Combat continues! Before too long, however, Lotty ends Phase 1 with some violence. Erithax's big ol' dragon body ain't holding together so well. The party spots him struggling to keep his inner humanoid (?) at bay. We all have to do some checks to convince him to go into the light or whatever.
-Flynn: Performance checks a storm bearing down on Erithax. Sounds jarring!
-Silas: Acrobatic checks some violence extra flourish.
-Null: Investigation checks for features Erithax is super insecure about keeping in dragon form. Also does changeling stuff, cycling through forms in full view to rattle him.
- Lotty: History checks on dragon stuff.
-Berrik: Initially fails an Arcana check with an absolutely pathetic roll of 27 (he's had a long day, okay?), but Lotty saves the day with a flash of genius.
That does it! Erithax loses his cool and dips out of existence. The evil is defeated! Right?
Wrong! We are suddenly shuffled away to a strange land full of rolling clouds of shadow. Is this the Shadowfell? We find ourselves standing in a ruined structure atop a pyramid - lots of pillars and no roof. The whole scene seems like a more ambient night time version of Imhotep summoning a roiling sandstorm in 1999's "The Mummy", but honestly the battlemap is giving more Mesopotamian ziggurat, ya know?
Anyway! We have a wee second to catch our breath and study our surroundings. This structure's accent colour is teal! The glowy, shimmering kind of teal you see in arcane runes, which are everywhere. There are also a couple pairs of brassières braziers to keep some equally teal magic flames supported, perky and contained.
Suddenly, 5 Nightwalkers appear. We've never fought them, but we did swerve one while sneaking through one of Myridia's green spaces. They're spooky motherfuckers that are 15 feet tall and have a 15 foot reach. Picture the Faun from Pan's Labyrinth but enormous and a loyal patron of Hot Topic. Fighting ensues. We whip the usual moves: fireball, smites, stabs, targeted motorboats motes. Flynn EB's one Nightwalker into a brazier, which does a ton of damage. These nightmares made flesh aren't like super fun to fight though. They keep trying to lay a withering fingering on us, which isn't welcome at all and somehow makes one of our magical effects disappear on a failed save. They also have this thing called Enervating Touch which is actually an attack (yay!) but reduces your HP maximum by a whole bunch on a hit (boo!). These big goth monster babies can also fly, which I insist is only fun and cool when we do it.
Anyway, we eventually win after a couple of clutch Banishments from Flynn. Making two of the Nightwalkers disappear twice during the fight really turned the tide for us! MVP goes to him.
With a moment of respite, we discuss whether to cure our currently depleted HP now or keep going to maximize our resources. We go with the latter, just in time to see Humanoid(ish) Erithax enter stage right.