Oops, I killed her in vein. I cut out her heart, got lost in the game. Oh baby baby.

Go somewhere, kill somebody. Why can't it be "Go somewhere, sleep with somebody."? Or better yet, "Go somewhere, do something for fame and glory, then sleep with many somebodies."

Either way, we went to kill somebody. In an elven city no less. We somehow managed to not piss of the entire city and get thrown into jail (first time!) and the house we tracked the assassin to had a nice little hole in the ground with dead bodies around it. Ya think? Yep. That way.

Nothing terribly exciting inside the underground complex; we didn't get a chance to explore because we ran into a chapel with a dude chanting something magic like. It was dark inside. Then there was a scream, the chanting stopped, and I ran in to kill things.

The assassin popped out of the darkness to kill our escort, and then started attacking us, so I chopped her into tiny little pieces -- when I could see her, since she was all covered in shadows and flitting around out of site.

After I killed her (go me!) it turns out she was a good guy; a very pissed wizard came in and was like blah blah blah blah. Whatever, they dealt with it. But it turned out that the woman who told us to go kill things was evil. So we went to go kill her. And we brought with us for some reason the traitor who was suckerd into helping her out because she was a hottie. Which I can totally understand, okay?

She had a trap for the wizard, so his lazy ass stayed in some spell. I killed some giant-type baddie, then traded blows wih an enormous pile of fire, like a gigantic one, with arms and shit that hurt. Some kind of an elemental I suppose, but bigger than I've ever seen. After all the battle we had seen that day, I finally had to play cat and mouse and string it along the length of the cavern until the others finished her off, so it wouldn't kill their weak tiny bodies.

Except they couldn't finish her off. So I came back, and they cast fly on me, and I flew up and killed her ass really lots. Oh, then I got killed as she died (again, she somehow came back the first time. I should learn that trick).

Which sucked. At least I no longer have herpes, what with being dead.

Sneaking into cities for fun, and no profit.

Oh my god. It was all like "sneak in here, sneak in there". No glory, no killing, no smacky-whacky.

See, we were asked to help sneak a team of people into the city where the nothrog king was, so they could do bad stuff to the nothrog king. Excellent start, lots of potential for smacking stuff with my axe.

In order to do that, we had to bug an associate of ours in that city where we got arrested for a bar brawl (no, not that city...not that one either...not that one... yeah THAT one!). So we had to sneak back in (easy, oby disguised us with some mumbo jumbo). Then we talked to the guy, and he said yes, so we went back to the other city.

And then oby got a headache so we all went to bed! Must be all those undead crawling on his spire. I know it gives me no end of grief!

I redeaded the undead. And met future me!

I made a sled in the winter. It was fun. I like the snow.

And then spring came, and with it the undead. They crawled all over oby's spire (and I thought crabs were bad) and we had to come kick some butt. There were mobs of them in the hallways and we couldn't stop them from advancing towards the students. So we had to fight a retreat while rescuing the wiz dweebs. It was fun! I couldn't miss -- I felt like a human lawnmower, wham wham wham and limbs flew. Total whack-a-mole orgy dead fest.

Unfortunately we had to stop, and it seems like oby's old school got decomissioned permanently in the process. We took the four-eyes and their pocket protector familiars to the tower that blinked between nighttime tentacle island and normal world. I guess they're going to setup a new school for nerds. I hear they're going to try to invent something called a slide rule. whatever.

Eventually the summer chugged along and some guy wanted to pay us to kill things. Actually he said capture, it was a general who's lieutenant went a little whacko and started killing things. We (well somebody) tracked him to a village where he was piling up bodies like they were undead mobs in a tower of wizards to be.

I got in a bunch of smacks, and our casters didn't seem to be doing much (later they said he was "protected" somehow but I wasn't really paying attention, they use big words and stuff). Eventually he jumped up on a roof and borrow and I followed him... err, borrow a little easier as he walked up the wall. I kinda slipped.

I think it was malakar who ringed us in a whirling circle of blades, it looks like a trick I've seen before. Once he started paying attention to me, he delivered a world of hurt. I recognize all the moves, I can totally see myself doing them someday -- other than the go-crazy-kill-innocent people moves that is. I only do those when I think they probably aren't really quite very innocent mostly.

At some point, he killed me. Or should have, later I found out a spell from malaker saved me... but it didn't save malakar, who had to be resurrected by a spell from oby! malakar came back less bear-like, in fact a lot more nothrog like. half nothrog, in fact!

