Jartik has placed a sixfold set of tests into the octagonal entry hall of his mountain stronghold. The doors in or out of this area appear to require all six artifact keys to unlock, and we have recovered five of them. The last one, guarded by a gigantic water elemental, almost cost several of us our lives.
Now we fight a bunch of small beholder-like creatures, popping in and out of holes in the ceiling. Ick!
I expect Jartik to appear, clapping sardonically, when we're finished. I can't imagine anybody who runs this gauntlet every day to come home, so this must be set up for his entertainment.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Turn the white key if the reason for your visit is "Jartik"
This place is creeping me out.
This is the keep built by some master strategist and looks like it should be occupied, yet I figure we’ve searched half the place without seeing anyone. That’s just wrong.
Maybe, like almost everything since Ghostwood, we’re one step behind the Medusan Lords and their hit man has been through to clean the place out.
Even worse, I think my fears about Obegard are justified—today we found a book and Obegard just stared at it in silence for a while, and when we asked if he was okay he said he was talking to it. Okay... And strangely enough, it was stolen from the wizard’s college on this island. It hasn’t asked to be taken back yet, but wouldn’t that be oh so convenient for Obegard if it did?
The keep is some sort of weird trap—we basically just walked straight in, but were then locked inside. The lock is some sort of artifact, so the only way out is to find the six keys to unlock it. Each key has been protected by either a cunning trap or some guardian (such as the massive water elemental we just dodged).
There’s another twist—there are two doors that need the keys. One way is the exit, and the other leads further into the keep. Since this part of the keep is empty, it’s clear we’re going to have to go further into the keep. But what if part of this artifact trap thing is that you can only use the keys once? Well, I guess there’s another way out of the keep because I can’t imagine Jartik has to go around and collect these keys every time he wants to leave. Although given how screwed up this whole island is maybe he doesn’t ever leave...
The others don’t seem to have considered the possibility that we might only be able to use the keys once. I guess I’ll let them continue on in peace—kids like them shouldn’t have to worry as much as they do.
This is the keep built by some master strategist and looks like it should be occupied, yet I figure we’ve searched half the place without seeing anyone. That’s just wrong.
Maybe, like almost everything since Ghostwood, we’re one step behind the Medusan Lords and their hit man has been through to clean the place out.
Even worse, I think my fears about Obegard are justified—today we found a book and Obegard just stared at it in silence for a while, and when we asked if he was okay he said he was talking to it. Okay... And strangely enough, it was stolen from the wizard’s college on this island. It hasn’t asked to be taken back yet, but wouldn’t that be oh so convenient for Obegard if it did?
The keep is some sort of weird trap—we basically just walked straight in, but were then locked inside. The lock is some sort of artifact, so the only way out is to find the six keys to unlock it. Each key has been protected by either a cunning trap or some guardian (such as the massive water elemental we just dodged).
There’s another twist—there are two doors that need the keys. One way is the exit, and the other leads further into the keep. Since this part of the keep is empty, it’s clear we’re going to have to go further into the keep. But what if part of this artifact trap thing is that you can only use the keys once? Well, I guess there’s another way out of the keep because I can’t imagine Jartik has to go around and collect these keys every time he wants to leave. Although given how screwed up this whole island is maybe he doesn’t ever leave...
The others don’t seem to have considered the possibility that we might only be able to use the keys once. I guess I’ll let them continue on in peace—kids like them shouldn’t have to worry as much as they do.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Land Shrouded in Darkness
The land beyond the end of the world is a strange place. We can only navigate during the night, but unfortunately, all night, all but those who worship the foul Basceron cannot cast spells. Fortunately, spells cast before nightfall still function, and I've changed my spells accordingly.
Our first stop was an abandoned tower, where we fought some sort of shadow creature that was actually the melding of three. This creature was tough -- it severely injured me and we were only barely able to overcome it after a long and exhausting fight. I was able to question the corpse afterwards, and get a few straight answers, including the location that we'd find Jartik. Unfortunately, it did not know how to escape this accursed place.
I cast a spell the next day right before night fall that would turn us into translucent, wispy clouds. We glided through the night quickly, and arrive at what appeared to be a large field of rocks below. It was guarded by some sort of staff-wielding minotaur. Livy tried to talk to it and let us pass, but negotiations quickly broke down as it, like many others before us, tried to extort money out of us. The beast was able to animate a few of the rocks into hulking earth elementals but Livy used her fey granted gifts to cast a spell that confused an elemental and the minotaur. Borrow and I finished off the other one, and we stood and watched as the confused combatants pounded each other. The earth elemental won, and we destroyed it next. We returned to our wispy forms and ascended the stairs, stopping before entering a large fortress built into the mountain side.
Our first stop was an abandoned tower, where we fought some sort of shadow creature that was actually the melding of three. This creature was tough -- it severely injured me and we were only barely able to overcome it after a long and exhausting fight. I was able to question the corpse afterwards, and get a few straight answers, including the location that we'd find Jartik. Unfortunately, it did not know how to escape this accursed place.
I cast a spell the next day right before night fall that would turn us into translucent, wispy clouds. We glided through the night quickly, and arrive at what appeared to be a large field of rocks below. It was guarded by some sort of staff-wielding minotaur. Livy tried to talk to it and let us pass, but negotiations quickly broke down as it, like many others before us, tried to extort money out of us. The beast was able to animate a few of the rocks into hulking earth elementals but Livy used her fey granted gifts to cast a spell that confused an elemental and the minotaur. Borrow and I finished off the other one, and we stood and watched as the confused combatants pounded each other. The earth elemental won, and we destroyed it next. We returned to our wispy forms and ascended the stairs, stopping before entering a large fortress built into the mountain side.
Corruption
I’m starting to think that short-lived creatures shouldn’t practice magic. I’ve already observed that Obegard seems to be somewhat less stable than when we first met.
As we explored this ruined tower we came across some hideous creature that was a combination of two humanoids and some giant-type creature. Obegard has been reading the journal of the tower’s erstwhile owner and says the guy was clearly loopy, and in fact he was a part of this abomination we found.
And look at the elves—how bitter and twisted are they?
Anyway, this loopy guy was responsible for some big ritual that we don’t know the purpose of, and his mangling was a side-effect of that. Maybe with their short lives humans don’t take the time to fully analyse the forces they intend to work with...
What initially set him off was some magic college here on the island that kicked him out. Obegard says nobody has heard of his college in hundreds of years, so of course we’re going to go find it. Either everyone is dead, or they just aren’t smart enough to work out how to get back to the Accordlands.
Obviously I’m hoping for the former because even if they are only humans, if they’ve been working at it for hundreds of years without success, then what chance will we have? The others will be dead in a few short decades, and this whole magic schtick just isn’t my thing. I don’t fancy being stuck alone on this island for the rest of my life.
As we explored this ruined tower we came across some hideous creature that was a combination of two humanoids and some giant-type creature. Obegard has been reading the journal of the tower’s erstwhile owner and says the guy was clearly loopy, and in fact he was a part of this abomination we found.
And look at the elves—how bitter and twisted are they?
Anyway, this loopy guy was responsible for some big ritual that we don’t know the purpose of, and his mangling was a side-effect of that. Maybe with their short lives humans don’t take the time to fully analyse the forces they intend to work with...
What initially set him off was some magic college here on the island that kicked him out. Obegard says nobody has heard of his college in hundreds of years, so of course we’re going to go find it. Either everyone is dead, or they just aren’t smart enough to work out how to get back to the Accordlands.
Obviously I’m hoping for the former because even if they are only humans, if they’ve been working at it for hundreds of years without success, then what chance will we have? The others will be dead in a few short decades, and this whole magic schtick just isn’t my thing. I don’t fancy being stuck alone on this island for the rest of my life.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Divination: the Most Dangerous Art
My specialty school of Divination has been confirmed as the most dangerous, glamorous art of all. We discovered first-hand the fate of Stannis, Mage of Windkey Tower and former Head Diviner of that lost school: while preparing a divination ritual from an ancient tome, he was warped by the power of Bascaron and merged with his companion Nithas and an Athach into a foul, oily black abberation. Whatever good was in him must have died in that transformation.
Fighting the abomination was a long, grueling process, as it hurled spell after spell: Nithas could cast divine magic even at night, since his dedication to Bascaron excused him from the moon's isolating power, and Stannis himself was a potent sorceror. A long battle of attrition ended with the merged beast dead, but Malakar's speak with dead got us most of the answers we needed.
Malakar has adjusted to the limitations of this plane with his usual exuberance, pre-casting a plethora of spells before night falls. He transformed us into clouds with wind walk so that we could quickly ascend the mountain where, according to Stannis, Jartik is to be found. Once there, we were accosted by a Yakfolk who claimed to guard Jartik. The Yakfolk attacked us when we did not agree to his terms, and awoke two dangerously huge earth elementals from nearby pillars. The fight looked grim, until Livia confused the Yakfolk and one of his elementals into attacking each other: we made short work of the remaining elemental, and let the confused enemies weaken each other. Creative elimination of threats has become a recent theme, an effective and rewarding one.
Now we proceed down the countless* stairs (fortunately in vaporous form, obviating the need to actually step on each of them), seeking the answers only Jartik has. I just wish we had more of a plan for getting those answers out of him: speak with dead won't serve us this time ("using at most 7 words, please explain in detail the fortifications at K'culdan's keep").
*The stairs aren't actually countless, but why would one bother to count them?
Fighting the abomination was a long, grueling process, as it hurled spell after spell: Nithas could cast divine magic even at night, since his dedication to Bascaron excused him from the moon's isolating power, and Stannis himself was a potent sorceror. A long battle of attrition ended with the merged beast dead, but Malakar's speak with dead got us most of the answers we needed.
Malakar has adjusted to the limitations of this plane with his usual exuberance, pre-casting a plethora of spells before night falls. He transformed us into clouds with wind walk so that we could quickly ascend the mountain where, according to Stannis, Jartik is to be found. Once there, we were accosted by a Yakfolk who claimed to guard Jartik. The Yakfolk attacked us when we did not agree to his terms, and awoke two dangerously huge earth elementals from nearby pillars. The fight looked grim, until Livia confused the Yakfolk and one of his elementals into attacking each other: we made short work of the remaining elemental, and let the confused enemies weaken each other. Creative elimination of threats has become a recent theme, an effective and rewarding one.
Now we proceed down the countless* stairs (fortunately in vaporous form, obviating the need to actually step on each of them), seeking the answers only Jartik has. I just wish we had more of a plan for getting those answers out of him: speak with dead won't serve us this time ("using at most 7 words, please explain in detail the fortifications at K'culdan's keep").
*The stairs aren't actually countless, but why would one bother to count them?
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Things that go Squelch in the Night
With the foul Kraken sinking into the depth, we returned to the gutten Black Lightning to salvage what we could. None of the sailors had survived the Kraken's rampage. The Captain carried a remarkable shrinking treasure chest with some of Harthn's most potent potions in it, and the navigational artifact I later determined to be a planar gate compass. Perhaps if I'd studied the compass more thoroughly before we rowed into the blackness, I could have prepared us for what came next. Then again, perhaps not.
Once through the blackness in our modest skiff, there was an almost imperceptible change in atmosphere. Looking back, we could see no blackness and no ship: it appears we traversed a one-way portal or barrier of some kind. With Durthen manning the oars, we quickly approached the sole island in sight -- the so-called Isle of Secrets.
It was clear to me that we were no longer on the material plane of Larisnar, but I didn't suspect the magnitude of the metaphysical journey.
The island seemed pleasant enough, a wide beach leading up to a temperate forest. We beached the skiff thoroughly (unsure of the magnitude of the tides here), and set out to find civilization. A thriving village named Sandpoint rested on an island in a river delta. The sparse population seemed happy and friendly, though unused to visitors. The first person we met in the street inquired curiously as to where we were from, and told us that the mayor was most likely to know about the Nothrog we sought. He also directed us to a tavern where we could rent lodgings.
Kern, the mayor, was again friendly and helpful, if rather uninformed. The town was apparently isolated by the prevalence of dangerous beasts and sea monsters in the surrounding waters and forests; townspeople who ventured too far generally didn't return. Kern did remember the Nothrog Jartik (he called him a 'half-ogre'), but apparently Jartik only stayed long enough to extort supplies before heading off across land. No sages nor colleges graced the village, and their longest-term records were lost when the lighthouse where they were kept was destroyed in a storm. Kern's passed-down understanding was that the island was about 100 miles by 80 miles, but no villager had explored in and returned in living memory.
We went to the tavern to rest for the night, but as we stepped into the common room, something unexpected happened. The sun was setting, and as the last light faded, the handful of villagers and the barkeeper changed horrifically into squirming masses of tentacles, terrible to behold. Durthen's Axe glowed brightly as these monsters moved to attack.
Not wanting to cut our way through a village of monsters (especially ones who were so friendly to us recently, I suggested that some of the villages stay back and see how things went before engaging us in combat; fortunately some of them listened to my forced advice. The remaining three who fought showed pseudonatural resiliance, but didn't last long against our combined onslaught. Before the others could join the fight, we retreated upstairs and I did something I hope Malakar never finds out about: I cast rope trick for us to retreat into and sleep in. First, though, we hid the bodies.
In the morning, as might be suspected, the villagers were back to normal. The tavernkeeper was curious whether we'd seen the "missing" villagers; apparently people have disappeared before, though never leaving bloodstains such as this before. We protested our ignorance, and he seemed satisfied.
Clearly something bad happens here at night. More investigation revealed some of the most inconvenient and disturbing features of this plane:
Borrow finally hit on the solution: we'd been travelling during the day and rope tricking by night to avoid the assumed profusion of nightly monsters (who knows what the squirrels might turn into!). As it turns out, the confusion effect functions only during the day (I begin to see why these are called the Islands of Light and Shadow), so we were able to get our bearings merely by staying out past sunset. Somehow we'd travelled into the forest, past a river which we'd never crossed: heavy magic indeed.
Proceeding eastwards, looking for Jartik, we came across a half-ruined tower keep in the forest. A brief battle with Athachs ensued as we entered its clearing, but the best part was yet to come: by some deft scouting and creative use of passwall, we obtained a potent Shield Guardian companion without any fighting at all.
I am intrigued, too, by the 700-year-old journal we found, written by a person named Stannis. Some of the pages show the aura of transmutation, a telltale sign of secret arcane writing, and tomorrow I will prepare the spells to read them. Though it may have nothing to do with Jartik, I feel this journal may be of great importance.
Once through the blackness in our modest skiff, there was an almost imperceptible change in atmosphere. Looking back, we could see no blackness and no ship: it appears we traversed a one-way portal or barrier of some kind. With Durthen manning the oars, we quickly approached the sole island in sight -- the so-called Isle of Secrets.
It was clear to me that we were no longer on the material plane of Larisnar, but I didn't suspect the magnitude of the metaphysical journey.
The island seemed pleasant enough, a wide beach leading up to a temperate forest. We beached the skiff thoroughly (unsure of the magnitude of the tides here), and set out to find civilization. A thriving village named Sandpoint rested on an island in a river delta. The sparse population seemed happy and friendly, though unused to visitors. The first person we met in the street inquired curiously as to where we were from, and told us that the mayor was most likely to know about the Nothrog we sought. He also directed us to a tavern where we could rent lodgings.
Kern, the mayor, was again friendly and helpful, if rather uninformed. The town was apparently isolated by the prevalence of dangerous beasts and sea monsters in the surrounding waters and forests; townspeople who ventured too far generally didn't return. Kern did remember the Nothrog Jartik (he called him a 'half-ogre'), but apparently Jartik only stayed long enough to extort supplies before heading off across land. No sages nor colleges graced the village, and their longest-term records were lost when the lighthouse where they were kept was destroyed in a storm. Kern's passed-down understanding was that the island was about 100 miles by 80 miles, but no villager had explored in and returned in living memory.
We went to the tavern to rest for the night, but as we stepped into the common room, something unexpected happened. The sun was setting, and as the last light faded, the handful of villagers and the barkeeper changed horrifically into squirming masses of tentacles, terrible to behold. Durthen's Axe glowed brightly as these monsters moved to attack.
Not wanting to cut our way through a village of monsters (especially ones who were so friendly to us recently, I suggested that some of the villages stay back and see how things went before engaging us in combat; fortunately some of them listened to my forced advice. The remaining three who fought showed pseudonatural resiliance, but didn't last long against our combined onslaught. Before the others could join the fight, we retreated upstairs and I did something I hope Malakar never finds out about: I cast rope trick for us to retreat into and sleep in. First, though, we hid the bodies.
In the morning, as might be suspected, the villagers were back to normal. The tavernkeeper was curious whether we'd seen the "missing" villagers; apparently people have disappeared before, though never leaving bloodstains such as this before. We protested our ignorance, and he seemed satisfied.
Clearly something bad happens here at night. More investigation revealed some of the most inconvenient and disturbing features of this plane:
- no divine magic at night (hence no healing)
- no teleportation effects (perhaps indicative of limited access to the astral plane)
- no access to the plane of shadow
Borrow finally hit on the solution: we'd been travelling during the day and rope tricking by night to avoid the assumed profusion of nightly monsters (who knows what the squirrels might turn into!). As it turns out, the confusion effect functions only during the day (I begin to see why these are called the Islands of Light and Shadow), so we were able to get our bearings merely by staying out past sunset. Somehow we'd travelled into the forest, past a river which we'd never crossed: heavy magic indeed.
Proceeding eastwards, looking for Jartik, we came across a half-ruined tower keep in the forest. A brief battle with Athachs ensued as we entered its clearing, but the best part was yet to come: by some deft scouting and creative use of passwall, we obtained a potent Shield Guardian companion without any fighting at all.
