Victory was so short lived! We did it, we actually defeated an aspect of a god. We did the impossible! I can't even believe that we survived! Two seconds after this hits me, the aspect hit me. Hard. Acid and vile evil exploded from its corpse, obliterating me. I can only think that in its last moments, it cast some sort of retributive spell, knowing that if it would die, it would take us down with it. I don't think my colleagues suffered the same fate, but I'm not certain.
Being a fey was amazing, better than my wildest dreams, being able to flit around the clouds. I wonder if this connection was always there or if my pact with witchthorn put something deeper inside me than I ever knew.
I'm having visions of fey, swirling around me and surrounding me.. hundreds of them in all directions and colors.
Perhaps this is the way I can show my house - our way out of our short lives. The old legends say that the elves and fey were cousins, and we know that the fey are immortal -- maybe in reconnecting with them instead of turning to necromancy.
Or, they can just be the sight of my revenge, building an army to destroy those who destroyed my family.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Belated Aspectations
Livia is dead.
The Shield Guardian is destroyed.
Malakar and others cheated death by a slim margin, and I nearly died myself, scorched by acid and fire, tainted by an indefinite vile corruption.
It could have been much worse.
I believe the killing blow was Durthen's, but my memory of those scant seconds before the Aspect exploded is hazy. It was certainly his axe, wielded with superhuman precision and no small amount of luck, which brought it to the brink of disruption.
With the Shield Guardian aiding and flanking, Durthen, Erson, and Borrow all together had hacked and poked away at it's disgusting tentacles for what seemed like ages. It was, predictably, proof against nearly all my magic, though the ancient artifact spells I gained from Oleanth made a minor dent. So I helped Malakar to heal and protect the fighters as best I could, summoning short-lived Eladrin at opportune moments.
Livia and I should have been fine -- she was blasting away from well outside the Aspect's reach, and I was safely ensconced behind a small ridge. But the Aspect had one final surprise for us in defeat, exploding in a nigh-unresistable torrent of elemental evil. I survived only because the Shield Guardian gave up the last of his animating energy to absorb half of my wounds; Livia had no such protection and was charred beyond recognition. I have some hope, with the resources now at our disposal, that we can return her to life; Malakar will know more about that possibility.
Things looked grim from the very beginning of the battle: before assuming its true form, the Aspect called down a shower of meteors, burning us undiscriminately and smashing the terrain into unstable rubble. I haven't seen magical power exercised on that scale since the raising of the Arak Spire shield, and never by a single entity.
The Aspect was heralded by a pair of Chaos Dragons, who proved a minor challenge. A little bit of disintegrate, many sparks from Erson's energetic will-o-the-wisp form, the usual axes and swords and eldritch blasts, and they were history.
The skies now appear clear, and I believe we have succeeded in the mission Oleanth gave us. I expect that one of him will be here to retrieve us soon. For now, we can carefully collect Livia, and cautiously search our immediate surroundings. I hope we don't find any more big surprises.
The Shield Guardian is destroyed.
Malakar and others cheated death by a slim margin, and I nearly died myself, scorched by acid and fire, tainted by an indefinite vile corruption.
It could have been much worse.
I believe the killing blow was Durthen's, but my memory of those scant seconds before the Aspect exploded is hazy. It was certainly his axe, wielded with superhuman precision and no small amount of luck, which brought it to the brink of disruption.
With the Shield Guardian aiding and flanking, Durthen, Erson, and Borrow all together had hacked and poked away at it's disgusting tentacles for what seemed like ages. It was, predictably, proof against nearly all my magic, though the ancient artifact spells I gained from Oleanth made a minor dent. So I helped Malakar to heal and protect the fighters as best I could, summoning short-lived Eladrin at opportune moments.
Livia and I should have been fine -- she was blasting away from well outside the Aspect's reach, and I was safely ensconced behind a small ridge. But the Aspect had one final surprise for us in defeat, exploding in a nigh-unresistable torrent of elemental evil. I survived only because the Shield Guardian gave up the last of his animating energy to absorb half of my wounds; Livia had no such protection and was charred beyond recognition. I have some hope, with the resources now at our disposal, that we can return her to life; Malakar will know more about that possibility.