But in a moment

Many months passed without incident. We were waiting for the Nothrog to attack the free kingdoms in order to lure them into a trap. One day, however, Obegard received an urgent message on his spire pendant. We quickly teleported to the Spire, though our teleportation was redirected to Gaston's office. He said that the situation was dire; undead had overrun the Spire and were killing everyone inside. We needed to evacuate as many as possible before it was too late. Gaston said that Obegard would be in charge of the students if Gaston were to fall, though from the sound of it, he didn't expect to survive the night.

We spent quite some time in the tower, delaying the hordes of undead so that the people running across the halls can each the teleportation circles to escape. The undead were both numerous and exceptionally powerful. We found that our walls of force, stone, and other obstacles were quickly dismantled by the undead wizards. However, we still managed to save a number of students, and in the aftermath, Obegard concluded that the old wizard school that was still half in the cursed plane of Basceron would be a good place for them to continue their studies.

More time passed before we received another summons. This time it was from the husband of Cassandra, a general in the armies of the Free Kingdoms. We said that one of his lieutenants has gone rogue, possibly because of the loss of his family, and was killing everyone and anyone he saw. We were tasked with tracking him down and bringing him back, dead or alive. It didn't take long before we found a village with bodies strewn in the streets, and there he was, with a strange glow in his eyes as he cut down villager after villager without emotion.

I called for the others to try to take him down alive, but in hindsight, I suppose it was a mistake. This thing, whatever it was, for it was not human, resisted many of our spells, and was extremely resilient and tough. Durthen and Borrow must have delivered dozens of slashes and cuts, but he kept going. I called upon darkfire, burning him over and over. Finally, after a drawn out battle, Obegard managed to deliver a shot that seemed to cause him to become unstable with pent up magical energy. It seemed safe from where I was almost sixty feet away, but as Borrow went in to deliver the killing blow, the creature exploded.

For a moment, I thought it would be all over, that it'd be the end. I knew that my body was probably incinerated in the blast, but I also knew that I had unfinished tasks at hand. I couldn't let the free kingdoms just fall like that, or the myself go without making up for my misdeeds. The next day, I woke up to discover myself in a new body -- not surprising because I had requested to be reincarnated again should I did. I was no longer someone marked by Lycanthropy, but instead a half-Nothrog. I believe that Albercht decided that I still must endure challenges in my life, but that for my deeds thus far, I was relieved from having to be one of the cursed.

Obegard's Spire of Magical Delights

We finally got to see the school where Obegard learnt his trade—The Spire.

Such a grand name. Maybe it would live up to it if we had seen more of it but as it was the trip started with Obegard running around saying “The Spire is in trouble. We have to go. It must be the undead, but how did they breach the shield???”

Well okay, maybe it wasn’t that whiny but I wasn’t really paying that much attention. Everything’s a crisis in the Upworld so I’ve started tuning a bunch of stuff out. Like which of my companions panics in what particular way.

Leaping into the middle of trouble with no real knowledge of what’s happening really upsets the spellcasters. Livia seems a bit more easy-going, and Durthen and I, well, we kind of just try to deal using the skills we’ve developed.

The thing that had me really concerned about this trip was the whole undead aspect. I mean it’s hard to stick my blade into something vital when there is nothing vital to stick it into. And the feel is wrong—once you get through their armour there’s no feeling of resistance as you guide it towards its target. Oh yeah, I have my bracers that allow me to do a few magically enhanced blows but even then it’s still missing that look of shock and surprise, or perhaps outrage, you see on the faces of the living. With the undead there’s just the frozen features of a corpse. No, not satisfying at all.

The others eventually talked me into going along and Obegard cast a teleport spell. We wound up in the office of the boss dude, who gave us a brief rundown. Yep, it was undead. They’d brought down the shield (whatever that was) and were invading, killing everyone that couldn’t get out fast enough. The Spire has a bunch of teleport devices but they needed help protecting people long enough to get to them, and then to activate the devices so people could teleport.

The one advantage we had was that as agents of The Spire we would be able to bypass the wards against movement spells, where the undead would be unable to cast such spells, or apparently even move through walls in their incorporeal forms.

We jumped from the office to some other part of the building. I have no idea where it was relative to where we’d been and I wondered whether the inhabitants of The Spire even know its layout. I mean, does it even have passages and stairs and things that link everything together? Or are they only used in small sections of the building to avoid having to blow their daily spell reservoirs?

There was a whole bunch of undead where we landed, and we killed a few before moving out to act as rearguard for a bunch of residents. It was almost like these guys wanted to be ghoul snacks they were moving so slow, but Durthen blocked the corridor behind them and most of them made it to the device and zapped out with us close behind.

Not much later we get contacted by Lord Robert, current leader of the Free Kingdoms. He was almost killed because one of his knights, Sir Tython, had let the elves through and has since gone missing. We were asked to track him down and “take care of him.” See what I mean about panic, panic, panic all the time here?