I am intrigued, too, by the 700-year-old journal we found, written by a person named Stannis. Some of the pages show the aura of transmutation, a telltale sign of secret arcane writing, and tomorrow I will prepare the spells to read them. Though it may have nothing to do with Jartik, I feel this journal may be of great importance.
Virgin Isle by day, UrotsukidÅji by night.
So I rowed us to the isle of Bali. Or was it the isle of Cayman? No, wait, I think it was the isle of St. Lucia... well, either way, it was pretty pretty. Had some beaches, some trees, some rocks. All the good stuff.
We manage to pull up near a nice peaceful villiage. Go us! We wandered into town as we had no reason to expect badness. Besides, 200+ level 1-4 commoners are nice fireball fodder and not a threat. The villager we met, along with the others, were very polite and told us we were the first visitors in 20 years -- the last visitor was a nothrog, which boded well. They all pointed us towards the elder village mayor for more information.
Mayor said the orc left for the east. That was all he knew. Looky that, old people don't know anything useful. Lesson learned, moving on.
We spent the next day sorting through the burned down lighthouse, as it was the only point of interest in the village and housed the lost records of the town. We didn't find anything useful, and as we returned to the inn the sun set and the island paradise sorta turned into a tentacle ghetto, kinda like Jersey.
Yeah, you heard me -- all the villagers became these weird nasty masses of tentacles. Which immediately raised the obvious question: do they procreate during the day, or at night? Most intelligent species fornicate at night, after morning breath is gone and when you've managed a few ales to make the bumping action less noticeably squishy. So reason leads you to think they make little tentacled masses deep into the night. And THAT begs the question: which is the "special" tentacle, or all they all... "special"?
If the latter, I am soo not letting them land any touch attacks. Ewww.
Fortunately for us, Oby used some sort of magic to convince half the common room to leave us alone. It must have been magic, because who listens to a wild-haired bitter man who spends all day fondling his staff?
Borrow and I subdued the rest, and after the fight Borrow attempted to fix our wounds with Malakar's wand (he was back at the boat, resting up the lazy...). It didn't work, and Oby hypothesized it was the effect of the plane at night. Lovely.
Oby finally cast his only useful spell, this rope-trick thing where we get to sleep in some sort of magic floating hut. He should cast that more often. I wonder why he doesn't?
The next day we sent Erson out to scout during the day, but he kept getting lost. Said it was weird an unexplainable and not natural. I just thought he was drunk. So we left on foot, and the same thing happened to us. Finally, Oby struck on the bright idea that we could only travel at night, and after spending an evening by our camp and a nearby rabbit hole (the rope trick) we realized we weren't going to get slaughtered by horny tentacles and we actually *could* travel by night.
So we did, and it worked. On the first night we ran across a lone building in the forest (what luck!) and upon cracking open the door some monstrous construct lurched to life. So we shut the door. All our wisdom scores must have been magically raised by a planar effect, because such common sense was unheard of before.
Oby said if we found a nearby pendant, we could keep the construct as a pet. So we did, by popping through the building's wall, and discovered some sort of summoning (or so they say) circle and a bunch of rubble.
I wonder what we'll run across next? My guess is it'll be a planar effect where all constructs that travel more than 1 mile immediately turn into dust. And not even gold dust at that! :-/
We manage to pull up near a nice peaceful villiage. Go us! We wandered into town as we had no reason to expect badness. Besides, 200+ level 1-4 commoners are nice fireball fodder and not a threat. The villager we met, along with the others, were very polite and told us we were the first visitors in 20 years -- the last visitor was a nothrog, which boded well. They all pointed us towards the elder village mayor for more information.
Mayor said the orc left for the east. That was all he knew. Looky that, old people don't know anything useful. Lesson learned, moving on.
We spent the next day sorting through the burned down lighthouse, as it was the only point of interest in the village and housed the lost records of the town. We didn't find anything useful, and as we returned to the inn the sun set and the island paradise sorta turned into a tentacle ghetto, kinda like Jersey.
Yeah, you heard me -- all the villagers became these weird nasty masses of tentacles. Which immediately raised the obvious question: do they procreate during the day, or at night? Most intelligent species fornicate at night, after morning breath is gone and when you've managed a few ales to make the bumping action less noticeably squishy. So reason leads you to think they make little tentacled masses deep into the night. And THAT begs the question: which is the "special" tentacle, or all they all... "special"?
If the latter, I am soo not letting them land any touch attacks. Ewww.
Fortunately for us, Oby used some sort of magic to convince half the common room to leave us alone. It must have been magic, because who listens to a wild-haired bitter man who spends all day fondling his staff?
Borrow and I subdued the rest, and after the fight Borrow attempted to fix our wounds with Malakar's wand (he was back at the boat, resting up the lazy...). It didn't work, and Oby hypothesized it was the effect of the plane at night. Lovely.
Oby finally cast his only useful spell, this rope-trick thing where we get to sleep in some sort of magic floating hut. He should cast that more often. I wonder why he doesn't?
The next day we sent Erson out to scout during the day, but he kept getting lost. Said it was weird an unexplainable and not natural. I just thought he was drunk. So we left on foot, and the same thing happened to us. Finally, Oby struck on the bright idea that we could only travel at night, and after spending an evening by our camp and a nearby rabbit hole (the rope trick) we realized we weren't going to get slaughtered by horny tentacles and we actually *could* travel by night.
So we did, and it worked. On the first night we ran across a lone building in the forest (what luck!) and upon cracking open the door some monstrous construct lurched to life. So we shut the door. All our wisdom scores must have been magically raised by a planar effect, because such common sense was unheard of before.
Oby said if we found a nearby pendant, we could keep the construct as a pet. So we did, by popping through the building's wall, and discovered some sort of summoning (or so they say) circle and a bunch of rubble.
I wonder what we'll run across next? My guess is it'll be a planar effect where all constructs that travel more than 1 mile immediately turn into dust. And not even gold dust at that! :-/
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Monsters at the End of the World
So with Livy unconscious, our only choice was to negotiate with the fey creature. I have to say, I was impressed that Obegard volunteered to step up. I promised to help him defeat the prince once the ordeal was over. The prince let us know that the lieutenant went far away, where no one could reach him save one -- it was no other than the captain of the Black Lightning. Fortunately, Obegard could teleport us there, but to be safe, he also cast a spell that created a ship out of a log, so that if we were off target, we would be safe.
We appeared on the ship, however, to the surprise of the crew. After a quick negotiation, the captain agreed to take us there for the sum of 500 gold a head. We discovered that he, too, also made an agreement with the prince. His ship moved incredibly fast, with what appeared to be a storm elemental bound to the masts.
Soon enough, we reach what I could only describe as the end of the world. Past a certain point, all was just dark. Fortunately, from our current location, I could still divine a clear path home. Just as we were about to disembark, however, a giant sea creature -- a Kraken-- Obegard called it, appeared. As if this beast wasn't ferocious enough, Obegard said that it also carried a demonic taint within it. Before I could act, it called out with a powerful, baleful sound that rendered all my limbs weak and unable to move. Borrow, too, was affected. I could only see as the others tried to fight it, and all were killed. First were the crewman, and then the captain. Obegard and Livy tried their best to stay out of it's reach, but the monster was resistant to magic and blade. With no other targets, the monster attacked me as I stood helpless. By some divine grace, I was able to survive about a dozen of his blows, knocking me unconscious but leaving me alive, before the other two teleported Borrow and myself away into the waters. I healed myself up, and perhaps it was foolhardy or crazy, but we went back. I wasn't about to let that thing take potshots at me and get away with it.
I cast as many protective spells upon me as I could and charged in with Borrow. Unfortunately, with the Kraken's keen senses, the invisibility spell Obegard used on me wasn't effective. I struck out at it as hard as I could, both Borrow and myself landed a number of blows. It had hit me just as hard, however, and I had to cast a spell that would delay my death in case I sustained mortal injuries. I did and I fell unconscious yet again, but fortunately, the spell worked, and Borrow in his usual finesse, was able to finish the creature off with a stab to the eye. After the battle the ship was still afloat but badly damaged. With me hurt just as much, I volunteered to stay back and repair the boat for a day, and catch up with them later.
We appeared on the ship, however, to the surprise of the crew. After a quick negotiation, the captain agreed to take us there for the sum of 500 gold a head. We discovered that he, too, also made an agreement with the prince. His ship moved incredibly fast, with what appeared to be a storm elemental bound to the masts.
Soon enough, we reach what I could only describe as the end of the world. Past a certain point, all was just dark. Fortunately, from our current location, I could still divine a clear path home. Just as we were about to disembark, however, a giant sea creature -- a Kraken-- Obegard called it, appeared. As if this beast wasn't ferocious enough, Obegard said that it also carried a demonic taint within it. Before I could act, it called out with a powerful, baleful sound that rendered all my limbs weak and unable to move. Borrow, too, was affected. I could only see as the others tried to fight it, and all were killed. First were the crewman, and then the captain. Obegard and Livy tried their best to stay out of it's reach, but the monster was resistant to magic and blade. With no other targets, the monster attacked me as I stood helpless. By some divine grace, I was able to survive about a dozen of his blows, knocking me unconscious but leaving me alive, before the other two teleported Borrow and myself away into the waters. I healed myself up, and perhaps it was foolhardy or crazy, but we went back. I wasn't about to let that thing take potshots at me and get away with it.
I cast as many protective spells upon me as I could and charged in with Borrow. Unfortunately, with the Kraken's keen senses, the invisibility spell Obegard used on me wasn't effective. I struck out at it as hard as I could, both Borrow and myself landed a number of blows. It had hit me just as hard, however, and I had to cast a spell that would delay my death in case I sustained mortal injuries. I did and I fell unconscious yet again, but fortunately, the spell worked, and Borrow in his usual finesse, was able to finish the creature off with a stab to the eye. After the battle the ship was still afloat but badly damaged. With me hurt just as much, I volunteered to stay back and repair the boat for a day, and catch up with them later.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Lunar Conjunctions
Larisnar has three moons. Bascaron, God's Eye, which is always visible in the night sky, and La Hashan, whose erratic orbit causes the sandy-colored moon to appear just over the edge of the horizon. Lunar conjunctions are rare events that last a full night. Each of the lunar conjunctions have occurred less than ten times in the last one thousand years.
Bascaron behind God's Eye: During this conjunction the power of the gods is absolute. The gods share more of their power with their followers. High priests are also blessed with a vision of a prophecy.
Bascaron behind La Hashan: During this conjunction arcane energy is enhanced. It is said that some of the most powerful artifacts have been created during this conjunction.
God's Eye behind Bascaron: This night is filled with ill omens. Bascaron itself warps divine magic and interferes with divine spell casting. It is said that on this night many clerics were warped into monstrous beasts or went mad for casting divine spells.
God's Eye behind La Hashan: During this conjunction mortals can defy the gods. All gods are blind to what transpires outside of their plane and divine spell casters can not cast divine spells.
La Hashan behind Bascaron: During this conjunction it is said that anyone who sleeps will dream of nightmarish creatures. These creatures spawn from the dreams and roam the night. Any creature that survives the night will spawn and create a new vile race of monsters.
La Hashan behind God's Eye: During this conjunction, mortals are powerless against the gods.
God's Eye behind La Hashan behind Bascaron: Also know as the Supreme Conjunction, this has only occurred twice in recorded history, each time laying waste to whole regions.
Bascaron behind God's Eye: During this conjunction the power of the gods is absolute. The gods share more of their power with their followers. High priests are also blessed with a vision of a prophecy.
Bascaron behind La Hashan: During this conjunction arcane energy is enhanced. It is said that some of the most powerful artifacts have been created during this conjunction.
God's Eye behind Bascaron: This night is filled with ill omens. Bascaron itself warps divine magic and interferes with divine spell casting. It is said that on this night many clerics were warped into monstrous beasts or went mad for casting divine spells.
God's Eye behind La Hashan: During this conjunction mortals can defy the gods. All gods are blind to what transpires outside of their plane and divine spell casters can not cast divine spells.
La Hashan behind Bascaron: During this conjunction it is said that anyone who sleeps will dream of nightmarish creatures. These creatures spawn from the dreams and roam the night. Any creature that survives the night will spawn and create a new vile race of monsters.
La Hashan behind God's Eye: During this conjunction, mortals are powerless against the gods.
God's Eye behind La Hashan behind Bascaron: Also know as the Supreme Conjunction, this has only occurred twice in recorded history, each time laying waste to whole regions.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Show me the way to go home
So we finished our cleanup on the Black Lightning and set Dearthen to rowing us towards the inky curtain. We rowed through and as we saw the sun anew we looked behind us and noticed there was no sign of the cloud wall.
Before long we reached shore, pulled the boat up, and went into the nearby village. The first person we met was very friendly, but didn&rsqo;t have much information to offer. We were the first visitors in over 20 years, the last one being a Northrog That sounded promising, but he suggested the mayor would be the one to talk to.
We didn’t get much additional information from the mayor—there were no written records (the lighthouse where they were stored having burnt down long, long ago), and they didn’t even know of any other settlements on the island...
We were sitting in the inn trying to decide what to do next as night fell, and all the locals transformed into masses of tentacles. Obegard managed to enchant several of them to stop them participating in the fight, and we managed to kill the other three and retired to our room and waited to see if there was any more trouble.
I tried to use Malakar’s wand to mend the damage we’d taken but it failed to work, even though I was sure I’d down the right thing. I asked Obegard and he said it was probably something to do with the plane we’re on—divine magic won’t work at night time. Oh joy.
The following day everything was back to normal and the locals were totally oblivious to what had transpired, though they had noticed that three “people” had disappeared. Apparently it wasn’t the first time people had mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps this is why they’re called the islands of light and shadow...
We decided we’d try to spend the next few days scouting during the day but making sure we were safely locked away by nightfall. While this kept us safe there was another problem—every time we had Erson fly out he’d get lost and was somewhat lucky to find his way back. We set out as a group and after several days had the feeling we hadn’t gone anywhere.
We weren’t sure what to do, but as Obegard explained some basics of planar mechanics it occurred to me that the orientation problems were probably tied to daylight, so in order to go out searching we would have to travel at night when living creatures transformed into aberrations.
As we prepared to set out that night, it appeared that we’d somehow made our way into the middle of the nearest forest, despite not recalling crossing the river that completely separated the village from the rest of the island. Our theory seemed to hold though, as we were confident that we were actually making progress by night.
While probably too good to be true, we actually came across a small clearing with a building in it and I wondered if it was possible we’d reached our goal already. We moved into the clearing and were attacked by two giants with three arms. We made a mess of them and then moved up to the building.
We opened the front door and something lurched into motion inside. We closed the door again and Obegard explained that this sort of construct has a control amulet and if we could find it we could make the construct act as a guardian. He magically determined that the amulet was in an adjacent room and then cast a spell that allowed us to walk through the wall.
Obegard grabbed the amulet and it certainly seemed to work as he made the construct obey him. There was also a circle on the floor that Obegard said reeked of old magic.
There didn’t seem to be much else of interest but it didn’t look like we’d be doing anything else that night so we searched around and I found a trapdoor which could help to pass the time.
Before long we reached shore, pulled the boat up, and went into the nearby village. The first person we met was very friendly, but didn&rsqo;t have much information to offer. We were the first visitors in over 20 years, the last one being a Northrog That sounded promising, but he suggested the mayor would be the one to talk to.
We didn’t get much additional information from the mayor—there were no written records (the lighthouse where they were stored having burnt down long, long ago), and they didn’t even know of any other settlements on the island...
We were sitting in the inn trying to decide what to do next as night fell, and all the locals transformed into masses of tentacles. Obegard managed to enchant several of them to stop them participating in the fight, and we managed to kill the other three and retired to our room and waited to see if there was any more trouble.
I tried to use Malakar’s wand to mend the damage we’d taken but it failed to work, even though I was sure I’d down the right thing. I asked Obegard and he said it was probably something to do with the plane we’re on—divine magic won’t work at night time. Oh joy.
The following day everything was back to normal and the locals were totally oblivious to what had transpired, though they had noticed that three “people” had disappeared. Apparently it wasn’t the first time people had mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps this is why they’re called the islands of light and shadow...
We decided we’d try to spend the next few days scouting during the day but making sure we were safely locked away by nightfall. While this kept us safe there was another problem—every time we had Erson fly out he’d get lost and was somewhat lucky to find his way back. We set out as a group and after several days had the feeling we hadn’t gone anywhere.
We weren’t sure what to do, but as Obegard explained some basics of planar mechanics it occurred to me that the orientation problems were probably tied to daylight, so in order to go out searching we would have to travel at night when living creatures transformed into aberrations.
As we prepared to set out that night, it appeared that we’d somehow made our way into the middle of the nearest forest, despite not recalling crossing the river that completely separated the village from the rest of the island. Our theory seemed to hold though, as we were confident that we were actually making progress by night.
While probably too good to be true, we actually came across a small clearing with a building in it and I wondered if it was possible we’d reached our goal already. We moved into the clearing and were attacked by two giants with three arms. We made a mess of them and then moved up to the building.
We opened the front door and something lurched into motion inside. We closed the door again and Obegard explained that this sort of construct has a control amulet and if we could find it we could make the construct act as a guardian. He magically determined that the amulet was in an adjacent room and then cast a spell that allowed us to walk through the wall.
Obegard grabbed the amulet and it certainly seemed to work as he made the construct obey him. There was also a circle on the floor that Obegard said reeked of old magic.
There didn’t seem to be much else of interest but it didn’t look like we’d be doing anything else that night so we searched around and I found a trapdoor which could help to pass the time.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Wrecked at the Edge of the World
Faced with a binding oath, all the brashness and bravado seems to have faded from my companions. I stepped into the faerie ring alone, accepting Witchthorn's oath, so that we could continue with our mission. Quailing from a commitment seems odd; it's no worse than the violent deaths we court on a daily basis, and the gains are obvious.
