S09E18 - Gargoyle Attack

The episode starts with the heroes defending Kir Sabal from a pack of gargoyles on the perilous mountain cliff walkways of the monastery. The party is desperately trying to prevent the gargoyles from breaking the summoning ritual that five aarakocras are performing. If successful, it would bring a powerful ally that would crush the gargoyles.

Early during the fight the gargoyles capture the little brother of Mwaxanaré, Ná, hurt him, and throw him down the mountain and into the jungle. The heroes consider helping him but decide to keep defending the aarakocras and prevent further losses. The rest of the gargoyles focus their attacks on the most isolated or weakest members and try to stay away from Chos

After Carnivore, the gargoyles split to get away from Chos, some of them focus on Salida, whom they also knock unconscious and throw down the mountain, and the other group flies away to the monastery building where Sophi and Avilos remain.

Avilos’s tactic for the fight is to combine his Hold Person spell and gravity to turn the gargoyles temporarily unable to fly and make them crash-land. He combines that with Thunderwave, which is also Ellie’s main weapon during the fight. Sophi climbs to the monastery’s top floor early on and spends the battle peppering gargoyles with arrows, and Chos invokes a cloud of phantasmal spirit guardians that get through the stony skin of the gargoyles as if they were made of cheese and spends most of the battle sweeping the walkways.

On the fifth round, the aarakocras complete their ritual summoning an air elemental. The incredible creature engulfs the group of gargoyles that surround Avilos and unleashes violent wind gusts that turn the gargoyles into dust, and knock Avilos unconscious.

Sophi comes to Avilos’s help and gives him the red-colored potion from Rupert’s lair. Luckily it turned out to be a healing potion and Avilos becomes conscious again.

With an air elemental and five aarakocras on their side, the tide of battle turns to the heroes’ side and they make quick work of most of the remaining gargoyles and scare the remaining ones to flee.

Immediately after the gargoyles start fleeing, Chos asks the aarakocras for diamonds to revive Ná, Carnivore, and Salida, who are most likely dead at the bottom of the mountain and is then flown down by one of the aarakocras.

Chos is also flown down to the location where Ná fell, confirms that the little boy is dead, and awaits impatiently for any diamonds.

Ellie jumps towards Salid, transforming into a small-sized spider right before impact, and stabilizing the guide, still while in spider form.

Sophi is flown down to where Carnivore lies, and while the aarakocra who carried her performs proper first aid, Sophi sensually caresses the dwarf’s chest over its shiny new leather armor, especially around the decorative nipples waking him up. The sturdy dwarf had been incredibly lucky and was just stunned.

Moments later, an out-of-breath Asharra arrives where Chos is waiting, bringing the only diamond in the monastery with her. Chos wastes no time, casts Revivify consuming the diamond in the process and bringing the little boy back from the dead. Sadly, his right pinky is covered in black skin: he’s now under the Soulmonger’s curse, like Chos.

The heroes return to the monastery and take a short rest in front of Asharra while she performs the dance of the Seven Winds ritual. During this time Salida tells Ellie that her boss has told her to stay away from the Heart of Ubtao because it has become the local headquarters of a power-hungry and ruthless group called the Red Wizards of Thay.

After the ritual is complete, Asharra’s wings transform into six pairs of energy wings that fly and attach to the heroes’s backs temporarily granting them the ability to fly. The party gathers their belongings, says goodbye to the aarakocras, and prepares to leave while Chos goes to the princess’s quarters to say bye in private, exchange kisses with Mwaxanaré, and hear her desire to rule Omu together once the party has cleansed it from monsters.

The heroes then take flight towards the Heart of Ubtao. Chos almost has a panic attack as he jumps into the air, but gets his mind under control.

The first day of air travel passes by without major incidents. The heroes cross the river Olung one more time, they come across a group of Batiri goblins who shoot javelins at them from way too far to hit them, and they spend the night in the jungle. During the night Avilos dreams that he’s doing an amazing aerial dance-off against some amazing fey creatures, and Ellie dreams she’s a succession of animals flying over an incredible primordial forest. They wake elated and brimming with energy and freedom.

During the second day of travel, the heroes continue their flight toward the East and see less wildlife and more undead. Besides Carnivore dive bombing into innocent zombies, followed by Chos who dive bombs into the injured zombies to finish the zombies off with toll the dead, no incidents happen.

During the night, Sophi dreams that she’s flying riding Falkor in a palace of giants stealing their jewels and gems. Chos also has a dream, but it’s less happy: he feels like he’s been chased down, he’s flying over a ruinous jungle city inside a huge basin, with lava and flooded areas, and something is calling him from the northern cliff that surrounds the city. He wakes up sweating and restless.

The next morning, after flying for a while the heroes meet the grung they saved weeks ago and that they recently met riding hadrosauruses. She’s still with the dinosaurs and Avilos flies down to say hi and air kiss each other.

Soon after having lunch, Carnivore shouts “The flying rock! We arrived!”