Things looked grim from the very beginning of the battle: before assuming its true form, the Aspect called down a shower of meteors, burning us undiscriminately and smashing the terrain into unstable rubble. I haven't seen magical power exercised on that scale since the raising of the Arak Spire shield, and never by a single entity.
The Aspect was heralded by a pair of Chaos Dragons, who proved a minor challenge. A little bit of disintegrate, many sparks from Erson's energetic will-o-the-wisp form, the usual axes and swords and eldritch blasts, and they were history.
The skies now appear clear, and I believe we have succeeded in the mission Oleanth gave us. I expect that one of him will be here to retrieve us soon. For now, we can carefully collect Livia, and cautiously search our immediate surroundings. I hope we don't find any more big surprises.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Fly me to the moon, not!
I guess at one point I should have mentioned that the plan here is for us to be flown to the moon to fight an aspect of Bascarone. What do I think of this? Well, let’s see... up until recently I’d lived my whole life beneath ground where no matter how large a place is, you know there’s something solid above you—if you see something twinkling up there, you know it’s attached to something. Now I’m in this crazy upworld where that’s just not true, and apparently things can just be sitting in the “heavens” without falling.
I’ve mostly coped with that by, you know, trying not to look up too often. But now you tell me that you’re going to send me to one of those things? The others seem comforted by its substantial size in the sky, but that just makes me wonder all the more how it stays up there. What if the only thing holding it there is this aspect of Bascarone, and we kill it?
Warning—the word “crazy” appears four times in the following sentence.
I’m not crazy about the idea, you must be crazy if you thought otherwise, and I suspect you’re crazy for even believing this isn’t a crazy and unnatural concept.
Okay, so the last one was gratuitous. And “thrice” would have sounded cooler than “four times.” But at least you probably get the idea that I think this whole thing is crazy, right? Everything about it. Including the fact that everyone else things this is a perfectly normal and natural thing to do. Crazy!
The caretaker’s four aspects all prepared some weird ritual circle and started chanting, when some honking big dragon swooped out of the sky and picked one up. With surprising speed Malakar ran off after them, not even pausing to see what the rest of us were doing. I mean, I don’t know if we could have kept up with him under one of Obegard’s corruptions, erm, “spells.” And Malakar was still wearing his tank armour that makes him move slower than everyone else. Something was definitely not right, but at least it was here on the ground, so it wasn’t all bad news.
We gave chase, though “chase” is perhaps being a bit kind to us since they were long gone and moving much faster than us. Let’s say we made our way along the obvious path created by Malakar in heavy armour dashing heedlessly through vegetation.
Which was fine until we reached a clearing and the path just stopped. Clearly Malakar hadn’t vanished, and his ability to hide his trail is about as effective as trying to kill someone by farting a knife out your... Yeah, never mind. Poor old Stand—even if he chosen a knife without a guard I don’t think it would have worked.
So while we pondered what had happened I began to feel uneasy, like this might be some trap. So I carefully moved over to one side just before the dragon swooped out of nowhere and breathed some cloud of something at everyone else. Man was that thing moving—it had flown in, breathed, and was gone again before we could do anything about it.
I did something similar a few more times while we milled around trying to work out how we were going to get at it. Obegard offered to curse, I mean “enchant” a couple of people with the ability to fly, but they weren’t gonna do more than hang in the air like targets for the dragon to pick off, so we elected to stay on the ground and spread out to minimise the effect of its breath.
I don’t know why it did so, but eventually it came to ground to fight and that was pretty much the end of it. No. Really. We just beat up on it and no matter how big it was, we killed it.
I’m not saying it didn’t do its share of damage, but we had some spirit that the caretakers had summoned to keep us healthy and it was mostly keeping up with the damage.
We were just starting to turn our attention back to the problem of finding Malakar when he saved us the trouble. Only it wasn’t the Malakar we’re used to. This one had what looked like the same armour, only it glowed red. And instead of a honking big two-handed sword, it had some different sword thing with teeth along the blade that looked pretty nasty.
Oh yeah, and instead of saying “Hi guys!” and casting all nice spells on us he attacked us. But like our old Malakar he’d clearly cast a bunch of spells before going into a fight.