Thanks to the shirkers, we only have a month to return with Witchthorn's price (or with sufficient force of arms to unseat him -- though he could simply avoid us in that case). Witchthorn told us that Jartik went to the Isle of Secrets, among the Isles of Light and Darkness, 3000 miles east of the shore of the Shattered Lands. That's much too far for any means of transport that I can muster. In an ironic twist, he then revealed that the only man with the knowledge and means to reach the Isle of Secrets is the Captain of the Black Lightning -- who we so recently crossed in Valen.
We could teleport to reach the Black Lightning, but there was some concern about a mishap landing us in the ocean, so I first fabricated a launch out of a suitable tree. The others were suitably impressed; I'm beginning to wonder how I ever lived without this kind of power. This ease in transformation is so fulfilling I forget how newfound it is.
When we appeared without warning, in a boat, on the mid-deck of the Black Lightning, the sailors overcame their surprise to closely surround us. Fortunately the Votaur Captain was more bemused than angry, and agreed to take us to the Isle of Secrets for a surprisingly small one-way fee. Apparently he dealt with Witchthorn in order to gain ths ship, which is full of surprises: a Storm elemental drives it at immense speed, and he uses an obscure magical artifact for navigation.
Days from land, we sighted a wall of inky darkness across the horizon. The Captain stopped the ship within a few miles (so he said) of the blackness, and told us that the island we sought was about fifteen miles away straight on the other side. Before we could negotiate for return passage, though, the ship was attacked by a monster out of the deep -- a guardian or a wandering marauder, I don't know.
The Kraken emerged and slapped huge tentacles and arms across the ship, bellowing out a cloud of evil which paralyzed Malakar and Borrow before they had a chance to act. I knew it wasn't a "natural" Kraken (well, as natural as Kraken can get) but I couldn't tell exactly what planes had warped it. A bitter fight ensued, as the Kraken wiped the decks clear of crew and shrugged off our attacks; though the Captain got in a few good blows before falling.
It became clear that we were losing the fight, with Malakar and Borrow helpless and most of my spells exhausted, so Livia and I raced back to the deck (I was levitating out of reach of the beast, naturally) and dimension doored us all away into the water. I held us levitated just out of the water, using the ship as cover from the Kraken, as Ili hacked Malakar's divine scrolls to release and heal him and Borrow.
Picture this: we're dripping wet, half dead, having lost definitively to the Kraken, all the sailors are dead, and the ship is being torn apart. The nearest land is 15 miles away inside a mysterious darkness. What does Malakar want to do as soon as he is freed? Attack the Kraken, of course! I thought he was nuts but Borrow was game, so I protected them as best I could with invisibility and followed along at a safe distance.
We came awfully close to defeat again, but Malakar's smote the beast with his full fury, and Borrow's unleashed the full lethality of his shortsword, and the Kraken fell into ruin.
Now we board the remnants of the ship, barely afloat, to see what we can scavenge. I do not plan to linger here, lest another monster attack. It looks like at least one of the launches is left, so we should be able to reach the island as planned. Getting back without the Captain may be another story.
Thanks to the shirkers, we only have a month to return with Witchthorn's price (or with sufficient force of arms to unseat him -- though he could simply avoid us in that case). Witchthorn told us that Jartik went to the Isle of Secrets, among the Isles of Light and Darkness, 3000 miles east of the shore of the Shattered Lands. That's much too far for any means of transport that I can muster. In an ironic twist, he then revealed that the only man with the knowledge and means to reach the Isle of Secrets is the Captain of the Black Lightning -- who we so recently crossed in Valen.
We could teleport to reach the Black Lightning, but there was some concern about a mishap landing us in the ocean, so I first fabricated a launch out of a suitable tree. The others were suitably impressed; I'm beginning to wonder how I ever lived without this kind of power. This ease in transformation is so fulfilling I forget how newfound it is.
When we appeared without warning, in a boat, on the mid-deck of the Black Lightning, the sailors overcame their surprise to closely surround us. Fortunately the Votaur Captain was more bemused than angry, and agreed to take us to the Isle of Secrets for a surprisingly small one-way fee. Apparently he dealt with Witchthorn in order to gain ths ship, which is full of surprises: a Storm elemental drives it at immense speed, and he uses an obscure magical artifact for navigation.
Days from land, we sighted a wall of inky darkness across the horizon. The Captain stopped the ship within a few miles (so he said) of the blackness, and told us that the island we sought was about fifteen miles away straight on the other side. Before we could negotiate for return passage, though, the ship was attacked by a monster out of the deep -- a guardian or a wandering marauder, I don't know.
The Kraken emerged and slapped huge tentacles and arms across the ship, bellowing out a cloud of evil which paralyzed Malakar and Borrow before they had a chance to act. I knew it wasn't a "natural" Kraken (well, as natural as Kraken can get) but I couldn't tell exactly what planes had warped it. A bitter fight ensued, as the Kraken wiped the decks clear of crew and shrugged off our attacks; though the Captain got in a few good blows before falling.
It became clear that we were losing the fight, with Malakar and Borrow helpless and most of my spells exhausted, so Livia and I raced back to the deck (I was levitating out of reach of the beast, naturally) and dimension doored us all away into the water. I held us levitated just out of the water, using the ship as cover from the Kraken, as Ili hacked Malakar's divine scrolls to release and heal him and Borrow.
Picture this: we're dripping wet, half dead, having lost definitively to the Kraken, all the sailors are dead, and the ship is being torn apart. The nearest land is 15 miles away inside a mysterious darkness. What does Malakar want to do as soon as he is freed? Attack the Kraken, of course! I thought he was nuts but Borrow was game, so I protected them as best I could with invisibility and followed along at a safe distance.
We came awfully close to defeat again, but Malakar's smote the beast with his full fury, and Borrow's unleashed the full lethality of his shortsword, and the Kraken fell into ruin.
Now we board the remnants of the ship, barely afloat, to see what we can scavenge. I do not plan to linger here, lest another monster attack. It looks like at least one of the launches is left, so we should be able to reach the island as planned. Getting back without the Captain may be another story.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Tentacles make me sad
Don’t you hate going in circles?
I’ll give Obegard props, he manned up to share Livia’s debt so that we could find out what we had to do yet. Know what it was? Go back to our poison-potion smuggling friends on the Black Lightning, who apparently have some secret knowledge to get them to some Island of Shadow I’ve never heard of in some island group called the Islands of Light and Darkness or something that I’ve also never heard of. Apparently I wasn’t alone either because the others looked pretty confused too.
The whole thing was pretty funny, if you think about it. We’d had the captain where we wanted him and forgot to actually ask him about Jartik. Hahahahahaha.
Obegard and Malakar collaborated to locate the Black Lightning and get us there, but I think the thing that made the difference was my amazing portrait of the captain that allowed Malakar to attain a focus on him.
We weren’t 100% certain of hitting the ship, so we crafted a boat to take with us when we teleported. It made it look very strange when we actually landed exactly on target in the middle of the main deck...
The captain was surprisingly accommodating and in short order we had a deal to sail to the Islands. The captain summoned some storm creature that propelled the ship faster than I’ve ever heard of a ship moving. Not that I know how fast a ship typically moves, but I occasionally saw creatures in the water as we sped past them.
In only a few days we had arrived at our destination. The captain pointed to a wall of black in the near distance and told us this is as far as he goes, and Jartik swam off through the black.
We were a bit unsure whether that was what we really wanted to do, and what we would do afterwards (the captain had been consulting some device he kept carefully hidden to navigate the route here). As we discussed the options a vast tentacled creature pulled up beside the ship and the deck was covered with its many tentacles.
Malakar called for everyone to come to him and he’d cast something to let us walk on water, and I was fool enough to do so. I don’t remember anything else until we were in the water watching the creature chomping on the ship. Apparently it had been less than a minute but the creature had already killed the whole crew of the ship and I’m not sure I understand how we escaped.
Livia and Obegard were all for just trying to work out some way to get to the wall of darkness but Malakar seemed bent on revenge, and quite confident that we could finish this thing off. Malakar usually knows what’s what so despite some doubts we followed along and I can’t say it was easy, but Malakar soaked up the major damage while my trusty shortsword plunged what I figured were sensitive spots at the base of the tentacles, and then into the eye.
Obegard says these things have a lair, but I’m strangely uninterested in finding it. I think I’ll just content myself with looting the ship.
I’ll give Obegard props, he manned up to share Livia’s debt so that we could find out what we had to do yet. Know what it was? Go back to our poison-potion smuggling friends on the Black Lightning, who apparently have some secret knowledge to get them to some Island of Shadow I’ve never heard of in some island group called the Islands of Light and Darkness or something that I’ve also never heard of. Apparently I wasn’t alone either because the others looked pretty confused too.
The whole thing was pretty funny, if you think about it. We’d had the captain where we wanted him and forgot to actually ask him about Jartik. Hahahahahaha.
Obegard and Malakar collaborated to locate the Black Lightning and get us there, but I think the thing that made the difference was my amazing portrait of the captain that allowed Malakar to attain a focus on him.
We weren’t 100% certain of hitting the ship, so we crafted a boat to take with us when we teleported. It made it look very strange when we actually landed exactly on target in the middle of the main deck...
The captain was surprisingly accommodating and in short order we had a deal to sail to the Islands. The captain summoned some storm creature that propelled the ship faster than I’ve ever heard of a ship moving. Not that I know how fast a ship typically moves, but I occasionally saw creatures in the water as we sped past them.
In only a few days we had arrived at our destination. The captain pointed to a wall of black in the near distance and told us this is as far as he goes, and Jartik swam off through the black.
We were a bit unsure whether that was what we really wanted to do, and what we would do afterwards (the captain had been consulting some device he kept carefully hidden to navigate the route here). As we discussed the options a vast tentacled creature pulled up beside the ship and the deck was covered with its many tentacles.
Malakar called for everyone to come to him and he’d cast something to let us walk on water, and I was fool enough to do so. I don’t remember anything else until we were in the water watching the creature chomping on the ship. Apparently it had been less than a minute but the creature had already killed the whole crew of the ship and I’m not sure I understand how we escaped.
Livia and Obegard were all for just trying to work out some way to get to the wall of darkness but Malakar seemed bent on revenge, and quite confident that we could finish this thing off. Malakar usually knows what’s what so despite some doubts we followed along and I can’t say it was easy, but Malakar soaked up the major damage while my trusty shortsword plunged what I figured were sensitive spots at the base of the tentacles, and then into the eye.
Obegard says these things have a lair, but I’m strangely uninterested in finding it. I think I’ll just content myself with looting the ship.
A thorny situation
So after the poison master surrendered, he tried to convince us to let him go by telling us that he, himself, was working for someone else. He said that there was a man who ran some sort of zoo, who had ordered quite a bit of poison in the past. We went there to confront him, and as soon as we said that the poison master had given us his name, he immediately attacked. We were able to defeat him, but not without taking some injuries.
With him dead, we finally discovered that the mysterious woman who had kissed Obegard was actually the clerk who was downstairs. Apparently, she, like many others, could change forms, and we learned that she hated the zookeeper because he had killed her mate (a bird of sorts), and trapped him in his zoo. I'm still not sure why she didn't just tell us all of this up front, and had us mount a surprise attack on the zookeeper, but to repay us, she took us to a fascinating library run my enigmatic scholars called the seekers. From what I could tell, the library was not located anywhere in this realm, and contained almost all the knowledge of the world. We finally learned that the siegemaster's lieutenant had entered the elven forests, and got mixed up with someone named Witchthorn. It was there that even the seekers didn't know what happened next.
For some reason, Livy knew this Witchthorn character, and she let us know that he was a member of some race of Fey who all had the audacity regard themselves as "Verdant Princes". Livy kept telling us that they were an evil race, and when we entered the elven forest a week later, she even knew how to summon Witchthorn. However, it was then that all turned sour. Obegard thought that the best course of action was to parlay with this evil beast, and when Livy unexpectedly tried to attack, he, instead of casting spells against the Witchthorn, attempted to attack Livy. I tried to put a stop to things, but between Obegard's spells and the Witchtorn's attacks, it wasn't long when Livy was rendered unconscious and was nearly killed. I had noted, however, that she had some sort of healing abilities that rapidly closed her wounds, and prevented her from bleeding out.
It was then when the Witchthorn told us of the debt that Livy owed. Apparently, her powers weren't natural, and were granted to her by this fiend in exchange for a variety of foul magical reagents and fifty thousand gold, all of which were due in a few weeks. The Witchthorn also knew the information we needed about the lieutenant, but would only tell us if we took up Livy's debt as well.
I wasn't in any mood to agree to a deal that involved killing innocent creatures in order to harvest them for parts, and the rest of them didn't seem willing to do that either. I'm not sure what the next step is. I really wish that Livy had just told us the truth. If we prepared well, we probably could have rendered "his majesty" unconscious, and compelled him to talk in exchange for his life. As of now, both Obegard and myself have expended magical resources, much of which was on each other, and Livy was badly wounded and trapped beneath some plant.
With him dead, we finally discovered that the mysterious woman who had kissed Obegard was actually the clerk who was downstairs. Apparently, she, like many others, could change forms, and we learned that she hated the zookeeper because he had killed her mate (a bird of sorts), and trapped him in his zoo. I'm still not sure why she didn't just tell us all of this up front, and had us mount a surprise attack on the zookeeper, but to repay us, she took us to a fascinating library run my enigmatic scholars called the seekers. From what I could tell, the library was not located anywhere in this realm, and contained almost all the knowledge of the world. We finally learned that the siegemaster's lieutenant had entered the elven forests, and got mixed up with someone named Witchthorn. It was there that even the seekers didn't know what happened next.
For some reason, Livy knew this Witchthorn character, and she let us know that he was a member of some race of Fey who all had the audacity regard themselves as "Verdant Princes". Livy kept telling us that they were an evil race, and when we entered the elven forest a week later, she even knew how to summon Witchthorn. However, it was then that all turned sour. Obegard thought that the best course of action was to parlay with this evil beast, and when Livy unexpectedly tried to attack, he, instead of casting spells against the Witchthorn, attempted to attack Livy. I tried to put a stop to things, but between Obegard's spells and the Witchtorn's attacks, it wasn't long when Livy was rendered unconscious and was nearly killed. I had noted, however, that she had some sort of healing abilities that rapidly closed her wounds, and prevented her from bleeding out.
It was then when the Witchthorn told us of the debt that Livy owed. Apparently, her powers weren't natural, and were granted to her by this fiend in exchange for a variety of foul magical reagents and fifty thousand gold, all of which were due in a few weeks. The Witchthorn also knew the information we needed about the lieutenant, but would only tell us if we took up Livy's debt as well.
I wasn't in any mood to agree to a deal that involved killing innocent creatures in order to harvest them for parts, and the rest of them didn't seem willing to do that either. I'm not sure what the next step is. I really wish that Livy had just told us the truth. If we prepared well, we probably could have rendered "his majesty" unconscious, and compelled him to talk in exchange for his life. As of now, both Obegard and myself have expended magical resources, much of which was on each other, and Livy was badly wounded and trapped beneath some plant.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Webs of Deceipt Unraveled, Nets of Evil Spun
With Millan Rourke's death, our long side-track through the cult of Bascaron in Valen has ended. The mysterious woman turned out to be no woman at all, but a Phoelarc, who led us with subtle clues (the Mournish coin, the theft of my Spire pendant) to discover and dissect the local cultists and their allies. Her ultimate goal was the release of her mate, now a Phoera, from Millan's menagerie.
She rewarded us well in gold and in information, introducing us to the esoteric Tellers, an extraplanar race of librarians and historians. The Tellers brought us a record of Jartik's deal with a Verdant Prince named Witchthorn to locate his master. Jartik had killed a previous headmaster of the wizard's academy as payment, which led tangentially to the peripheral involvement of the Aranea, Katlyn.
As usual, we didn't understand what was going on until it was over, but at least this time our puppetmaster was benign, well-motivated, and well-connected. We made enemies among the cult of Bascaron and the pirates, but that's par for the course.
Finished with Valen for the time being, we shadow walked off to Myreth Forest to find Witchthorn. Livia had heard of him, and even knew where we could go to find him: in hindsight we should have questioned her in detail about how she knew so much. Upon reaching a mushroom-warded glade, Livia told us to wait outside and called for the Fey to appear. And that's when things went in an entirely unexpected direction.
As we later came to understand, Livia had made a terrible bargain with this Verdant Prince: in exchange for her growing power and a Fey connection to dodge her impending Elf-hasty mortality, she was to deliver fifty thousand gold pieces worth of gems and a cornucopia of vile materials. Livia hoped to kill the Fey in this one confrontation, and be free of her burden.
Sadly, she chose not to tell us what was going on, and doesn't seem to care that we need Witchthorn to find Jartik. Malakar's success rate at speaking with the dead has been less than stellar, and I suspect that we'll need more from Witchthorn than an X on a map.
When Livia made to attack Witchthorn without provocation, I prepared to disable her. Unfortunately, none of my spells stuck (she remained most un-turtle-like), and Witchthorn's swift retaliation took her out of the fight before most of us could react (Malakar's pillar of fire was impressive, but didn't seem to alarm Witchthorn too much).
With Livia pinned unconscious by a newly-awakened Oaken Guardian, Witchthorn offered us a dubious deal: if we assumed shared responsibility for Livia's debt, then he would help us reach Jartik. Which leaves us with a debate; deal sincerely, deal falsely, fight, run? Do we leave Livia to her fate, justified by her secrecy and unilateralism? Do we assume her burden and risk the treachery of the Fey? Do we fight (so many reasons)?
