The Necropolis: Philosophy Debate
The party spends an inordinate amount of time discussing strategies for dashing into the Erinyes and snatching their key by surprise, only to ultimately settle on walking in and just taking it.
The squads of glaive-wielding demons do their job, which is to say, keep the Barbarian busy for several whole rounds. The winged demons vaunted archery power is blunted by the Bard flying in with strong Mirror Images and close combat with his halberd; after a futile round they switch to his one true weakness. The Bard and the leader of the Erinyes spend the rest of the battle occupied in... other activities.
But the distraction was too much, and the Ranger is winning the ranged battle. Several other members of the party resist the lady's enticements, proving this really is just a Bard thing, and soon enough the battle is over.
As they extract the Bard from the embrace of the last Erinyes, her final words are sigh of relief. Five hundred years in a dungeon is a fate worse than death and the party has released the devils from their imprisonment, albeit at the cost of their lives.
The Necropolis: Throw-down in the throne room
The hallway to the throne room is trapped with explosions every five feet. Rather than deal with a hundred of feet of damage, the Bard Dimension Doors the party to the next door. This reduces the problem to only a few trapped squares, at the expense of leaving them no easy retreat.
They insert the twin keys, open the doors, and step into the next room. This floor is trapped as well, but only with Dispel Magic intended to debuff them. This proves even more restrictive than the explosions; the party clears a few squares to fight from, buffs up their melee, and sends the Bard in to scout.
As he flies around the dark room he discovers the one thing they never expected: the massive bulk of a dragon!
The beast rouses itself and spits a line of acid at the party, followed by charging into melee. The Druid-bear is obviously the greater threat, especially as it is currently enshrouded in spells, so the dragon grapples the beast and tries to roll across multiple de-buffing trapped squares. Unfortunately, it fails as the bear finds an anchor point in a cracked stone and holds his ground.
At this close range it becomes clear that the dragon is, in fact, dead. However, a zombie dragon requires a staggering amount of damage to dismantle. This would not normally be a concern as the bear and Barbarian throw fistfuls of dice, except for the minor detail of the appearance of the Lich.
This is an unwelcome development, to say the least. His first words are met by a barrage of attacks, all of which pass harmlessly through. This is merely a projection; the real lich is hidden somewhere else in the room. The Bard sweeps through the air, searching, while the rest of the party starts making saving throws. Once per round, the lich's image points at a target and utters a word of death.
Remarkably, the party keeps surviving. The Bard finds a throne on a high dias in the middle of the room with a corpse seated on it. He quickly lands and beheads the corpse, but it is a mere prop. The rest of the party, having dispatched the dragon, rush over to investigate and the Cleric quickly realizes the throne itself is the lich's phylactery. For once the bear's claws are ineffective against dull stone, so the party breaks out all the blunt weapons they have - warhammers and halberds, but the supreme weapon is an ordinary sledgehammer in the Barbarian's bag. While they reduce the throne to dust the lich's programmed projected continues its assualt; the Bard, once again, is the only one to fall to the mystical assault. His lifeless body slumps to the ground just a round before the throne does, its rubble mixing with the dust of the lich's mortal remains.
Behind the throne they find a chest with the wealth intended to fund the lich's conquest of the surface world. Powerful magic items collected across the ages from previous adventurers and so unique they seem as if they were collected with the party in mind, and a wealth of tael so great it erases the loss of the Bard's death and more.
What they do not find is the Orb of Dragons. Because this, they realize, was always a myth. A lie spread by the dragon to encourage parties to spend themselves fighting his foes. As satisfied as they are with the wealth, they are actually no closer to solving the problem of the dragon.