I wasn’t actually watching much of Malakar’s fight because a couple of tentacled creatures burst out of the trees and decided to play with me. All I can say is thank goodness for my blinking new ring—or should I say my new ring of Blinking!!!!
Oh yes, their tentacles struck at me repeatedly, and some hit their mark, but many times they flew through the place I should have been as I shifted into the Ethereal Plane. Or something. Ask an egghead like Obegard if you want a technical explanation. All I know is that they missed a lot more than they should have, and a couple of my shots missed too, but I connected enough to dispatch both of them while the others were taking on Malakar.
By the time I’d done that I was pretty badly wounded, and looked around for our healer but it had apparently been killed by Malakar. Obviously his tactical sense hadn’t diminished by whatever change had occurred.
I went in to help but some spell went off and hit all of us and I pulled back again to rummage through my bags for some healing potions. (Note to self: get stronger healing potions.)
I downed one of the minor potions and was just wondering whether I needed to drink the other when Durthen cut Malakar down. So I guess the answer to that question is “no.”
As he fell the red glow faded and the weapon transformed back into a two-handed sword. It was very strange—almost as if the whole thing had been some sort of bad dream. Except this nightmare isn’t quite over because we still need to find the missing caretaker aspect, and we still need to fly to the moon and fight an aspect of a god.
I’ve mostly coped with that by, you know, trying not to look up too often. But now you tell me that you’re going to send me to one of those things? The others seem comforted by its substantial size in the sky, but that just makes me wonder all the more how it stays up there. What if the only thing holding it there is this aspect of Bascarone, and we kill it?
Warning—the word “crazy” appears four times in the following sentence.
I’m not crazy about the idea, you must be crazy if you thought otherwise, and I suspect you’re crazy for even believing this isn’t a crazy and unnatural concept.
Okay, so the last one was gratuitous. And “thrice” would have sounded cooler than “four times.” But at least you probably get the idea that I think this whole thing is crazy, right? Everything about it. Including the fact that everyone else things this is a perfectly normal and natural thing to do. Crazy!
The caretaker’s four aspects all prepared some weird ritual circle and started chanting, when some honking big dragon swooped out of the sky and picked one up. With surprising speed Malakar ran off after them, not even pausing to see what the rest of us were doing. I mean, I don’t know if we could have kept up with him under one of Obegard’s corruptions, erm, “spells.” And Malakar was still wearing his tank armour that makes him move slower than everyone else. Something was definitely not right, but at least it was here on the ground, so it wasn’t all bad news.
We gave chase, though “chase” is perhaps being a bit kind to us since they were long gone and moving much faster than us. Let’s say we made our way along the obvious path created by Malakar in heavy armour dashing heedlessly through vegetation.
Which was fine until we reached a clearing and the path just stopped. Clearly Malakar hadn’t vanished, and his ability to hide his trail is about as effective as trying to kill someone by farting a knife out your... Yeah, never mind. Poor old Stand—even if he chosen a knife without a guard I don’t think it would have worked.
So while we pondered what had happened I began to feel uneasy, like this might be some trap. So I carefully moved over to one side just before the dragon swooped out of nowhere and breathed some cloud of something at everyone else. Man was that thing moving—it had flown in, breathed, and was gone again before we could do anything about it.
I did something similar a few more times while we milled around trying to work out how we were going to get at it. Obegard offered to curse, I mean “enchant” a couple of people with the ability to fly, but they weren’t gonna do more than hang in the air like targets for the dragon to pick off, so we elected to stay on the ground and spread out to minimise the effect of its breath.
I don’t know why it did so, but eventually it came to ground to fight and that was pretty much the end of it. No. Really. We just beat up on it and no matter how big it was, we killed it.
I’m not saying it didn’t do its share of damage, but we had some spirit that the caretakers had summoned to keep us healthy and it was mostly keeping up with the damage.
We were just starting to turn our attention back to the problem of finding Malakar when he saved us the trouble. Only it wasn’t the Malakar we’re used to. This one had what looked like the same armour, only it glowed red. And instead of a honking big two-handed sword, it had some different sword thing with teeth along the blade that looked pretty nasty.
Oh yeah, and instead of saying “Hi guys!” and casting all nice spells on us he attacked us. But like our old Malakar he’d clearly cast a bunch of spells before going into a fight.