We've come this far, I think we need to deal to continue. The question then becomes: who will break faith and when? And the small matter of obtaining the vile goods the Fey has demanded without tainting our souls beyond recovery: perhaps another evil could be defeated in order to satisfy this one, but life doesn't always offer such neat packages. Premeditated vile deeds are far from any path of wisdom and truth that I have known; violence and chaos dog our heels, but our shadow does not yet fall as evil.
She rewarded us well in gold and in information, introducing us to the esoteric Tellers, an extraplanar race of librarians and historians. The Tellers brought us a record of Jartik's deal with a Verdant Prince named Witchthorn to locate his master. Jartik had killed a previous headmaster of the wizard's academy as payment, which led tangentially to the peripheral involvement of the Aranea, Katlyn.
As usual, we didn't understand what was going on until it was over, but at least this time our puppetmaster was benign, well-motivated, and well-connected. We made enemies among the cult of Bascaron and the pirates, but that's par for the course.
Finished with Valen for the time being, we shadow walked off to Myreth Forest to find Witchthorn. Livia had heard of him, and even knew where we could go to find him: in hindsight we should have questioned her in detail about how she knew so much. Upon reaching a mushroom-warded glade, Livia told us to wait outside and called for the Fey to appear. And that's when things went in an entirely unexpected direction.
As we later came to understand, Livia had made a terrible bargain with this Verdant Prince: in exchange for her growing power and a Fey connection to dodge her impending Elf-hasty mortality, she was to deliver fifty thousand gold pieces worth of gems and a cornucopia of vile materials. Livia hoped to kill the Fey in this one confrontation, and be free of her burden.
Sadly, she chose not to tell us what was going on, and doesn't seem to care that we need Witchthorn to find Jartik. Malakar's success rate at speaking with the dead has been less than stellar, and I suspect that we'll need more from Witchthorn than an X on a map.
When Livia made to attack Witchthorn without provocation, I prepared to disable her. Unfortunately, none of my spells stuck (she remained most un-turtle-like), and Witchthorn's swift retaliation took her out of the fight before most of us could react (Malakar's pillar of fire was impressive, but didn't seem to alarm Witchthorn too much).
With Livia pinned unconscious by a newly-awakened Oaken Guardian, Witchthorn offered us a dubious deal: if we assumed shared responsibility for Livia's debt, then he would help us reach Jartik. Which leaves us with a debate; deal sincerely, deal falsely, fight, run? Do we leave Livia to her fate, justified by her secrecy and unilateralism? Do we assume her burden and risk the treachery of the Fey? Do we fight (so many reasons)?
We've come this far, I think we need to deal to continue. The question then becomes: who will break faith and when? And the small matter of obtaining the vile goods the Fey has demanded without tainting our souls beyond recovery: perhaps another evil could be defeated in order to satisfy this one, but life doesn't always offer such neat packages. Premeditated vile deeds are far from any path of wisdom and truth that I have known; violence and chaos dog our heels, but our shadow does not yet fall as evil.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
One good deed
With Harthen beaten into submission we were able to find out how he got into the poison business, which we guessed was our next lead.
We went in with the story that Woe had used one of the poisoned potions and now we wanted an explanation.
Some people are so touchy—no sooner did they mention Harthen than the guy went into attack mode, and he had some neat tricks. It probably would have been easier if we’d taken some time to recover. I had ben studying one of the books some of the dwarves had loaned me and some of the tricks in there might have helped with that annoying little imp thing that was floating around near the ceiling.
We finally cleaned him up and were trying to work out whether Malakar would have to call back his dead spirit for interrogation, but on our way out the clerk transformed into the woman that had kissed Obegard and set us on this path.
Apart from the interesting equipment we’d salvaged, she actually paid us some m-o-n-e-y. Not only that, she took us to some weird library maintained by some extra-planar beings called Tellers who were able to tell us where to find Jartik, the guy we’d come here for in the first place. Maybe she had an “in” with them because it turns out she was some weird reincarnating creature called a “phoera” or “phoerarch” or something.
More or less.
They had information about where Jartik had gone from here, but then they said something about him “leaving the Accordlands” which I find vaguely disquieting.
We took the opportunity of being in a large trade city to finish up some loot disposal, and then we had to leave for the Elven forest to speak to some fey creature called Witchthorn.
Strangely enough Livia seemed to have heard of him, but all she would tell us is that he’s “evil” which the humans seem to throw around very loosely, and I haven’t spent enough time with elves to know if they’re more selective. At least she was able to provide pretty accurate directions on how to find him, which included some sort of summoning ritual she knew.
We stood around ready for almost everything except what happened. Livia did her ritual, Witchthorn arrived with some other plant-like creature, he said something about Livia coming to pay her debt, and then Livia tried to kill him.
I don’t think anyone knew what to do—we needed the guy for information, and Livia hadn’t provided any sort of advance warning about some dispute she and Witchthorn have.
I stopped to see what was going on, as did most of the others. Obegard tried to disable Livia so we could start a conversation or something. It didn’t work, but it succeeded in putting off her spell-casting and once Witchthorn had rendered her unconscious we managed to find out what was going on.
Apparently the magical skills she displays are “gifts” she procured from Witchthorn and when he told us how much she owed him we couldn’t see how she was ever going to pay.
Witchthorn had an idea, however. If we would take on Livia’s debt then he would give us the information we wanted. Hahahahaha. It was good to see that nobody else was much keener to get sucked into that one.
I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do—perhaps Livia had the right idea and if only she’d given us a hint of what she was going to do maybe it would have gone that way. It still might, though now we’re starting from behind with Livia out of it and some of the other spell-casters having already expended some of their power to prevent Livia and Witchthorn killing each other.
We went in with the story that Woe had used one of the poisoned potions and now we wanted an explanation.
Some people are so touchy—no sooner did they mention Harthen than the guy went into attack mode, and he had some neat tricks. It probably would have been easier if we’d taken some time to recover. I had ben studying one of the books some of the dwarves had loaned me and some of the tricks in there might have helped with that annoying little imp thing that was floating around near the ceiling.
We finally cleaned him up and were trying to work out whether Malakar would have to call back his dead spirit for interrogation, but on our way out the clerk transformed into the woman that had kissed Obegard and set us on this path.
Apart from the interesting equipment we’d salvaged, she actually paid us some m-o-n-e-y. Not only that, she took us to some weird library maintained by some extra-planar beings called Tellers who were able to tell us where to find Jartik, the guy we’d come here for in the first place. Maybe she had an “in” with them because it turns out she was some weird reincarnating creature called a “phoera” or “phoerarch” or something.
More or less.
They had information about where Jartik had gone from here, but then they said something about him “leaving the Accordlands” which I find vaguely disquieting.
We took the opportunity of being in a large trade city to finish up some loot disposal, and then we had to leave for the Elven forest to speak to some fey creature called Witchthorn.
Strangely enough Livia seemed to have heard of him, but all she would tell us is that he’s “evil” which the humans seem to throw around very loosely, and I haven’t spent enough time with elves to know if they’re more selective. At least she was able to provide pretty accurate directions on how to find him, which included some sort of summoning ritual she knew.
We stood around ready for almost everything except what happened. Livia did her ritual, Witchthorn arrived with some other plant-like creature, he said something about Livia coming to pay her debt, and then Livia tried to kill him.
I don’t think anyone knew what to do—we needed the guy for information, and Livia hadn’t provided any sort of advance warning about some dispute she and Witchthorn have.
I stopped to see what was going on, as did most of the others. Obegard tried to disable Livia so we could start a conversation or something. It didn’t work, but it succeeded in putting off her spell-casting and once Witchthorn had rendered her unconscious we managed to find out what was going on.
Apparently the magical skills she displays are “gifts” she procured from Witchthorn and when he told us how much she owed him we couldn’t see how she was ever going to pay.
Witchthorn had an idea, however. If we would take on Livia’s debt then he would give us the information we wanted. Hahahahaha. It was good to see that nobody else was much keener to get sucked into that one.
I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do—perhaps Livia had the right idea and if only she’d given us a hint of what she was going to do maybe it would have gone that way. It still might, though now we’re starting from behind with Livia out of it and some of the other spell-casters having already expended some of their power to prevent Livia and Witchthorn killing each other.
Dance with the devil in the pale moonlight
Maybe I should have told them a bit more about my powers, but then again, they didn't help me anyways. Those fuckers just left me unconscious in the middle of the glade. Durthy has chopped plenty of people in two and they happily stuff them in a bag of holding and question the corpse, but when I try to rush in, it's time to hold back and try to turn me into a newt. No thanks.
It all started 10 years ago. I was 20, an adult elf, but still young enough to feel invincible. And I was weak. Have you ever seen an old weak elf? Nope -- the weak ones are on the front lines, cannon fodder in conflicts. They don't make it to 30. Honestly, at that age, I didn't quite think I would either. I was stuck in the army as a pawn, and that just doesn't suit me one bit. As a powerful warlock I moved up quickly, gained power and comfort. I was able to start a family and have a real life. The bargain I had made was in the back of my head after a year - I got on with my life.
Warlock powers don't just spontaneously appear, they're granted. A deal with the devil, you might say. Or a verdant prince in my case. I got these magical powers and a special connection to the power of the fey. In return, I owed him an unspeakable amount of money and unspeakably evil relics. I had planned to kill him with my unit before I ran off. I didn't even realize how quickly it was coming up when I met these adventurers. They had to have known something was up with my powers though, they're so obviously unnatural.
It wasn't until we were in the city, after dealing with the cult of basc that I even thought to check a calendar. I figured I'd just come up with a dream one night, say I saw this guy doing evil things, maybe pretend he's linked into the Medusan Lords somehow. I've saved their butts enough they'd owe me this once. Besides, they usually seem gungho about rushing into kill evil things, ask questions of the corpse later. And with durthy's axe habit... But no, this one time they had to exercise caution. Obegard tried to stop me, ineffectively, but he did prevent me from blasting the shit out of Witchthorn. Until Witchthorn blasted the shit out of me and then entangled me in that damned plant monster.
Oh, and we happened to get into a huge fight with another evil alchemist, met the woman who kissed Obegard, found out she took his pendant to get us to kill said evil alchemist, traveled to some weird interdimensional library of people who know everything about our lands, found out there's some other land beyond our lands and you can travel to them somehow, and a few other minor issues. Nothing of importance really
The Poisoner's Dilema
So not too long after, I was pulled out of the ooze thing, and I was able to get a breath of fresh air in. Durthen was able to dispatch the ooze soon after, and he went back to face the tentacle faced thing. I was still feeling really tired, but Durthen took an even rougher beating. I managed to cast a Heal spell on him to return him to full strength, but he kept getting hurt faster than I could heal him. Fortunately, he was taking a toll on the monster as well, and just when I thought that I wouldn't be able to keep Durthen on his feet, Durthen finished the creature off with a swift slash from his axe.
We caught our breaths and explored the rest of the cult hideout. We managed to find some valuables as well as a ledger that seems to describe their operation. We hightailed it out of there and took a quick break the next day to buy and sell supplies. I also questioned Annie Basc, but the information merely revealed that her operations were no more than to make money, and that the Basceron, more or less, had been working alone. However, after carefully examining the ledger, I determined that they got most of their poisoned potions from a single source. I was also able to discover that most of the potions that we had found in the hideout were also poisoned. Fortunately, I was able to track down the buyers of the ones we sold, and I neutralized all the poison from them.
The next day, we cased the home of the poisonmaster. He seemed to be doing quite well for himself, perhaps a bit too well for someone who supposedly just sells alchemy goods. I briefly talked with the poisonmaster's wife, and she seemed to be honest enough. Perhaps poisonmaster had been keeping her in the dark. We decided to return in the evening to hopefully confront the poisonmaster without too much trouble, but I guess that it was to be expected that the house would be heavily trapped with poison. We had to retreat after a number of us were hit by debilitating poisons. Obegard even fell unconscious from the attack. We went back to our inn and the next day, I cast spells that restored us to normal. This time, we decided, we'd simply confront him about it.
We went back, and Livy managed to set us a meeting with the poisonmaster. We returned to meet with him an hour and a half later, but in hindsight I suspect that he had used the time to hide the evidence of his illegal operation. Nonetheless, three of us went upstairs to meet with him while Obegard and Borrow waited outside the balcony in case there was trouble.
We confronted the poisonmaster about his foul deeds, and he seemed to be disgustingly unconcerned about the consequences all the people he killed with his tainted potions. He had the temerity to try to blackmail us to ensure his silence. I gave him the laugh off, and even though Livy kept insisting to us that had he gone to the authorities, it would have been our heads on a pike, it looked like he was quite worried about his own hide, too. He tried to threaten me into handing him the ledger that implicated him, and again, I laughed it off.
Durthen stepped between him and myself as I put the ledger securely back in my bag. However, the poisonmaster was quite prepared in his own home. Suddenly, a statue leaped into action and a large carpet behind me animated into life. When Durthen struck the man, his skin also turned as hard as stone. The rug had me tangled up, but Livy helped teleport me outside onto the balcony. At that moment, the poisonmaster created a wall of force that completely cut off the balcony, separating us from Durthen. Fortunately, he hadn't expected that we had backup, and at that moment, Obegard levitated up to the balcony and blasted the wall of force out of existence. A wall of blades and a few hacks from Durthen's axe later, the animated carpet was in tatters.
Obegard cast another spell that turned the poisonmaster into a turtle so that he wouldn't be able to cast any more spells, but I guess that even as a turtle, he had the instinct to walk into an invisible screen that dispelled his transmutation. Fortunately (for us, not him), that also dispelled almost all of his protective magic, and with an angry man wielding an axe in his face, he wisely surrendered. I'm not sure what to do with him at this point. I suppose that getting a written confession of his misdeeds would ensure that we would be out of hot water when turning him into the authorities.
We caught our breaths and explored the rest of the cult hideout. We managed to find some valuables as well as a ledger that seems to describe their operation. We hightailed it out of there and took a quick break the next day to buy and sell supplies. I also questioned Annie Basc, but the information merely revealed that her operations were no more than to make money, and that the Basceron, more or less, had been working alone. However, after carefully examining the ledger, I determined that they got most of their poisoned potions from a single source. I was also able to discover that most of the potions that we had found in the hideout were also poisoned. Fortunately, I was able to track down the buyers of the ones we sold, and I neutralized all the poison from them.
The next day, we cased the home of the poisonmaster. He seemed to be doing quite well for himself, perhaps a bit too well for someone who supposedly just sells alchemy goods. I briefly talked with the poisonmaster's wife, and she seemed to be honest enough. Perhaps poisonmaster had been keeping her in the dark. We decided to return in the evening to hopefully confront the poisonmaster without too much trouble, but I guess that it was to be expected that the house would be heavily trapped with poison. We had to retreat after a number of us were hit by debilitating poisons. Obegard even fell unconscious from the attack. We went back to our inn and the next day, I cast spells that restored us to normal. This time, we decided, we'd simply confront him about it.
We went back, and Livy managed to set us a meeting with the poisonmaster. We returned to meet with him an hour and a half later, but in hindsight I suspect that he had used the time to hide the evidence of his illegal operation. Nonetheless, three of us went upstairs to meet with him while Obegard and Borrow waited outside the balcony in case there was trouble.
We confronted the poisonmaster about his foul deeds, and he seemed to be disgustingly unconcerned about the consequences all the people he killed with his tainted potions. He had the temerity to try to blackmail us to ensure his silence. I gave him the laugh off, and even though Livy kept insisting to us that had he gone to the authorities, it would have been our heads on a pike, it looked like he was quite worried about his own hide, too. He tried to threaten me into handing him the ledger that implicated him, and again, I laughed it off.
Durthen stepped between him and myself as I put the ledger securely back in my bag. However, the poisonmaster was quite prepared in his own home. Suddenly, a statue leaped into action and a large carpet behind me animated into life. When Durthen struck the man, his skin also turned as hard as stone. The rug had me tangled up, but Livy helped teleport me outside onto the balcony. At that moment, the poisonmaster created a wall of force that completely cut off the balcony, separating us from Durthen. Fortunately, he hadn't expected that we had backup, and at that moment, Obegard levitated up to the balcony and blasted the wall of force out of existence. A wall of blades and a few hacks from Durthen's axe later, the animated carpet was in tatters.
Obegard cast another spell that turned the poisonmaster into a turtle so that he wouldn't be able to cast any more spells, but I guess that even as a turtle, he had the instinct to walk into an invisible screen that dispelled his transmutation. Fortunately (for us, not him), that also dispelled almost all of his protective magic, and with an angry man wielding an axe in his face, he wisely surrendered. I'm not sure what to do with him at this point. I suppose that getting a written confession of his misdeeds would ensure that we would be out of hot water when turning him into the authorities.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
It's all about the money
As I’m just about to start sticking it to feeler face, Erson decides he’s had enough, turns into a cockroach, and scuttles away leaving me alone with Mr Ugly. Time to start dipping into my bag of tricks.
So first I roll right between his legs and as he tries to work out where I’ve gone I spring up and lunge at him but he steps aside at just the wrong moment. I can hear a couple of the others yelling at me to just run away, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to leave squid face unoccupied as he seems to have plenty nasty tricks of his own.
Durthen shows up and we begin to pick on him but then there’s this screaming sound in my head. I try to ignore it and get in a good kidney shot, but then it happens again and it’s so loud I can’t think about anything except the pain.
By the time the screaming fades away it’s all over. The two halves of Squiddly Diddly make me think Durthen had a hand in his demise.
