#droxin

the sathara poofs up to his spiky tower, letting his frost giant minions wake up along the path. with help from a tossed rope from our hidden rogue NPC buddy and some athletics rolls on part of the unicorn, qilue manages to make it out of the landslide, just in time to come face to face with two of the frost giants...and uses that good good unicorn teleport to get straight to falros, despite the sathara casting a sleet storm for difficult terrain 

reunited and it feels so good ✨

qilue’s so pissed off at this whole situation they crit to hit the shackles, pretty much shattering one and almost entirely breaking the other--the unicorn finished them off with its hooves

BUT IT’S A TRAP! one of the sathara’s ice mephits swoops down and plucks qilue right off the unicorn, flying them up and tossing them into the third floor of the tower, where the sathara awaits. qilue snarls that they were looking for him, but his move is next, and he uses blight...

and falros watches from below as qilue’s life is sapped away in an instant.

y’all thought he was mad before

(also, ngl, this was one of the most tense moments of the game--DM was looking up to see whether necrotic damage to KO would kill a character with no death saving throws allowed. i nearly cried thinking i lost qilue lmao)

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MAP, droxin (having taken a storm giant’s strength potion) and grik are facing off against a fuckhuge ice mephit and another frost giant, while parsnip and finn (the rogue) are fighting off the other frost giant still left. of the two that were facing qilue, one slipped on the ice and fell into the chasm below 😜

falros is all set to storm into the tower, BUT the unicorn pretty much rushes up, picks him up, and dashes him inside. on reaching the top, falros immediately uses healing word to get qilue back up, then wild shapes into a crag cat and LLLLET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLE

qilue, falros, and the unicorn all face off against the sathara while the others are still dealing with the monsters across map. the sathara uses a spell to take control of the unicorn, severing its magical connection with qilue, and orders it to back down to the first floor. qilue shouts at him in sylvan to stop taking everything away from them

(and oh my god, the unicorn moonwalking backwards down the stairs all pissy about it and leaving a rainbow poop on its way down was...such a good running joke the rest of the fight)

a magic attack on falros backfires thanks to one of the crag cat’s innate abilities, sending 40 damage (!!) right back into the sathara’s face. he conjures a fireball and slams it into qilue’s back twice, taking them down again...and falros, having taken enough damage to turn back into himself, stands between them to protect qilue

our first guide up the mountain, betyah, showed up on a nearby peak about halfway through and had been trying to throw daggers in the window to hit the sathara. with her hawk friend distracting the mephit that had swooped qilue, she makes her way down, helps the rest of the group FINALLY take down the giant ice mephit, then runs into the tower

she picks up qilue, double-fists a greater healing and regular healing potion down their throat, and immediately goes back into hiding

qilue wakes up just in time to see the sathara freeze falros down to 0, then slam a flame blade into his gut, which nearly completely kills him

their enemies dispatched, the rest of the group makes their way to the tower (with some teleport help from our good buddy the ancient archfey, who was actually the sathara’s brother) and books it up the stairs. droxin immediately attacks, pinning the sathara to the wall with his greatsword. qilue, torn on wanting to kill the bastard and needing to get falros out of danger (especially since he’s now in wild-animal-panic mode, trying to keep stabbing at the seal boy), opts to pull falros away and get him up with a healing potion

however...

hellish rebuke’s a helluva thing!

y’all. i got the exact amount of damage needed.

the sathara burns to ashes. as he’s burning, droxin (who is...petrified by fire, and before now, would have likely jumped away) holds onto him the entire time and growls at him in orcish, “you’re lucky. you took the easy way out.”

(...dude was gonna eat him if he got the final blow.)

and it is!! finally!! over!! thanks to the rest of the party destroying the altar’s crystals on their way up, the sathara’s minions pretty much started falling all over the mountain, and the day is saved. the unicorn, no longer under the control spell, comes back up just in time to nuzzle a very exhausted qilue before poofing back to the feywild

as everyone’s checking themselves, reuniting in their relief, the love confession happened as depicted (which is way more awkward when you’re doing it aloud rather than writing it lmao)

a lot more happened after that--turns out the sathara had been possessing another guy’s body, and his soul was in a ring he had on him, which brought its OWN set of circumstances...we had another session yesterday that was meant to wrap up, but we took so long dividing the loot (...boy howdy. i’m going to do a separate post for qilue’s haul ‘cause holy shit) that we’re doing one more next weekend to get back to our benefactor