters until a catapulted rock tears off the top of the room, and the steering wheel with it. They cower against some rubble for protection from arrow fire. Jeptha runs out on deck and, finding himself exposed, uses the ship collision to throw himself into the hole left by the catapult - and down 40 feet. Moments later, a still large Rache squeezes out the door, charges across the deck, and hurtles himself down the stairs.

The Alchemist's iron bow has embedded itself in this new ship, rending an immense gash in the unfortunate wooden victim. The Gods attempt to board the ship from the first floor down of the alchemist onto the victim's deck. Layric, still engulfed in darkness, sneaks across the ship, but is soon passed by Semprona, who bursts from the ship's front and out into the mob of sailors. Jeptha makes his way forward, but is slowed by stairs. Rache runs forward, finds that he cannot fit out the small openings afforded him, and tries and fails to break his way through.

Semprona has done this dance before. She starts slaying sailors, but quickly finds that she has run out of Lay on Hands. No matter, what could go wrong?

Layric melts the captain and guard with acid, and Jeptha has a bit of difficulty maneuvering with the blocks of enemies.

Rache again fails to break through to the deck.

Then, Semprona gets the attack of a lifetime. Dealing a massive amount of damage, she cleanly separates head from body in the most graceful swing of her existence - the only problem? It is her head. Due to a critical fumble transformed to a self-inflicted critical hit, in conjunction with a 4x crit damage, Semprona completely obliterates herself. The God of Darkness leaves the corpse of Semprona, and "heads" abroad to find a new host.

Our heroes are horrified, but overcome the sailors. After several rounds of trying, Rache finally bursts on deck and intimidates the crew members to come aboard the Alchemist. They do so. Rache goes above deck with a score to steer the ship by grabbing the rudder, and Jeptha orders a score to start filling the hole with anything they can throw in - gunpowder included. Layric continues firing his cannon.

After a few turns, including critical miss induced friendly fire from the fleet, the HMS Enterprise is damaged beyond repair. When it is, Patrick's voice can be heard ordering the nearby, smaller HMS Pinafore to come pick him and the rest of the crew up.

Rache sets sail for the HMS Enterprise. In a stroke of madness, Jeptha begins breaking open the gunpowder barrels. The Alchemist is now a giant, iron grenade, and unwitting archers from other ships begin shooting fire arrows, lighting the Alchemists sails on fire. From here on out, Josh rolls a d20, then a d12, then a d8, then a d6, then a d4, and then d4s. On a 1, the Alchemist blows up.

The Alchemist comes alongside the Enterprise, which is alongside the Pinafore. Our heroes can see Fitzgibbons disembarking from one ship to the other. Given the Alchemist's size, Layric's cannon is now at deck level and he fires across a score of enemies.

Not wanting to let Fitzgibbons get away, Rache casts hold person on Fitzgibbons then leaps on deck, falling flat on his face. He is immediately surrounded by the mob, and a critical brings him down to -6. He begins to bleed out. The fuse on the Alchemist is going.

Jeptha also jumps, and falls flat on his face.

Layric realizes that this fight might be unwinnable. Still he is not giving up. He uses a scroll to cast invisibility on himself, then makes his way across the deck toward his real target: Fitzgibbons.

Jeptha gets mobbed by enemies, bringing him down to the low teens. He elects to roll off the side of the Enterprise, but takes an opportunity attack while rolling off and goes unconscious. He lands in the ocean, then begins to sink and drown. Within three rounds, he will be dead.

Layric makes his way to Fitzgibbons. He whips out a wand of Corrosive Grasp, and blasts the bastard. Fitzgibbons disintegrates. Layric then smiles at the crew members, and drops overboard.

The clock on the Alchemist is still ticking. Rache is still bleeding out on the deck of the Enterprise. Jeptha has seconds left to live.

Underwater, Layric chugs a Touch of the Sea Potion, the spots Jeptha sinking 90 feet away. He swims as fast as he can towards the God of Fire, and manages to bring him up for air just in time. Unfortunately, he they are now both 5 feet away from the Alchemist, which has a 25% chance of exploding every 6 seconds.

Layric takes a deep breath, then swims underneath the Enterprise. He brings Jeptha up for air just in time to keep him from drowning, then hangs onto the outside of the Pinafore. Agonizing seconds pass, waiting for the ship to blow. Over a minute ticks by. There is only a 1.8% chance that the ship has lasted this long.

Rache is brought aboard the Pinafore from the crippled Enterprise. He has stabilized, and is tied down.

Finally, a squad of sailors comes around to see what all of the splashing is. Four heavily armed sailors peek over the side of the boat, and lock eyes with Layric, holding an unconscious Jeptha. A beat passes.

Then, amazingly, the Alchemist blows.

Layric is temporarily deafened, as a thundering roar disintegrates the Alchemist. Shrapnel and burning shards of iron and wood are thrown with reckless force against a thousand men and a dozen ships. The half of the Enterprise is blow to nothingness. The ships in the area are riddled with sharpness, cracked, or physically knocked over from the blast. Those not in the blast radius are peppered with flame and catch ablaze.

Shielded by the corpse of the Enterprise, the Pintafore comes away with only minor bruises. Still, bodies and smoke clog the air and water. In the chaos, Layric climbs aboard the the small ship, drags Jeptha out of the water, then sneaks over the Rache. Grabing the God of Light's wand of cure light wounds, he heals his friends back up to positive. Then the remaining Pantheon take the ship, and sail away from the ruined fleet.

It is still March 4th, 15 AC. Our heroes played this level at level 9, Ascension Level 3.

New Pantheon 10: Aquatic Beasties and God-Like Impostors