Now comes the fun part. Oh look, an altar that has (kick) a hidden compartment in it with a bunch of platinum and a couple of sweet-looking diamonds. Next we move on to the office and look, a (click) unlocked drawer with the cult’s ledger book, and (tap, tap, tap) another compartment with more “liquid assets”.
We also find a bunch of potions but later when we’re examining them we discover that they’re poisonous, but Malakar is able to fix that.
I paid Oby to enhance my Bracers a bit more—the poor guy needs cash to get some book he’s been lusting after, and apparently once he gets that we’ll be able to cash in those spell books we nabbed from the necromancer. I think a couple of the others also got him to do some work for them.
Malakar pores over the ledger and manages to find out where the poisonous potions are coming from, and we decide that’s the best place to go next. He also interrogates the spirit of Anna Basc but she doesn’t know anything new.
We make one quick pass by the alchemist’s place during the day, and then decide to just rifle the place by night. Getting in the front door is no challenge, but as we make our way through the shopfront a bunch of vials fly at us. One goes flying over my head, but the others aren’t so lucky and I have to actually bundle Oby into my bottomless bag because he’s incapacitated. I’m just glad I have the area silenced because the way the others are looking I’m pretty sure they would have been moaning enough to attract unwanted attention. Time for Plan C.
Back at the inn we scratch our heads to come up with a Plan C, while Malakar works on fixing up all the guys that seem to have turned into wet noodles of weakness. Soon we have a Plan C, which sounds like what someone proposed for Plan A, which was that Livia goes in and tries to get a meeting with the guy and then we find out what he knows.
Sounds easy enough, and Oby and I wait outside where we can easily get to the room where the others are waiting for the alchemist to show up. I was so proud of my guys—they were going all “no harm, no foul” until the guy asked for money to stop him turning us in to the authorities, and then they went psycho on him. Hahahahahaha.
Now I must say I was surprised at how well prepared this guy was, but I guess if you’re naughty it helps to have defences. So before long the statue decorating the room is in the fight, as is the rug. I hear some swearing as someone hits the alchemist, and his skin goes all tough and hard, and then he goes all fuzzy around the edges as well. Oby and I start to move up to the balcony to join up with the others, but then the whole balcony area is surrounded by some invisible barrier.
Oby makes a few gestures and the barrier disappears again, and then he turns the alchemist into a tortoise. Meanwhile Malakar has done that wall of knives thing and shredded the rug. And most everything else in the room—I can barely see anything.
Then the alchemist is an alchemist again, but his skin has also returned to normal, his outline has stopped being all fuzzy, and he gives up. His statue stops fighting as well, so now we have no reason to keep fighting. In theory it will be easier to get information from him while he’s still alive, but that implies a certain competence we have thus far completely failed to demonstrate.
So first I roll right between his legs and as he tries to work out where I’ve gone I spring up and lunge at him but he steps aside at just the wrong moment. I can hear a couple of the others yelling at me to just run away, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to leave squid face unoccupied as he seems to have plenty nasty tricks of his own.
Durthen shows up and we begin to pick on him but then there’s this screaming sound in my head. I try to ignore it and get in a good kidney shot, but then it happens again and it’s so loud I can’t think about anything except the pain.
By the time the screaming fades away it’s all over. The two halves of Squiddly Diddly make me think Durthen had a hand in his demise.
Now comes the fun part. Oh look, an altar that has (kick) a hidden compartment in it with a bunch of platinum and a couple of sweet-looking diamonds. Next we move on to the office and look, a (click) unlocked drawer with the cult’s ledger book, and (tap, tap, tap) another compartment with more “liquid assets”.
We also find a bunch of potions but later when we’re examining them we discover that they’re poisonous, but Malakar is able to fix that.
I paid Oby to enhance my Bracers a bit more—the poor guy needs cash to get some book he’s been lusting after, and apparently once he gets that we’ll be able to cash in those spell books we nabbed from the necromancer. I think a couple of the others also got him to do some work for them.
Malakar pores over the ledger and manages to find out where the poisonous potions are coming from, and we decide that’s the best place to go next. He also interrogates the spirit of Anna Basc but she doesn’t know anything new.
We make one quick pass by the alchemist’s place during the day, and then decide to just rifle the place by night. Getting in the front door is no challenge, but as we make our way through the shopfront a bunch of vials fly at us. One goes flying over my head, but the others aren’t so lucky and I have to actually bundle Oby into my bottomless bag because he’s incapacitated. I’m just glad I have the area silenced because the way the others are looking I’m pretty sure they would have been moaning enough to attract unwanted attention. Time for Plan C.
Back at the inn we scratch our heads to come up with a Plan C, while Malakar works on fixing up all the guys that seem to have turned into wet noodles of weakness. Soon we have a Plan C, which sounds like what someone proposed for Plan A, which was that Livia goes in and tries to get a meeting with the guy and then we find out what he knows.
Sounds easy enough, and Oby and I wait outside where we can easily get to the room where the others are waiting for the alchemist to show up. I was so proud of my guys—they were going all “no harm, no foul” until the guy asked for money to stop him turning us in to the authorities, and then they went psycho on him. Hahahahahaha.
Now I must say I was surprised at how well prepared this guy was, but I guess if you’re naughty it helps to have defences. So before long the statue decorating the room is in the fight, as is the rug. I hear some swearing as someone hits the alchemist, and his skin goes all tough and hard, and then he goes all fuzzy around the edges as well. Oby and I start to move up to the balcony to join up with the others, but then the whole balcony area is surrounded by some invisible barrier.
Oby makes a few gestures and the barrier disappears again, and then he turns the alchemist into a tortoise. Meanwhile Malakar has done that wall of knives thing and shredded the rug. And most everything else in the room—I can barely see anything.
Then the alchemist is an alchemist again, but his skin has also returned to normal, his outline has stopped being all fuzzy, and he gives up. His statue stops fighting as well, so now we have no reason to keep fighting. In theory it will be easier to get information from him while he’s still alive, but that implies a certain competence we have thus far completely failed to demonstrate.
guards, guards, guards!
Why do these people, especially malakar want to tell the city authorities what we have found ? Let's play out this scenario
Livia : Hello Mr Guard
Guard : Hello evil elf. How can I be suspicious of you today?
L : Well I wanted to let you know of an evil plot I discovered
G : What's that?
L : Well, this alchemist was plotting with Anna Basc to ship poisoned potions overseas. They had a local forger make these fake shipping documents.
G : Really ? The Basc family has been a pillar of this community. Why would you level these accusations? That alchemist gives to a local orphanage! His potion cured my son the other day.
L : Well I have proof. In a ledger
G : Oh? what ledger?
L : This one right here.
G : How did you get that ledger from Anna Basc's warehouse?
L : Ummmm.....
G : And is that blood on it? You know nobody's seen her in a few days and the warehouse is closed
L : Ummmm......
G : And some locals noticed a disturbance at the alchemist's house, some people using magic in violation of the law. Sounded like a big fight
L : Errrrrr.....
G : And how do you know that local forger?
L : *Dimension Doors outta the city*
Sure, we could all get locked up for our illegal activities, or we can be smart about it - figure out why, stop the worst of it, and profit off of the rest. I do need a nice new pair of shoes, something agile....
Seriously, I'm not even sure why we were interrogating the alchemist, or breaking into his store at night. Sure, it's fun bluffing, and even more fun intimidating, but what does it get us?
I want to get power and revenge, not go chasing down some tactician.
Hrm, I didn't even realize how late in the year it's getting, fall comes so soon....
Livia : Hello Mr Guard
Guard : Hello evil elf. How can I be suspicious of you today?
L : Well I wanted to let you know of an evil plot I discovered
G : What's that?
L : Well, this alchemist was plotting with Anna Basc to ship poisoned potions overseas. They had a local forger make these fake shipping documents.
G : Really ? The Basc family has been a pillar of this community. Why would you level these accusations? That alchemist gives to a local orphanage! His potion cured my son the other day.
L : Well I have proof. In a ledger
G : Oh? what ledger?
L : This one right here.
G : How did you get that ledger from Anna Basc's warehouse?
L : Ummmm.....
G : And is that blood on it? You know nobody's seen her in a few days and the warehouse is closed
L : Ummmm......
G : And some locals noticed a disturbance at the alchemist's house, some people using magic in violation of the law. Sounded like a big fight
L : Errrrrr.....
G : And how do you know that local forger?
L : *Dimension Doors outta the city*
Sure, we could all get locked up for our illegal activities, or we can be smart about it - figure out why, stop the worst of it, and profit off of the rest. I do need a nice new pair of shoes, something agile....
Seriously, I'm not even sure why we were interrogating the alchemist, or breaking into his store at night. Sure, it's fun bluffing, and even more fun intimidating, but what does it get us?
I want to get power and revenge, not go chasing down some tactician.
Hrm, I didn't even realize how late in the year it's getting, fall comes so soon....
[dnd-monitoring] accordlands High_body_count_per_answer
So far we've established that Basc Trading, led by the late Annie Basc, is indeed a front for the cult of Bascaron. We haven't figured anything else out. I continue to be underwhelmed by our investigative prowess, but at least we returned to form by decimating (perforating, liquifying, etc.) a decent number of cultists. As is so often the case, our progress picked up as soon as our cover was blown and fighting started.
I am considering suggesting a new modus operandi to enhance the efficiency of our investigations: we go to an arbitrary town, and walk through it announcing that we're heroes, we're on to the local bad guys, and we're going to bring them to justice. Then we see who attacks us, and assume they're the bad guys. The only hitch in this plan is that the bad guys only ambush us once we appear to be a credible threat, so there remains a tedious initial nosiness-establishing phase. Perhaps I could develop an easily-detected clairvoyance spell, to speed things up. I guess it would be simpler to just send Malakar on scouting missions instead of Borrow, or put me in charge of diplomacy.
Of course, the "spring every trap by walking into it" policy does have some drawbacks. Vis a vis dangerous opponents, such as the living spell and tentacle-faced high priest we face at this very moment. Knock knock. Ooze there? Oh no, a magical ooze! Love me tendril, love me true, never let Erson go... crap this cultist insanity is getting to me.
I am considering suggesting a new modus operandi to enhance the efficiency of our investigations: we go to an arbitrary town, and walk through it announcing that we're heroes, we're on to the local bad guys, and we're going to bring them to justice. Then we see who attacks us, and assume they're the bad guys. The only hitch in this plan is that the bad guys only ambush us once we appear to be a credible threat, so there remains a tedious initial nosiness-establishing phase. Perhaps I could develop an easily-detected clairvoyance spell, to speed things up. I guess it would be simpler to just send Malakar on scouting missions instead of Borrow, or put me in charge of diplomacy.
Of course, the "spring every trap by walking into it" policy does have some drawbacks. Vis a vis dangerous opponents, such as the living spell and tentacle-faced high priest we face at this very moment. Knock knock. Ooze there? Oh no, a magical ooze! Love me tendril, love me true, never let Erson go... crap this cultist insanity is getting to me.
Paying our Temple Dues...with Interest!
To be honest, I expected the spider chick's dad would be, well, a daddy long-legs. And maybe he is -- the head scholar we met claims he adopted her. So her true daddy long-legs might be sitting on the side of a house somewhere, pining away for his lost daughter. Maybe when we pull both halves of her corpse out of the bag of holding, we'll track him down and let him know.
I know that seems unusually caring of me given that I cut his daughter in half with my axe, but I just want our cleric to speak with dead and ask "Who's your daddy?". Can you blame me?
So, our next lead was the "Basc" trading company. It was right next to the Allen Qaeda Sand Emporium. The funny thing is, I think we could learn a lesson from their subtlety. Ahem, anyways.
We send in Livia to setup a meet with the trading company owner/manager, and she manages to do it without getting killed -- the owner lady pops into our (new) inn and Livia convinces her she wants to get involved in some illicit trading. Owner lady says to meet her at the trading company after nightfall, so we hang out in a nearby alley and keep track of Livia magically while she does the deal. Oby goes in as her manservant -- he finally took down his daily disguise so nobody would recognize him as the old feeble man he really is.
Finally, things start returning to normal. Livia and Oby get held up and manacled and Livia babbles about a coin and gets the trader lady all kinds of interested. Fortunately for us (not them) Livia leads them down the alley we just setup for an ambush. The fight was billed as "Monkeys In A Barrell" on HBO if you're interested in watching it again. Only the warlock got away!
We did manage to trap two soldiers, who let us know about a secret underground temple after peeing their pants. I guess they didn't want to ask for a hall pass for the bathroom.
Clearly, it would be a brilliant idea to sneak into the temple while they were on full alert. Don't ever say we are not brilliant!
Downstairs was the warlock, whom we quickly dispatched. Things got more interesting when we found the main altar. I ran in past a bunch of guards to attack the head priest, while some orb floated past and turned into a tentacled mass which blocked the doorway -- and no, it wasn't Sorcha. It was a bigger tentacled mass, and Oby wasn't making googly eyes at it.
The head priest started out rather wussy. I even managed to drop the guards that surrounded me with a sweet whirl of my axe! You perform it by drawing a circle with the stylus on the touch pad, centered around Link. It can be a little hard -- try drawing bigger circles if you have difficulty.
Things were definately going my way, at least until the priest turned into yet another tentacled mass -- smaller -- and tried to eat my head. I tried to tell him oby's brain would be a nicer snack, but he wasn't listening. Finally my prayers were answered, as I was teleported away from his grip and left Erson in his clutches instead.
And here we are, in the middle of a fight while I take the time to write Dear Diary. It's amazing what you can do with a free action when you own a magical Blog Of Posting.
I know that seems unusually caring of me given that I cut his daughter in half with my axe, but I just want our cleric to speak with dead and ask "Who's your daddy?". Can you blame me?
So, our next lead was the "Basc" trading company. It was right next to the Allen Qaeda Sand Emporium. The funny thing is, I think we could learn a lesson from their subtlety. Ahem, anyways.
We send in Livia to setup a meet with the trading company owner/manager, and she manages to do it without getting killed -- the owner lady pops into our (new) inn and Livia convinces her she wants to get involved in some illicit trading. Owner lady says to meet her at the trading company after nightfall, so we hang out in a nearby alley and keep track of Livia magically while she does the deal. Oby goes in as her manservant -- he finally took down his daily disguise so nobody would recognize him as the old feeble man he really is.
Finally, things start returning to normal. Livia and Oby get held up and manacled and Livia babbles about a coin and gets the trader lady all kinds of interested. Fortunately for us (not them) Livia leads them down the alley we just setup for an ambush. The fight was billed as "Monkeys In A Barrell" on HBO if you're interested in watching it again. Only the warlock got away!
We did manage to trap two soldiers, who let us know about a secret underground temple after peeing their pants. I guess they didn't want to ask for a hall pass for the bathroom.
Clearly, it would be a brilliant idea to sneak into the temple while they were on full alert. Don't ever say we are not brilliant!
Downstairs was the warlock, whom we quickly dispatched. Things got more interesting when we found the main altar. I ran in past a bunch of guards to attack the head priest, while some orb floated past and turned into a tentacled mass which blocked the doorway -- and no, it wasn't Sorcha. It was a bigger tentacled mass, and Oby wasn't making googly eyes at it.
The head priest started out rather wussy. I even managed to drop the guards that surrounded me with a sweet whirl of my axe! You perform it by drawing a circle with the stylus on the touch pad, centered around Link. It can be a little hard -- try drawing bigger circles if you have difficulty.
Things were definately going my way, at least until the priest turned into yet another tentacled mass -- smaller -- and tried to eat my head. I tried to tell him oby's brain would be a nicer snack, but he wasn't listening. Finally my prayers were answered, as I was teleported away from his grip and left Erson in his clutches instead.
And here we are, in the middle of a fight while I take the time to write Dear Diary. It's amazing what you can do with a free action when you own a magical Blog Of Posting.
View From the Inside of an Ooze
So the day started off pretty normally -- I tried to question a corpse, failed, then I burned a bunch of incense to get answers, failed again, and then got into an argument with Borrow on whether or not "employers" actually must mean that they're paying you.
We went and checked out the "Basc" corporation, and discovered that it wasn't much more than a warehouse, or so we thought at the time. Livy volunteered to go ahead and pretend to be an elven merchant interested in illicit goods, and somehow she managed to get a meeting with one Annie Basc. All this subterfuge was grating my nerves, but soon enough, their cover was blown as Obegard and Livy went back to the warehouse to negotiate the final details of this "deal". Fortunately Obegard had a spell of message on hand, and those of us on the outside were able to hear that they were in trouble. I whispered for them to lead their captors down the alleyway, and fortunately, it wasn't hard for Livy convinced them that platinum coin the mysterious woman gave Obegard was with us. I don't know why they were so interested in that coin, though.
We sprung our ambush as they came down the alley. I ring a barrier of spinning blades surrounding and separating the cultists from Obegard and Livy as Borrow attacked from the flanks. Woe swapped Livy with Durthen and I undid Livy's manacles with a spell. It wasn't long before we forced the trapped cultists to surrender. Unfortunately, Annie Basc was killed in the fight. However, we did manage to get a good deal of information from our debriefing with them. They told us of a hidden temple beneath the warehouse.
We promptly descended into the corridors below. We encountered one of the cultists that managed to escape earlier, but a flurry of magic missiles blasted him down. His presence meant that the rest of the cultists must be on alert too. We explored for a small bit, and behind a locked door we found what must have been the temple for these cultists. There were five of them, along with some hovering orb. I stepped in and blasted four with divine fire, leaving Durthen to finish them off with a single slash of his axe. However, the final opponent was far more challenging. He was all but immune to most of our spells, and worse yet, the orb zoomed toward us and turned into some sort of ooze like beast. It
moved toward me, and I was just a little too slow to dodge out of the way. The next thing I knew, I was inside of it, getting crushed and also feeling so tired. I saw the cultist leader turn into some sort of tentacled beast, and lash out at Durthen and Erson, hurting them badly. I guess that's my cue to act. I probably shouldn't be writing this in the middle of a fight, anyways.