When we found him there was carnage everywhere. It was suggested we try talking to him, but as soon as he saw us he charged into combat. His glowing red eyes suggested something foul, but we had little choice other than to take him down.

I got in a few good licks and my ring stopped him from hitting me back anywhere near as well. Durthen was also whacking him but good, but he seemed to be able to avoid most of the spells our casters were trying.

Malakar pumped in some healing spells, though truth be told I hadn’t really been touched so it was just fixing a few scratches. Durthen seemed to have need of it though. Maybe we should get him a blinky ring as well.

We’d taken many chunks out of this guy when all of a sudden he started glowing. Experience tells me that when things that don’t usually glow start glowing, trouble is usually close behind. You have to love experience. Next thing I knew, the guy exploded sending chunks everywhere. Naturally I dodged all the chunks that flew in my direction, but others weren’t so lucky. Malakar was killed by it, and Durthen would have been as well if Malakar hadn’t just finished casting some spell to protect from just this sort of thing, though I think Malakar was expecting the damage to come from the melee attacks the guy had been slicing Durthen up with, rather than him going boom.

It took most of the potions in Durthen’s kit to get him stable before Malakar’s spell ran out but their was nothing we could do to save Malakar.

I'm so proud

I really wish I worshipped a chaotic god because I’m sure I’d be able to claim some sort of bonus if I did. For all the lip service my companions pay to Law they seem to be moving over to my point of view.

Take our latest outing for example. Those that agreed to share Livia’s oath with Witchthorn were initially talking about ways to collect the items and raise the money, but we finished up deciding we take the “alternative solution” where the oath would expire if Witchthorn did.

So we geared up, went to see Witchthorn, and tried to kill him. I suspect that this is by no means unusual for Witchthorn and it wasn’t long before he had a bunch of plant-things to help him.

We managed to clear out his helpers but Witchthorn was continuing to be elusive. I hadn’t been paying him much mind because I figured the others would get more enjoyment from “terminating their agreement” but when we ran out of helpers it was clear they needed help as Witchthorn was sitting up in a tree and whenever the others got near him he moved easily away.

I turned invisible and changed stance to allow myself to climb faster and was almost ready to strike when Durthen spooked him and he moved to another tree. I was behind him again in moments, but he’d decided his chances weren’t god and left using some sort of teleport spell.

I was raiding the treasure from his helpers before we went looking for him when he zapped back and bargained with us, offering to release the oath if we left him alone. The others were happy with that so we’ll have to make do with the treasure I scraped off the helpers, but I’m somewhat disappointed about all the treasure Witchthorn must have had hidden away that we’ll never get too. Though that disappointment is offset by my pride in my fellow adventurers for double-crossing Witchthorn. As long as they don’t do that to me.

Now I have to decide whether to share these treats with them, or whether I should keep it all to compensate for not getting my hands on Witchthorn’s goodies. But then I’d have to work out for myself which of these things are magical and what they do...

there's nothing more satisfying than exploding poo

I guess when it comes to dirty surprises, I get a +10 competence bonus due to practice, practice, practice. Did I ever tell you about the time I bluffed that wench into thinking I gave her mummy rot? Best 10 silver I ever paid a gnomish illusionist. You should have seen the look on her face! And that's absolutely nothing compared to the enlarge appendage maneuver I learned in warblade college -- now *there* is a swift action boost (and a yelp) if I ever saw one!!!

Still, this one may have been my most classic. We were going to attack witchthorn to lift that pesky geas, and that got me thinking. Nothing says surprise round like exploding runes in a box of dwarven poo!

Unfortunately, ahem, I got tagged a bit with the... projectiles... because something compelled me into this cool looking circle of mushrooms. I just didn't want to leave it, until I was forced to re-think things later in combat.

Still, it started off with a bang :) And this strange plant thing in the ground tried to pin me between it and this attacking tree-thing. Good thing I have an axe! I used the mass of the plant thing against itself and whacked everything I could see. It was close though, this nasty mass of vapor was drifting down and I only narrowly got out of it's way. I don't want to know what might of happened if it caught me.

My companions were doing a number on the surrounding baddies, but witchthorn himself managed to stay out of the way for the most part. It was only at the very end when we managed to focus on him and he had to blink away from us. He played it smart, and offered us a deal: leave him be, and the oath is nullified.

Sweet! So we did. I hope he'll never realize that during those few rounds when oby was trying to magically locate him, I .... fertilized one of his beloved trees. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Nothing says "grow, plant" like a little used ocelot pot pie.