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Aibghalien: Okay. First I'm going to take off all my magic items and equipment, make sure I have no buffs on me, then I'm going off to a secluded area. Oh, Saikon, you're coming with me.
Saikon: So you're saying Saikon and you should go to a secluded place and take off all our items...
Saikon is physically present today, along with family (who, in fine make-him-play-an-NPC fashion, is captaining Golbez for this session. This saddens the other players, who are no longer able to laugh at constant farting noises and "guinea hens", but not enough to stop the game from progressing apace. Aibghalien has Saikon cast Detect Magic, discovering that, just as his nemesis in the last session had been able to do, Saikon can detect what spell he is about to cast simply from watching his magical aura. Horribly, they discover a small shard of crystal embedded in the back of his skull!
Saikon: Okay, I'll pull it out.
Aibghalien: And I'll ready my Fortitude saving throw...
DM: Actually it's a Will saving throw.
Aibghalien: Oh thank god.
DM: Saikon, roll a dexterity check and a strength check.
Saikon: (fails one or both of them)
DM: Okay, you grab the shard and try to pull it out, but fail. Aibghalien, you passed your saving throw, so you don't pass out.
Saikon: Maybe I should just cast Dispel Evil.
Golbez: Oooh, Mordenkainen's Disjunction!
DM: You're going to destroy the magical crystal embedded in his skull?
Aibghalien: (Cheerfully sarcastic) I don't see anything wrong with that plan!
Saikon buffs himself, then succeeds in yanking the crystal out. Aibghalien makes multiple saving throws.
DM: Okay, your intelligence is decreased for a few days. You'd become addicted to the magic of the crystal bolstering your spells, so with it gone you're basically in withdrawal.
Aibghalien: (nervously) Decreased by how much?
DM: Two points.
Aibghalien: (instantly back to sarcastic) Oh no, now it's only 33!
DM: You scan Rhuann, but she's not affected. You figure that if she ever had a crystal, the constant shapeshifting caused it to fall out.
Rhuann: Ha! (fist-pump)
DM: Devlyn has a crystal lower in his spine. It's incredibly tiny, so the Dexterity check to spot and grab it will be correspondingly high.
Aibghalien: Rhuann, sit on him.
Saikon fails his roll. Annoyed, he buffs himself again, this time with True Sight and a vision-enhancing spell, among others.
Saikon: NOW I should be able to see it!
Aibghalien: You also see that one kidney isn't working quite properly!
Golbez: You have a lump, I'm not sure how to tell you this...
With the crystal shards removed and the PCs mostly bug-free again, they settle to discuss their next step. Though their nemesis has hinted that some super-weapon or ultimate plan is about to be implemented, the quest to stop that is complicated by Wes's player being absent from this session. As a consequence, the DM instead suggests (through the medium of an NPC) that they assault another base to disrupt communications amongst the enemy. They can't teleport to it, however.
Aibghalien: "That's not a problem!" (eyeing Saikon meaningfully)
Saikon: ...huh? What?
Aibghalien: WIND WALK YOU FOOL.
Saikon: Oh yeah! Okay, so I cast Wind Walk, and we all wear, like, Klan getup...
Saikon is referencing the odd part of the spell in which people dressed all in white are much more difficult to spot than they otherwise would be. Nevertheless he earns a couple of disquieted looks.
Aibghalien: Yeah, hey, why is the material focus for this spell a giant flaming cross?
The PCs make it to the fortress as advertised (Devlyn borrowing Wes's battle armor), only to discover a antimagic dome surrounding the base. Unable to penetrate from the sky, they hustle clone on the ground under the effects of Mass Invisibility. They quickly hole the perimiter with Passwall and enter the tunnel it creates.
DM: One of the guys on the top of the wall spots you.
Golbez: (starts reading off potential spells to grotesquely overkill the person with)
Aibghalien: Dude, Dominate.
Golbez: Oooh!
Aibghalien: Meanwhile, I cast Silent Image so it looks like the wall is still there.
DM: What's the save on that?
Aibghalien: 23.
DM: (sighing) For the most part you don't hear any reaction, but on the other side of the wall you hear a guy arguing. "There's a giant hole in the wall, dammit!"
Saikon: Are we using the combat board?
DM: No... I mean, we can if you want to...
Saikon: Let's draw a hole, and a bunch of assholes...
Golbez starts the slaughter with an Empowered Fireball. He begins scooping up every d6 in sight.
Aibghalien: Careful, if you roll one more die we're legally obligated to switch to Shadowrun.
Rhuann climbs the wall and begins bear-beating the soldiers up there, while the rest of the group continues on ahead. Aibghalien is shot by a mecha, which Golbez and Devlyn blast before its arm falls off due to a casting of, of all things, Open. Tanks open fire, then are decimated! Missiles are launched! Illusory Pit knocks about 80 soldiers out of the fight! A helicopter descends!
Golbez: I cast Wall of Force in the rotors.
Saikon: This reminds me of all those articles in the Washington Post about MEDEVAC crashes...
Aibghalien: Because so many MEDEVACs are brought down by Walls of Force cast by hostile wizards...
DM: Uh... Aibghalien, when a weapon hits you, it's only the part that touches you that turns into light (due to the protective effects of Starmantle, which does just that to nonmagic attacks), right?
Aibghalien: Nope, the entire thing.
DMP: Wow. Okay. The helicopter lands on you and is turned into light. You're blinded.
The NPCs abruptly begin evacuating the base as three missiles descend from the sky to wipe the place out. Aibghalien flies up to intercept them with fireballs.
Golbez: Just let them destroy the base while we get under a wall!
Aibghalien: Rhuann is still out there, she's too far away to get under the wall!
Saikon: She's a half-mile away, the explosion probably won't even reach her. You're right THERE!
Aibghalien: Okay, first, in-character, the last time they self-destructed a base they used a massive bomb which wiped out the entire thing, so that's what Aibghalien is expecting here. Second, don't forget that we're medieval characters, we don't have the knowledge or even the same sort of scientific reasoning ability that would lead us to believe that "explosive plus fire equals explosion", especially since all the ones we've worked with so far have been of the insert-detonator sort, not the light-fire sort. As far as we know these things go off when you shove a thing into them and push a button.
The others are reluctantly impressed by this explanation, and Aibghalien therefore destroys the missiles, which blow up with enough force to slam him into the ground and reduce him to -17. But -- he mysteriously wakes up somewhere else! Where? Who knows! We ended on a cliffhanger! What will happen... next time?