That could be me if I'm not careful.
We went and checked out the "Basc" corporation, and discovered that it wasn't much more than a warehouse, or so we thought at the time. Livy volunteered to go ahead and pretend to be an elven merchant interested in illicit goods, and somehow she managed to get a meeting with one Annie Basc. All this subterfuge was grating my nerves, but soon enough, their cover was blown as Obegard and Livy went back to the warehouse to negotiate the final details of this "deal". Fortunately Obegard had a spell of message on hand, and those of us on the outside were able to hear that they were in trouble. I whispered for them to lead their captors down the alleyway, and fortunately, it wasn't hard for Livy convinced them that platinum coin the mysterious woman gave Obegard was with us. I don't know why they were so interested in that coin, though.
We sprung our ambush as they came down the alley. I ring a barrier of spinning blades surrounding and separating the cultists from Obegard and Livy as Borrow attacked from the flanks. Woe swapped Livy with Durthen and I undid Livy's manacles with a spell. It wasn't long before we forced the trapped cultists to surrender. Unfortunately, Annie Basc was killed in the fight. However, we did manage to get a good deal of information from our debriefing with them. They told us of a hidden temple beneath the warehouse.
We promptly descended into the corridors below. We encountered one of the cultists that managed to escape earlier, but a flurry of magic missiles blasted him down. His presence meant that the rest of the cultists must be on alert too. We explored for a small bit, and behind a locked door we found what must have been the temple for these cultists. There were five of them, along with some hovering orb. I stepped in and blasted four with divine fire, leaving Durthen to finish them off with a single slash of his axe. However, the final opponent was far more challenging. He was all but immune to most of our spells, and worse yet, the orb zoomed toward us and turned into some sort of ooze like beast. It
moved toward me, and I was just a little too slow to dodge out of the way. The next thing I knew, I was inside of it, getting crushed and also feeling so tired. I saw the cultist leader turn into some sort of tentacled beast, and lash out at Durthen and Erson, hurting them badly. I guess that's my cue to act. I probably shouldn't be writing this in the middle of a fight, anyways.That could be me if I'm not careful.
Tongue tied
I'm really off my game today. All I needed to do was a simple bluff and then I fuck it all up by instead blabbing about the coin. What is wrong with me?
The day at least started well enough. Malakar couldn't talk to the dead aranaea. Maybe if someone hadn't cut her in two....
We went to the magical tower to try and figure out what was up with her. We found out she was the adopted daughter of the headmaster (oops!) but nobody seemed to suspect her. She was very studious and excelled at magic. It seems like it's likely that she was always an aranaea just wearing the form of a human and disguising it very well.
Then I went to the Basc trading company posign as an elven trader. I was told that Annie Basc would be with me soon. I really hoped that it was just a coincidence - what kind of crazy cultist would give themselves a nom de guerre that's a shortened name of their illegal evil cult? Obviously one that could flip around even my tongue. Well later on (after we had moved from the first hotel to a second one), I met her at a third hotel and convinced her (well not too well) that I wanted to trade in magic potions and other illicit substances. As she walked by the common room, Malakar sensed that she was a cultist of Bascaron (I wonder what other surprises he holds). So much for her subterfuge.
I went to meet her with Obegard as my manservant (I love that phrase, by the way). But she immediately figured out that I was not being completely honest. I really should have brought along a bodyguard as well. With scythes aimed for me, I was afraid that I would not be able to survive long enough to dimension door out of there. I lost my nerve for a second and suddenly somehow started blabbing about the coin. She didn't even know abotu the coin. At least I kept my wits with me enough to tell her that it was with the rest of my party (who was waiting around the corner). Thank goodness they were prepared and sprung a nice ambush. There was enough distraction for me and obegard to jump away safely. Malekar then cast wall of blades to trap them all in. We managed to capture alive two of the low level guards and I managed to literally scare the shit out of them. Dearthy of course split Annie Basc in two (again!) before we could talk to her. Doesn't he realize that talking with the living is much, much easier than talking with teh dead? I have to sneak in and dull his axe sometime.
Anyways we wound up making it down to the main temple (trap door underneath a crate,how typical) and are stuck in a battle with a creepy tentacle-face monster. Shouldn't be too hard to kill him, just long.... and hopefully durthy doesn't axe him like all the others
The day at least started well enough. Malakar couldn't talk to the dead aranaea. Maybe if someone hadn't cut her in two....
We went to the magical tower to try and figure out what was up with her. We found out she was the adopted daughter of the headmaster (oops!) but nobody seemed to suspect her. She was very studious and excelled at magic. It seems like it's likely that she was always an aranaea just wearing the form of a human and disguising it very well.
Then I went to the Basc trading company posign as an elven trader. I was told that Annie Basc would be with me soon. I really hoped that it was just a coincidence - what kind of crazy cultist would give themselves a nom de guerre that's a shortened name of their illegal evil cult? Obviously one that could flip around even my tongue. Well later on (after we had moved from the first hotel to a second one), I met her at a third hotel and convinced her (well not too well) that I wanted to trade in magic potions and other illicit substances. As she walked by the common room, Malakar sensed that she was a cultist of Bascaron (I wonder what other surprises he holds). So much for her subterfuge.
I went to meet her with Obegard as my manservant (I love that phrase, by the way). But she immediately figured out that I was not being completely honest. I really should have brought along a bodyguard as well. With scythes aimed for me, I was afraid that I would not be able to survive long enough to dimension door out of there. I lost my nerve for a second and suddenly somehow started blabbing about the coin. She didn't even know abotu the coin. At least I kept my wits with me enough to tell her that it was with the rest of my party (who was waiting around the corner). Thank goodness they were prepared and sprung a nice ambush. There was enough distraction for me and obegard to jump away safely. Malekar then cast wall of blades to trap them all in. We managed to capture alive two of the low level guards and I managed to literally scare the shit out of them. Dearthy of course split Annie Basc in two (again!) before we could talk to her. Doesn't he realize that talking with the living is much, much easier than talking with teh dead? I have to sneak in and dull his axe sometime.
Anyways we wound up making it down to the main temple (trap door underneath a crate,how typical) and are stuck in a battle with a creepy tentacle-face monster. Shouldn't be too hard to kill him, just long.... and hopefully durthy doesn't axe him like all the others
Monday, October 22, 2007
Ahaha. All cult up.
Malakar attempted to summon the spirit of the dead Aranea so we could find out what she wanted. It didn't work, and it will be another week before he can try again. Which means lugging around two oozing, stinking half-Aranea corpses. Well they ain’t goin’ in my rabbit hole—I’m not going to fight nausea every time I pull something out!
Two visitors in two nights is like a giant sign saying “Time to Move”. Fortunately we’re all literate and before long we were settling in to a new inn. Almost surprising, really—common-sense isn’t generally the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Upworlders.
Two paths were still evident: back to the magic college to find out more about Little Miss Spider; or Basc Trading Company to find why someone was shipping poisons and potions secretly, and find out whether it really was the least imaginative name that cultists of Bascerone could come up with.
We tried the magic college first and that was a dud. Beyond noting that she was the best student he’d ever seen the master had never noticed anything about her since he adopted her. The whole thing sounds suspicious but if he’s lying he’s had a lot of practice so we’ll have to let that go for now.
Which leaves the Basc Trading Company, or whatever they call themselves. As before, we sent Livia in to set things up. She told them she’d come into some money and was looking for a way to increase it. They told her that Annie Basc would come to see her to discuss options.
Sure enough, a dark-haired woman came to meet Livia, and invited her to come back to the warehouse to finalise the details. She took Obegard with her, and the rest of us hid nearby. Sure enough it went sour almost immediately—apparently she’d seen through Livia’s story.
Fortunately for us after slapping on some manacles they brought Livia and Obegard outside and straight down the narrow alley where we were immediately able to trap them. The fight was short and bloody; mostly on their side. One of the guards we didn’t kill spilled his guts and told us that underneath one of the crates in the warehouse was the entrance to a hidden temple, where there were maybe a dozen more guards, the warlock that had slipped away from our ambush, and a visiting priest of Bascerone.
In for a copper, in for a gold as they say so it was back into the warehouse, pull aside the crates, and down the stairs. Just round the corner was the warlock, but he idn’t seem to have done much since to raise the alarm and it was only a few seconds before he was dead as well.
We checked one direction and came across a barracks and a bedroom, neither of which was occupied. Looking the other way there was a door in a “temporary state of security” and once that was remedied things got somewhat hairier.
We’d found the temple, and hovering over the altar was some weird sphere. Dearthen made for the priest straight past the gaping guards, and then the weird sphere sprang forth of its own volition and burst into a mass of tentacles blocking the entrance to the temple. How very inconvenient.
Didn’t slow us down that much though. Malakar called down some divine flame on the guards, then Woe, Livia and Malakar did that magical jump thing into the temple. The guards had closed in around Dearthen and he called some power from his axe and as it flashed fatally around him the guards all fell.
The tentacle-thing moved over to engulf Malakar, and I took the opportunity to slip past on the other side. It tried to engulf me as well, but I dodged past and then moved in to attack the priest.
Suddenly the priest’s appearance shifted and his face sprouted tentacles. He leapt on Dearthen, but then someone magically switched Dearthen and Erson. Erson is usually pretty good in a cuddle, but I dunno what’s gonna happen with this thing, so I think I’ll stick here and see if I can trim those squiggly whiskers.
Two visitors in two nights is like a giant sign saying “Time to Move”. Fortunately we’re all literate and before long we were settling in to a new inn. Almost surprising, really—common-sense isn’t generally the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Upworlders.
Two paths were still evident: back to the magic college to find out more about Little Miss Spider; or Basc Trading Company to find why someone was shipping poisons and potions secretly, and find out whether it really was the least imaginative name that cultists of Bascerone could come up with.
We tried the magic college first and that was a dud. Beyond noting that she was the best student he’d ever seen the master had never noticed anything about her since he adopted her. The whole thing sounds suspicious but if he’s lying he’s had a lot of practice so we’ll have to let that go for now.
Which leaves the Basc Trading Company, or whatever they call themselves. As before, we sent Livia in to set things up. She told them she’d come into some money and was looking for a way to increase it. They told her that Annie Basc would come to see her to discuss options.
Sure enough, a dark-haired woman came to meet Livia, and invited her to come back to the warehouse to finalise the details. She took Obegard with her, and the rest of us hid nearby. Sure enough it went sour almost immediately—apparently she’d seen through Livia’s story.
Fortunately for us after slapping on some manacles they brought Livia and Obegard outside and straight down the narrow alley where we were immediately able to trap them. The fight was short and bloody; mostly on their side. One of the guards we didn’t kill spilled his guts and told us that underneath one of the crates in the warehouse was the entrance to a hidden temple, where there were maybe a dozen more guards, the warlock that had slipped away from our ambush, and a visiting priest of Bascerone.
In for a copper, in for a gold as they say so it was back into the warehouse, pull aside the crates, and down the stairs. Just round the corner was the warlock, but he idn’t seem to have done much since to raise the alarm and it was only a few seconds before he was dead as well.
We checked one direction and came across a barracks and a bedroom, neither of which was occupied. Looking the other way there was a door in a “temporary state of security” and once that was remedied things got somewhat hairier.
We’d found the temple, and hovering over the altar was some weird sphere. Dearthen made for the priest straight past the gaping guards, and then the weird sphere sprang forth of its own volition and burst into a mass of tentacles blocking the entrance to the temple. How very inconvenient.
Didn’t slow us down that much though. Malakar called down some divine flame on the guards, then Woe, Livia and Malakar did that magical jump thing into the temple. The guards had closed in around Dearthen and he called some power from his axe and as it flashed fatally around him the guards all fell.
The tentacle-thing moved over to engulf Malakar, and I took the opportunity to slip past on the other side. It tried to engulf me as well, but I dodged past and then moved in to attack the priest.
Suddenly the priest’s appearance shifted and his face sprouted tentacles. He leapt on Dearthen, but then someone magically switched Dearthen and Erson. Erson is usually pretty good in a cuddle, but I dunno what’s gonna happen with this thing, so I think I’ll stick here and see if I can trim those squiggly whiskers.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Oby shrank his wood! Crate, that is.
There's only one thing more exciting than slaying a giant evil spider bitch -- namely, slaying a giant evil spider bitch and then going back into your bedroom to play a few rounds of pinochle.
What? What did you think I was going to say?
You know, I hope the others don't find out how much I love card games -- but that lady I met really plays a mean hand of pinochle. I bet she's got at least 5 ranks in profession gambler! Too bad I'll have to play it up like we was fooling around all physical-like so they'll never know. She's hot and all, but just not....dwarfy...enough. You know? Growing up in a dwarf hold lets you appreciate a woman with a REAL constitution score....
But, alas, no pinochle for me. Woe came out and met the peeps, and Oby noticed his pendant was back on the radar (I wish I knew what radar was) so we decided to chase it down while the going was good.
We made our way over there and Oby muttered for 10 minutes and some dude popped out of a roof near by and we started teleporting around and then it was like 25 hours of chasing a greased rabbit (now THERE'S a game for the bedroom) where the most fun part was smashing through an iron wall (who did that, anyways? us or him?). Smashing is a high art, thank you very much.
The rabbit's name was Flinn, and he had a sister named Laura and a cousin named Boyle -- but that's neither here nore there. He did claim the pendant was planted on him, and we just believed him because we're too lazy. But he had a connection with some smuggler's ship, so we decided to follow that lead.
At this point, we tried to get all clever and disguised Livia as Flinn and she ran in and dropped off Flinn's papers and tried to find out what was up. All we got was a look at their cargo, which looked legit. So we sent the sneaky midget in to do his job -- 'cept this time he couldn't give us any lip because he had no lip. We should keep him as a pink cloud. It really was pink -- don't tell him, it's too funny.
Our fluffy cloud found a crate that looked different, and we decided to float Oby inside, invisible, to shrink it down and teleport or fly back. That almost worked, except he triggered some signal on his way in and pissed everybody off.
We did get away, though, and made it back to the inn. Where, oddly enough, the giant Moo Cow bad guy came and found us. How? Maybe he'd marked his crate.
Anyways, at this point there was no beating around the bush. He obviously knew we had his shit, and we wanted to know what the shit was and how it was connected to us. The dude seem pretty straightforward -- $10 says he's lawful evil -- and I got tired of trying to be inventive. Fact of the matter is, we found out it was connected to a shipping company and that it's contents weren't going to level a city or anything (just a bunch of potions) so for the moment we let him go.
S'not like we can't tell the city guard on him before he leaves port. I wonder why we aren't, I bet we can drop an anonymous tip using some of our fancy magicz... and just when they're inspecting the ship, oby can dismiss his shrink spell *grin*
What? What did you think I was going to say?
You know, I hope the others don't find out how much I love card games -- but that lady I met really plays a mean hand of pinochle. I bet she's got at least 5 ranks in profession gambler! Too bad I'll have to play it up like we was fooling around all physical-like so they'll never know. She's hot and all, but just not....dwarfy...enough. You know? Growing up in a dwarf hold lets you appreciate a woman with a REAL constitution score....
But, alas, no pinochle for me. Woe came out and met the peeps, and Oby noticed his pendant was back on the radar (I wish I knew what radar was) so we decided to chase it down while the going was good.
We made our way over there and Oby muttered for 10 minutes and some dude popped out of a roof near by and we started teleporting around and then it was like 25 hours of chasing a greased rabbit (now THERE'S a game for the bedroom) where the most fun part was smashing through an iron wall (who did that, anyways? us or him?). Smashing is a high art, thank you very much.
The rabbit's name was Flinn, and he had a sister named Laura and a cousin named Boyle -- but that's neither here nore there. He did claim the pendant was planted on him, and we just believed him because we're too lazy. But he had a connection with some smuggler's ship, so we decided to follow that lead.
At this point, we tried to get all clever and disguised Livia as Flinn and she ran in and dropped off Flinn's papers and tried to find out what was up. All we got was a look at their cargo, which looked legit. So we sent the sneaky midget in to do his job -- 'cept this time he couldn't give us any lip because he had no lip. We should keep him as a pink cloud. It really was pink -- don't tell him, it's too funny.
Our fluffy cloud found a crate that looked different, and we decided to float Oby inside, invisible, to shrink it down and teleport or fly back. That almost worked, except he triggered some signal on his way in and pissed everybody off.
We did get away, though, and made it back to the inn. Where, oddly enough, the giant Moo Cow bad guy came and found us. How? Maybe he'd marked his crate.
Anyways, at this point there was no beating around the bush. He obviously knew we had his shit, and we wanted to know what the shit was and how it was connected to us. The dude seem pretty straightforward -- $10 says he's lawful evil -- and I got tired of trying to be inventive. Fact of the matter is, we found out it was connected to a shipping company and that it's contents weren't going to level a city or anything (just a bunch of potions) so for the moment we let him go.
S'not like we can't tell the city guard on him before he leaves port. I wonder why we aren't, I bet we can drop an anonymous tip using some of our fancy magicz... and just when they're inspecting the ship, oby can dismiss his shrink spell *grin*
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Voices in My Head Telling Me Not to Burn Everything Down
So after we dispatched the Aernea, Obegard informed us that he felt his pendant somewhere in this city. We resolved to set off immediately to track it down.
At this moment, a woman emerged from Durthen's room. I didn't know what the deal was, but she claimed to be from Obegard's guild. Obegard didn't seem to be suspicious of her claims, and that was good enough for me. She told us that her name was Woe, or was it "Whoa".
We followed Obegard to the house where his pendant was, and Obegard, being the voyeur that he was, eagerly volunteered to conduct a little lookie loo into the man's home. Unfortunately for us, the resident was prepared for such peepers, and somehow detected Obegard and began clearing out his goods. We quickly moved in to surround him, but this guy was more slippery than Borrow after a day of midget oil wrestling. We eventually caught up to him, and much to my disbelief, the others allowed him to keep his undoubtedly-ill-begotten goods. We also figured out that this man, Finn, was tasked with forging some papers for a ship set to leave dock this very morning. At this point we also suspected that someone was pulling our strings -- Obegard probed the man's thoughts, and it appeared that he really didn't have an idea how the pendant got into his possession. It seems that we were being led toward this ship, but by whom?
To cut a bit of a long story short, Ili used my hat of disguise and pretended to be Finn to deliver the forged documents, to the ship, which were crewed by a bunch of nasty looking humanoids. We stayed in contact with a telepathic bond, and though Ili wasn't able to gather much information, Borrow went in next, transformed into a cloud of vapor indistinguishable form the fog that permeated throughout the docks. He was able to gather some information about the cargo the ship was set to carry, but he wasn't able to figure out what it was, so we finally sent Obegard in to hopefully shrink the crate and bring it back with us for further examination. Unfortunately, Obegard went in the wrong way, and set off an alarm spell. I was about to cast a Flame Strike to create a distraction, but the others told me not to do it, so I backed off. Too bad, because I could have really crippled that ship. Obegard managed to steal the crate and teleport back to our room, where we met with him a little while later.
We didn't have much time before the captain of that ship came knocking at our door. I don't know how he managed to find us, because we never told Finn about where we were staying. Durthen and I had a chat with the beast, and I have to say that Durthen wasn't the most discreet of individuals, he pretty much spilled the metaphorical beans right away, and if it weren't for Obegard's timely Detect Thoughts spell, I fear that we would have let him get away. By carefully asking the right questions, I was able to get the captain to think about exactly why he needed the forged documents -- namely that the cargo was poisoned potions! With our goal accomplished, we let him take back his crate, with the intent that we'd warn the destination city of the tainted goods before they arrive. We also learned of this "Basc" company that apparently had initially supplied the goods.
At this moment, a woman emerged from Durthen's room. I didn't know what the deal was, but she claimed to be from Obegard's guild. Obegard didn't seem to be suspicious of her claims, and that was good enough for me. She told us that her name was Woe, or was it "Whoa".We followed Obegard to the house where his pendant was, and Obegard, being the voyeur that he was, eagerly volunteered to conduct a little lookie loo into the man's home. Unfortunately for us, the resident was prepared for such peepers, and somehow detected Obegard and began clearing out his goods. We quickly moved in to surround him, but this guy was more slippery than Borrow after a day of midget oil wrestling. We eventually caught up to him, and much to my disbelief, the others allowed him to keep his undoubtedly-ill-begotten goods. We also figured out that this man, Finn, was tasked with forging some papers for a ship set to leave dock this very morning. At this point we also suspected that someone was pulling our strings -- Obegard probed the man's thoughts, and it appeared that he really didn't have an idea how the pendant got into his possession. It seems that we were being led toward this ship, but by whom?
To cut a bit of a long story short, Ili used my hat of disguise and pretended to be Finn to deliver the forged documents, to the ship, which were crewed by a bunch of nasty looking humanoids. We stayed in contact with a telepathic bond, and though Ili wasn't able to gather much information, Borrow went in next, transformed into a cloud of vapor indistinguishable form the fog that permeated throughout the docks. He was able to gather some information about the cargo the ship was set to carry, but he wasn't able to figure out what it was, so we finally sent Obegard in to hopefully shrink the crate and bring it back with us for further examination. Unfortunately, Obegard went in the wrong way, and set off an alarm spell. I was about to cast a Flame Strike to create a distraction, but the others told me not to do it, so I backed off. Too bad, because I could have really crippled that ship. Obegard managed to steal the crate and teleport back to our room, where we met with him a little while later.
We didn't have much time before the captain of that ship came knocking at our door. I don't know how he managed to find us, because we never told Finn about where we were staying. Durthen and I had a chat with the beast, and I have to say that Durthen wasn't the most discreet of individuals, he pretty much spilled the metaphorical beans right away, and if it weren't for Obegard's timely Detect Thoughts spell, I fear that we would have let him get away. By carefully asking the right questions, I was able to get the captain to think about exactly why he needed the forged documents -- namely that the cargo was poisoned potions! With our goal accomplished, we let him take back his crate, with the intent that we'd warn the destination city of the tainted goods before they arrive. We also learned of this "Basc" company that apparently had initially supplied the goods.
Interesting, yet pointless
This time there didn't seem to be as much rushing ahead, though I still question Durthen's intelligence. He may be of more use to us if his tongue was removed. I guess some of the more evil of my kin had some excellent ideas. It's time to get out of this city as quick as possible though, I have a feeling we have attracted far too much attention.
Obegard could once again sense his pendant and I was definitely in the mood to figure out what was going on. Who was that mysterious girl? I did like her style, distracting Obegard so he would lose his wits. And leaving an incredibly rare (and horribly difficult to track) coin has got to be the most interesting calling card I have seen. Rather subtle - like she wants to be found, yet she wants us to search around for a week or two... Is it a trap, these folks do have many enemies. It is always easier to kill a group without attracting attention if you draw them away, rather than some large explosions in a guard-rich city.
Surprisingly enough, a woman from Obegard's school came out of Durthen's room. Either they teach their students to fall for the first thing that crosses their path (like Obegard) or Durthen shelled out for a strong potion of charming (I hope for the sake of hundreds of wizards and sorcerors, it's the latter).
So, we go and intimidate the thief that has Obie's pendant - he truly seems to be clueless--- either a skilled liar or an idiot. He's also rather slippery - he even managed to crawl over a 20 foot iron wall (I really hope that it's not too noticable....) without much of a problem. We grabbed some of his stuff as collateral, unfortunately returning the best thing he had -- we needed something to keep him in line. I decided to try and disguise myself as him to deliver the forged documents for a bunch of crates heading out in the morning -- the captain appeared to be pretty strong and intelligent and I didn't want to risk interrogating him. I tried some of the ground crew - rumors usually get around to the grunts rather quickly, even offering some gold for good information but they didn't have anything. We decided to send borrow into look inside the crates - as a cloud of fog. He slipped in, identified a crate that appeared different than the others, but unfortunately, you can't tell one liquid from another too well by sight alone. We decided to send Obegard in to grab the crate.
Unfortunately, the main cargo entrance was protected by a spell I hadn't encountered before, detecting Obie's entrance and setting off an alarm - he grabbed the crate and we rushed out, unfortunately I'm certain that we left tracks. While the others were upstairs, preparing for sleep, I hung around outside around the inn (I had almost forgotten how long humans spend sleeping!). Thank goodness our telepathic bond was still going off, because I saw the captain and a band of thugs heading towards the group in the inn. This would definitely attract attention. In luck, a band of guards was just heading down. I lied and told them the thugs had some weapons. Pretty believable. It scared most of them away.
Then Durthen and Malakar became the spokespeople for our group with the captain. Bad bad idea. Durthen would not shut up. Malakar kept relaying the conversation to me, while I was hanging around downstairs, just in case anything happened. Obegard was detecting thoughts, so it was interesting, turns out he was smuggling magic potions and poison, but Durthen's diplomatic skills left much to be desired and we didn't get too much useful, or a chance to even mark the crate. It was priceless to see the mental picture of an angry minotaur as he is handed back a miniature crate, one that could fit into the palm of your hand.
Well, we still haven't figured out why that aranea tried to kill us, what the coin is for, or much else. And we are still no closer to ridding my people of the scourge of necromancy....
I think I am starting to empathize with Borrow, this band tends to rush into action too much when they should be holding back and trying to use subterfuge more often. It was pretty effective this time, even though we didn't get as much loot as we could have otherwise.
Obegard could once again sense his pendant and I was definitely in the mood to figure out what was going on. Who was that mysterious girl? I did like her style, distracting Obegard so he would lose his wits. And leaving an incredibly rare (and horribly difficult to track) coin has got to be the most interesting calling card I have seen. Rather subtle - like she wants to be found, yet she wants us to search around for a week or two... Is it a trap, these folks do have many enemies. It is always easier to kill a group without attracting attention if you draw them away, rather than some large explosions in a guard-rich city.
Surprisingly enough, a woman from Obegard's school came out of Durthen's room. Either they teach their students to fall for the first thing that crosses their path (like Obegard) or Durthen shelled out for a strong potion of charming (I hope for the sake of hundreds of wizards and sorcerors, it's the latter).
So, we go and intimidate the thief that has Obie's pendant - he truly seems to be clueless--- either a skilled liar or an idiot. He's also rather slippery - he even managed to crawl over a 20 foot iron wall (I really hope that it's not too noticable....) without much of a problem. We grabbed some of his stuff as collateral, unfortunately returning the best thing he had -- we needed something to keep him in line. I decided to try and disguise myself as him to deliver the forged documents for a bunch of crates heading out in the morning -- the captain appeared to be pretty strong and intelligent and I didn't want to risk interrogating him. I tried some of the ground crew - rumors usually get around to the grunts rather quickly, even offering some gold for good information but they didn't have anything. We decided to send borrow into look inside the crates - as a cloud of fog. He slipped in, identified a crate that appeared different than the others, but unfortunately, you can't tell one liquid from another too well by sight alone. We decided to send Obegard in to grab the crate.
Unfortunately, the main cargo entrance was protected by a spell I hadn't encountered before, detecting Obie's entrance and setting off an alarm - he grabbed the crate and we rushed out, unfortunately I'm certain that we left tracks. While the others were upstairs, preparing for sleep, I hung around outside around the inn (I had almost forgotten how long humans spend sleeping!). Thank goodness our telepathic bond was still going off, because I saw the captain and a band of thugs heading towards the group in the inn. This would definitely attract attention. In luck, a band of guards was just heading down. I lied and told them the thugs had some weapons. Pretty believable. It scared most of them away.
Then Durthen and Malakar became the spokespeople for our group with the captain. Bad bad idea. Durthen would not shut up. Malakar kept relaying the conversation to me, while I was hanging around downstairs, just in case anything happened. Obegard was detecting thoughts, so it was interesting, turns out he was smuggling magic potions and poison, but Durthen's diplomatic skills left much to be desired and we didn't get too much useful, or a chance to even mark the crate. It was priceless to see the mental picture of an angry minotaur as he is handed back a miniature crate, one that could fit into the palm of your hand.
Well, we still haven't figured out why that aranea tried to kill us, what the coin is for, or much else. And we are still no closer to ridding my people of the scourge of necromancy....
I think I am starting to empathize with Borrow, this band tends to rush into action too much when they should be holding back and trying to use subterfuge more often. It was pretty effective this time, even though we didn't get as much loot as we could have otherwise.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Woe betide us all
We’ve found a new companion. She seems quite capable, helping to rain some misery, but a bit on the shy side. I’m guessing by her name she might have some familiarity with dwarves though at the moment she’s playing her cards close to her chest.
What she was doing in Durthen’s room I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know, either. On the one hand, knowledge is power, but on the other what use is gaining knowledge if you then have to immediately go and get your whole mind erased for fear that one piece will contaminate everything else if you leave even a trace of it behind. No—what Durthen gets up to behind closed doors is not worth the risk.
The guy that had Oby’s pendant seems as much a victim as we. I have to give him credit, though—S-L-I-P-P-E-R-Y. I don’t know what his trick was, but I’d love to be able to just slip out of grapples, run through webs, and all that other neat stuff he was doing.
If there hadn’t been so many of us we would probably have never caught him.
While he had Oby’s proud spire in his pocket, he had no idea where it had come from. The only thing of interest here was that he’d been forging some documents for a ship we’d heard about that was supposed to sail on the morning tide. Mr Puppet, meet Mr String.
Down to the docks and Livia shifts into the form of our “scribe” and goes aboard to deliver the documents. That’s 200g for the good guys. She tries to find out from the sailors what’s what but it seems they’re just the hired help and don’t know anything useful so instead I let Obegard turn me into a cloud of smoke and I use a mind-talking spell he cast to keep everyone informed what’s happening.
Firstly, can I just say that being smoke is kind of cool.
Secondly, can I just say that being smoke is so slow I almost fell asleep just getting to the ship.
But eventually I’m in the hold checking around, though I have to be kind of careful with the sailors wandering around placing crates. It didn’t take too long to find something interesting. Sure, most of what was there was food and wine just like the forged documents said, but I found the one crate where the bottles looked kind of funny and the labels didn&rquo;t quite look right, and I let the others know we’d have to somehow get this crate out from under the others and then sneak it off the ship.
Once again Oby came up with the main plan (way to go, Oby!) turning himself invisible and giving himself the ability to fly. Unfortunately when he flew through the loading hatch a magical alarm sounded and the sailors started battening everything down.
Moving quickly, Oby joined me, magically shrunk the crate and managed to whip it out from under the other crates before it was trapped, then vamoosed back to our inn while I slowly drifted back ashore.
We made it back to the inn safely and examined the mini-crate, determining that the bottles contained magic potions and poison. Tut, tut, tut—how naughty!
Life wasn’t so easy though. The ship’s captain came to the inn (apparently informed by the forger—but how did he know where we were staying???) and we negotiated to return his cargo.
Again, he had little information, but was able to tell us who gave him the contents of the crate.
And so the net is closing: the question is, around whom?
What she was doing in Durthen’s room I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know, either. On the one hand, knowledge is power, but on the other what use is gaining knowledge if you then have to immediately go and get your whole mind erased for fear that one piece will contaminate everything else if you leave even a trace of it behind. No—what Durthen gets up to behind closed doors is not worth the risk.
The guy that had Oby’s pendant seems as much a victim as we. I have to give him credit, though—S-L-I-P-P-E-R-Y. I don’t know what his trick was, but I’d love to be able to just slip out of grapples, run through webs, and all that other neat stuff he was doing.
If there hadn’t been so many of us we would probably have never caught him.
While he had Oby’s proud spire in his pocket, he had no idea where it had come from. The only thing of interest here was that he’d been forging some documents for a ship we’d heard about that was supposed to sail on the morning tide. Mr Puppet, meet Mr String.
Down to the docks and Livia shifts into the form of our “scribe” and goes aboard to deliver the documents. That’s 200g for the good guys. She tries to find out from the sailors what’s what but it seems they’re just the hired help and don’t know anything useful so instead I let Obegard turn me into a cloud of smoke and I use a mind-talking spell he cast to keep everyone informed what’s happening.
Firstly, can I just say that being smoke is kind of cool.
Secondly, can I just say that being smoke is so slow I almost fell asleep just getting to the ship.
But eventually I’m in the hold checking around, though I have to be kind of careful with the sailors wandering around placing crates. It didn’t take too long to find something interesting. Sure, most of what was there was food and wine just like the forged documents said, but I found the one crate where the bottles looked kind of funny and the labels didn&rquo;t quite look right, and I let the others know we’d have to somehow get this crate out from under the others and then sneak it off the ship.
Once again Oby came up with the main plan (way to go, Oby!) turning himself invisible and giving himself the ability to fly. Unfortunately when he flew through the loading hatch a magical alarm sounded and the sailors started battening everything down.
Moving quickly, Oby joined me, magically shrunk the crate and managed to whip it out from under the other crates before it was trapped, then vamoosed back to our inn while I slowly drifted back ashore.
We made it back to the inn safely and examined the mini-crate, determining that the bottles contained magic potions and poison. Tut, tut, tut—how naughty!
Life wasn’t so easy though. The ship’s captain came to the inn (apparently informed by the forger—but how did he know where we were staying???) and we negotiated to return his cargo.
Again, he had little information, but was able to tell us who gave him the contents of the crate.
And so the net is closing: the question is, around whom?
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Crate Expectations
With the Aranea's death, I became aware of my Spire Pendant again; perhaps she had cast nondetection on it, and that expired with her, or perhaps it was coincidence or contingency. In any case, we rushed across town, tracking it. Surprisingly, Durthen emerged from his room accompanied by a sorceress he called "Woe" (or perhaps "Whoa"; I'm pretty sure it wasn't "Ho" but you never know with Durthen). There wasn't a lot of time for explanations, but apparently she's from the Arak Spire. I don't recall running into her, but he seemed to trust her, and she was willing enough to follow him into adventure and happenstance (strange, that!).
In a dark alley near the building containing my pendant, I cast clairvoyance to preview the scene. In doing so, I set off some kind of magical alarm, and alerted a man in a loft apartment who hurriedly gathered some items and rushed towards the rooftop. I called out to my companions to join me and Livia for a short dimension door up to confront him, and a complex chase ensued. Our quarry was nimble and well-suited to running the roofs, and we had great difficulty pinning him down. Even a twenty-five foot wall of iron could not stop him, as he leapt and scrambled to the top, leave Durthen to chop his way through in signature destructive style. Eventually, however, the seven of us proved too much for him, and he surrendered to us.
Finn (we didn't bother to learn his name, but later heard it from another) didn't know how he came to possess my pendant, and was busy forging papers for the transport of wine and food aboard the pirate transport The Black Lightning. I curtailed his haphazard interrogation with the locally illicit but ultimately effective probe thoughts (note to self: this Dythanus character crafted a most excellent grimoire, despite his predilection for the dark arts). We left to deliver his forged papers in his stead, after the usual minor squabbles about the appropriate ordering and dependencies between "pillage" and "burn".
Although we suspected that the pendant may have been planted to point us towards the pirate ship, we saw no better alternative than to go there to investigate. Livia borrowed Malakar's hat of disguise and posed as Finn, delivering his papers to the Votaur captain of the varag-crewed vessel, and receiving some gold in reward. She attempted to bribe some of the crew for more details of the cargo, but they only knew the cover story of wine and food.
Malakar suggested sending Borrow in to scout in gaseous form, and Borrow agreed, so I called the spell (fortunately the pendant remained attuned) and he proceeded to explore. He discovered that one of the crates of wine appeared different than the others, with slightly ill-fitting labels, and reported his findings to us via telepathic bond. It was decided the I would fly into the hold under cover of invisibility and shrink item the crate to remove it.
While I knew that removing the crate would make a noise, I didn't account for the magical protections covering the hold. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the open hatch, the captain burst from his quarters and announced the presence of an invisible intruder. I proceeded downward, shrinking the crate and barely maintaining my hold on it, even as the sailors slammed shut the hatches. A moment later I teleported out as our new companion Woe distracted the sailors with a ghost sound, and waiting for the others back at our suite.
I was amazed that our little plan worked out! We didn't have long to wait, though, before the captain showed up at our inn, accompanied by five of his soldiers. After a while he sent his bodyguard away, and we agreed to parlay with him, Durthen and Malakar showing themselves and meeting him in the common room. Through conversation (remarkably reasonsable), seasoned with detect thoughts, we learned that he was taking these magical potions (perhaps poisoned, or perhaps some were poisons?) to a city in the north. He was commissioned to take this cargo by the Basc organization (a rather poor choice of pseudonym by the cultists, I presume, but that's what you get for worshipping a mad god). He didn't think much of us, but deigned not to attack, and we decided to give the cargo back rather than risk pointless open conflict.
It's clear that somebody is moving pieces around the board, but we still don't know who and for what purpose. My best hypothesis is that there are cultists of Bascaron about, and that another group opposed to the cultists is leading us in their direction. If I'm right, the Aranea was involved with the cultists and the beautiful stranger with their antagonists. However, it could be that there are all in league, and are just drawing us into a deeper plot; it's difficult to say with so many wheels turning, and so much evil and conspiracy at work. How this all connects to our search for Jartik (or whether it connects at all) I cannot begin to guess.
Our next obvious investigation will be the offices of this "Basc" group. I hope that we have crossed over from those facts which we were meant to see to those which we were not meant to see, and that soon we will be foiling the plots of those who would ensnare us. I wouldn't bet on it, though.
Today there was some comment on the change in my behavior, I think perhaps Malakar started it; a certain tendency towards expedience and even deliberate unpredictability. I appreciate and acknowledge that change: our often bitter and precipitous experiences have taught me that if you don't know what to do, it may be best to do something dire, to maximize the chances of disrupting our opponent's control of the situation. My long education in patience and full understanding simply doesn't hold up to the reality of a world mired in conspiratorial evil. There may be an accounting some day, and I may be held wanting by the standards of the world that I once believed existed, if such should come to exist again. Until then I shall go on to my doom knowing that I strenuously avoided the snares of organized evil, and tried to do more good than harm.
Time is not on our side. We can only trust that fate may yet be, and follow our instincts when our principles and plans falter. If you can't go by the book, at least veer wildly from the hook!
In a dark alley near the building containing my pendant, I cast clairvoyance to preview the scene. In doing so, I set off some kind of magical alarm, and alerted a man in a loft apartment who hurriedly gathered some items and rushed towards the rooftop. I called out to my companions to join me and Livia for a short dimension door up to confront him, and a complex chase ensued. Our quarry was nimble and well-suited to running the roofs, and we had great difficulty pinning him down. Even a twenty-five foot wall of iron could not stop him, as he leapt and scrambled to the top, leave Durthen to chop his way through in signature destructive style. Eventually, however, the seven of us proved too much for him, and he surrendered to us.
Finn (we didn't bother to learn his name, but later heard it from another) didn't know how he came to possess my pendant, and was busy forging papers for the transport of wine and food aboard the pirate transport The Black Lightning. I curtailed his haphazard interrogation with the locally illicit but ultimately effective probe thoughts (note to self: this Dythanus character crafted a most excellent grimoire, despite his predilection for the dark arts). We left to deliver his forged papers in his stead, after the usual minor squabbles about the appropriate ordering and dependencies between "pillage" and "burn".
Although we suspected that the pendant may have been planted to point us towards the pirate ship, we saw no better alternative than to go there to investigate. Livia borrowed Malakar's hat of disguise and posed as Finn, delivering his papers to the Votaur captain of the varag-crewed vessel, and receiving some gold in reward. She attempted to bribe some of the crew for more details of the cargo, but they only knew the cover story of wine and food.
Malakar suggested sending Borrow in to scout in gaseous form, and Borrow agreed, so I called the spell (fortunately the pendant remained attuned) and he proceeded to explore. He discovered that one of the crates of wine appeared different than the others, with slightly ill-fitting labels, and reported his findings to us via telepathic bond. It was decided the I would fly into the hold under cover of invisibility and shrink item the crate to remove it.
While I knew that removing the crate would make a noise, I didn't account for the magical protections covering the hold. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the open hatch, the captain burst from his quarters and announced the presence of an invisible intruder. I proceeded downward, shrinking the crate and barely maintaining my hold on it, even as the sailors slammed shut the hatches. A moment later I teleported out as our new companion Woe distracted the sailors with a ghost sound, and waiting for the others back at our suite.
I was amazed that our little plan worked out! We didn't have long to wait, though, before the captain showed up at our inn, accompanied by five of his soldiers. After a while he sent his bodyguard away, and we agreed to parlay with him, Durthen and Malakar showing themselves and meeting him in the common room. Through conversation (remarkably reasonsable), seasoned with detect thoughts, we learned that he was taking these magical potions (perhaps poisoned, or perhaps some were poisons?) to a city in the north. He was commissioned to take this cargo by the Basc organization (a rather poor choice of pseudonym by the cultists, I presume, but that's what you get for worshipping a mad god). He didn't think much of us, but deigned not to attack, and we decided to give the cargo back rather than risk pointless open conflict.
It's clear that somebody is moving pieces around the board, but we still don't know who and for what purpose. My best hypothesis is that there are cultists of Bascaron about, and that another group opposed to the cultists is leading us in their direction. If I'm right, the Aranea was involved with the cultists and the beautiful stranger with their antagonists. However, it could be that there are all in league, and are just drawing us into a deeper plot; it's difficult to say with so many wheels turning, and so much evil and conspiracy at work. How this all connects to our search for Jartik (or whether it connects at all) I cannot begin to guess.
Our next obvious investigation will be the offices of this "Basc" group. I hope that we have crossed over from those facts which we were meant to see to those which we were not meant to see, and that soon we will be foiling the plots of those who would ensnare us. I wouldn't bet on it, though.
Today there was some comment on the change in my behavior, I think perhaps Malakar started it; a certain tendency towards expedience and even deliberate unpredictability. I appreciate and acknowledge that change: our often bitter and precipitous experiences have taught me that if you don't know what to do, it may be best to do something dire, to maximize the chances of disrupting our opponent's control of the situation. My long education in patience and full understanding simply doesn't hold up to the reality of a world mired in conspiratorial evil. There may be an accounting some day, and I may be held wanting by the standards of the world that I once believed existed, if such should come to exist again. Until then I shall go on to my doom knowing that I strenuously avoided the snares of organized evil, and tried to do more good than harm.
Time is not on our side. We can only trust that fate may yet be, and follow our instincts when our principles and plans falter. If you can't go by the book, at least veer wildly from the hook!
I didn't touch obegard's package.
It's really hard to find good help these days -- but damn, the chef we snagged for our keep knows how to make a fine whores-devours. I love those little snacks, especially those little salty fish tacos she makes. mmmm good!
Oh yeah, the chef was cooking her tacos because we had a visitor: Sorcha. Obegard thinks she's going to be hot under that hood, I think she'll be all tentacly -- which has it's uses mind you, but I suppose we're straying from the point.
The point is, Sorcha wanted us to run around and save the free kingdoms again. Frankly, if she wanted us to save the free kingdoms she'd have let us keep that chest of loot we stole from her originally. So we had to hoof it over to someplace 1,000 miles away. And by hoof I mean walk! Our benevolent wizard thought we should walk there. Worst wizard ever, can't he just wave his hands and make us poof there?
At least we got to do this thing he calls shadow walking. The world got all shadowy -- kinda like that just-before-dawn at the bar moment after your 18th pitcher of local village ass-beer. All swimmy and dark and thinks swoop past you real fast, except when your done you've moved a long distance and you're not waking up next to somebody who you *KNOW* isn't able to cough up the cure disease spell from the local cleric. Again. Sigh.
So we get into this city where they're all lawful and crap and super anal about punching people in the face or blasting them with spells. I do a fantastic job of not punching people in the face, until we're at this bar talking to this guy who finally had some info...and these drunk kung-foo types get all up in our face and whack me on the head with the mug. I even managed to keep my cool until he flipped me over his head and slammed me into the wall. So, I punched him.
I gotta say -- and don't you be tellin nobody -- those was some tough bastards. But we whacked 'em, except my not-so-bright colleagues started spellcasting in front of everybody and had to hoof it out when the town guard came.
Of course, I got arrested. They got away. To be honest, a quiet night in jail was rather refreshing. No need to listen to that bear of a cleric snoring like he was a hibernating or something. The judge had nothing on me and the fines were trivial and covered by our little insurance fund.
The next day had only one thing of note -- some chick got all up on oby's package. That is to say, she touched it. In public. I mean, once she gave it to him it was his package soo..... oh yeah, and we later found out she lifted his little school necklace. Cute broad.
I should have spent that night in jail again. Of course we wake up and there's some spider chick climbing on the ceiling and once she grew 8 hairy legs I stopped thinking Spiderman's Hottie and started thinking Janean Garofalo. So I cut her in half with my axe. It was sweet. Suck on that, liberal media!
And now it's the middle of the night, and I'm sleepy again. Back to bed, and the cute sorceress that's waiting there...
Oh yeah, the chef was cooking her tacos because we had a visitor: Sorcha. Obegard thinks she's going to be hot under that hood, I think she'll be all tentacly -- which has it's uses mind you, but I suppose we're straying from the point.
The point is, Sorcha wanted us to run around and save the free kingdoms again. Frankly, if she wanted us to save the free kingdoms she'd have let us keep that chest of loot we stole from her originally. So we had to hoof it over to someplace 1,000 miles away. And by hoof I mean walk! Our benevolent wizard thought we should walk there. Worst wizard ever, can't he just wave his hands and make us poof there?
At least we got to do this thing he calls shadow walking. The world got all shadowy -- kinda like that just-before-dawn at the bar moment after your 18th pitcher of local village ass-beer. All swimmy and dark and thinks swoop past you real fast, except when your done you've moved a long distance and you're not waking up next to somebody who you *KNOW* isn't able to cough up the cure disease spell from the local cleric. Again. Sigh.
So we get into this city where they're all lawful and crap and super anal about punching people in the face or blasting them with spells. I do a fantastic job of not punching people in the face, until we're at this bar talking to this guy who finally had some info...and these drunk kung-foo types get all up in our face and whack me on the head with the mug. I even managed to keep my cool until he flipped me over his head and slammed me into the wall. So, I punched him.
I gotta say -- and don't you be tellin nobody -- those was some tough bastards. But we whacked 'em, except my not-so-bright colleagues started spellcasting in front of everybody and had to hoof it out when the town guard came.
Of course, I got arrested. They got away. To be honest, a quiet night in jail was rather refreshing. No need to listen to that bear of a cleric snoring like he was a hibernating or something. The judge had nothing on me and the fines were trivial and covered by our little insurance fund.
The next day had only one thing of note -- some chick got all up on oby's package. That is to say, she touched it. In public. I mean, once she gave it to him it was his package soo..... oh yeah, and we later found out she lifted his little school necklace. Cute broad.
I should have spent that night in jail again. Of course we wake up and there's some spider chick climbing on the ceiling and once she grew 8 hairy legs I stopped thinking Spiderman's Hottie and started thinking Janean Garofalo. So I cut her in half with my axe. It was sweet. Suck on that, liberal media!
And now it's the middle of the night, and I'm sleepy again. Back to bed, and the cute sorceress that's waiting there...
Into the city
Back at the keep, we stayed around for a few days, until Obegard received a magical summons from none other than Sorcha. I wasn't too happy to hear about that, but she talked about some siegemaster of the Nothrog who had plans to lure some of the free kingdoms into a trap. She said that the only chance we had was to find the Nothrog that was his lieutenant, and get him to tell us the weaknesses in the siegemaster's plan.
That was all well and good, but we had to head to a city over a thousand miles away. Fortunately, Obegard had a spell that allowed us to skirt the plain of shadow and travel there rapidly. Before we went, we also met up with an elf who apparently was looking for us. It turns out this elf was one of those who were warring with the elf queen, and also wasn't all that bad. We let her join with us for the time being. I don't know what her talents exactly were, but she seemed to be able to handle herself fine.
At the city, I was surprised that we weren't able to find sellers for all of our magical goods, especially since the city was quite large, and a trading city to boot. We also took time to try to find out about this siegemaster. We asked around, and by greasing the right palms, we found someone who had the information we needed. Unfortunately, our chat was disrupted by a group of drunks looking for a fight. Except that they weren't no ordinary drunks. One of them threw Durthen literally across the room. I managed to give a few of them some nasty injuries from my spiked gauntlet. The city guard soon showed up, and while normally I'd stick around and explain what happened, the city's rules were quite draconian, and I had no desire to be railroaded into whatever justice they intended to dole out. Durthen was the only one to be taken away, as the rest of us magically were transported away.
The next day I discovered that Durthen had been fined a good amount by the local judges, and he paid fines for the rest of us. I didn't too approve of that, but I guess not having to look over our shoulders the whole time here was a plus. Not long after, as we were traveling through the marketplace, a beautiful woman with what I guess a touch of celestial blood approached Obegard and handed him a package. Obegard, as usual, was awestruck at the sight of a woman, and he began acting funny. I gave him a slap on the back of his head to return him to his senses, but that was exactly when she had reached over to try to kiss him on the cheek -- not exactly what I intended. Inside the package was a note and a single coin of unknown origin. The note merely said that we should go speak to her, except that she didn't leave us where she was staying. I don't know why she would try to be cryptic. We tried to glean some information out of the coin, even going to one of Obegard's guild scholars. We discovered that it was some kind of ancient coin from the Medusan nations. That was all well and good, but it didn't get us any closer to our mysterious benefactor. Just then, Obegard also noticed that his tower pendant was missing. Did that woman also take it? I'd be surprised, since I was watching quite closely for such sleight of hand, and noticed nothing.
Even with Obegard's magic, he couldn't locate the pendant, and we resigned ourselves to a rest in the inn. Fortunately, I had insisted that we cast a defensive spell around the door first, as we were awoken in the middle of the night by an intruder. It was some sort of hybrid spider woman -- the same one that we had seen assisting the guild mage. Obegard cast a spell that managed to bring her down from the ceiling, and Durthen charged in with a furious stroke of his axe that almost split her in two. I guess any live questioning is well, out of the question.
That was all well and good, but we had to head to a city over a thousand miles away. Fortunately, Obegard had a spell that allowed us to skirt the plain of shadow and travel there rapidly. Before we went, we also met up with an elf who apparently was looking for us. It turns out this elf was one of those who were warring with the elf queen, and also wasn't all that bad. We let her join with us for the time being. I don't know what her talents exactly were, but she seemed to be able to handle herself fine.
At the city, I was surprised that we weren't able to find sellers for all of our magical goods, especially since the city was quite large, and a trading city to boot. We also took time to try to find out about this siegemaster. We asked around, and by greasing the right palms, we found someone who had the information we needed. Unfortunately, our chat was disrupted by a group of drunks looking for a fight. Except that they weren't no ordinary drunks. One of them threw Durthen literally across the room. I managed to give a few of them some nasty injuries from my spiked gauntlet. The city guard soon showed up, and while normally I'd stick around and explain what happened, the city's rules were quite draconian, and I had no desire to be railroaded into whatever justice they intended to dole out. Durthen was the only one to be taken away, as the rest of us magically were transported away.
The next day I discovered that Durthen had been fined a good amount by the local judges, and he paid fines for the rest of us. I didn't too approve of that, but I guess not having to look over our shoulders the whole time here was a plus. Not long after, as we were traveling through the marketplace, a beautiful woman with what I guess a touch of celestial blood approached Obegard and handed him a package. Obegard, as usual, was awestruck at the sight of a woman, and he began acting funny. I gave him a slap on the back of his head to return him to his senses, but that was exactly when she had reached over to try to kiss him on the cheek -- not exactly what I intended. Inside the package was a note and a single coin of unknown origin. The note merely said that we should go speak to her, except that she didn't leave us where she was staying. I don't know why she would try to be cryptic. We tried to glean some information out of the coin, even going to one of Obegard's guild scholars. We discovered that it was some kind of ancient coin from the Medusan nations. That was all well and good, but it didn't get us any closer to our mysterious benefactor. Just then, Obegard also noticed that his tower pendant was missing. Did that woman also take it? I'd be surprised, since I was watching quite closely for such sleight of hand, and noticed nothing.
Even with Obegard's magic, he couldn't locate the pendant, and we resigned ourselves to a rest in the inn. Fortunately, I had insisted that we cast a defensive spell around the door first, as we were awoken in the middle of the night by an intruder. It was some sort of hybrid spider woman -- the same one that we had seen assisting the guild mage. Obegard cast a spell that managed to bring her down from the ceiling, and Durthen charged in with a furious stroke of his axe that almost split her in two. I guess any live questioning is well, out of the question.
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