I wasn’t actually watching much of Malakar’s fight because a couple of tentacled creatures burst out of the trees and decided to play with me. All I can say is thank goodness for my blinking new ring—or should I say my new ring of Blinking!!!!
Oh yes, their tentacles struck at me repeatedly, and some hit their mark, but many times they flew through the place I should have been as I shifted into the Ethereal Plane. Or something. Ask an egghead like Obegard if you want a technical explanation. All I know is that they missed a lot more than they should have, and a couple of my shots missed too, but I connected enough to dispatch both of them while the others were taking on Malakar.
By the time I’d done that I was pretty badly wounded, and looked around for our healer but it had apparently been killed by Malakar. Obviously his tactical sense hadn’t diminished by whatever change had occurred.
I went in to help but some spell went off and hit all of us and I pulled back again to rummage through my bags for some healing potions. (Note to self: get stronger healing potions.)
I downed one of the minor potions and was just wondering whether I needed to drink the other when Durthen cut Malakar down. So I guess the answer to that question is “no.”
As he fell the red glow faded and the weapon transformed back into a two-handed sword. It was very strange—almost as if the whole thing had been some sort of bad dream. Except this nightmare isn’t quite over because we still need to find the missing caretaker aspect, and we still need to fly to the moon and fight an aspect of a god.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Eeeeveeeeltastic
So the second I had prepared for my premature death, a dragon swoops in and takes one of the "aspects" of our host Oleanth -- of course not killing but capturing him, preventing us from completing the spells needed to leave. Then Malekar runs thataway with the dragon, moving at inhumanoid speed. It was so obvious he had begun to worship Bascaron, I'm not certain why we were still traveling with him. These humans don't seem to understand the rules of our ancient elven philosopher named Darwin and would rather risk being killed or stuck on a hellish island than leave an obviously insane man behind. And don't they realize my time is running out ?
Anyways, a heavenly ethereal woman called a Ghaele came along with us to help us fight the evil dragon. We ran after the dragon and malekar (pretty easy to follow the destruction of a gigantic beast as it rushes through the forest) and as soon as we notice the tracks have stopped, it swoops down, breathing a horrific gas of despair, before I could jump out of the way. Unfortunately, in order to stay safe, I had to hide in the woods, where my spells had a difficult time reaching the huge beast. Thank goodness I can make myself a rod of eldritch spear soon to remedy that issue
Now evil Malakar, that is a frightening, yet powerful sight. He obviously wasn't so far gone that he didn't remember our weaknesses, and he most definitely fought us well (with Mooncalves, which happen to not look like anything from the moon, nor do they look like cows -- why not Flying Spaghetti Monster calves -- that would have tentacles). And, true to Malekar form, instead of using his spells to buff the calves up, he had buffed himself up beyond all belief. At least I can dispell those in the blink of an eye. What a nasty sword though - gigantic and toothed.
Durthen, instead of disabling malekar so we could question him, of course decided to chop him in two. He loves that axe. I think he uses it to make up for the lack of chances to use his other "weapon." At least Malekar seemed to return to his original form after the chopping - unconscious, but alive and no longer with evil-infused armor and weapons. Perhaps he has returned to his old self. His old, not quite evil yet most definitely not good self. Human gods have very loose definitions of morals.
Anyways, a heavenly ethereal woman called a Ghaele came along with us to help us fight the evil dragon. We ran after the dragon and malekar (pretty easy to follow the destruction of a gigantic beast as it rushes through the forest) and as soon as we notice the tracks have stopped, it swoops down, breathing a horrific gas of despair, before I could jump out of the way. Unfortunately, in order to stay safe, I had to hide in the woods, where my spells had a difficult time reaching the huge beast. Thank goodness I can make myself a rod of eldritch spear soon to remedy that issue
Now evil Malakar, that is a frightening, yet powerful sight. He obviously wasn't so far gone that he didn't remember our weaknesses, and he most definitely fought us well (with Mooncalves, which happen to not look like anything from the moon, nor do they look like cows -- why not Flying Spaghetti Monster calves -- that would have tentacles). And, true to Malekar form, instead of using his spells to buff the calves up, he had buffed himself up beyond all belief. At least I can dispell those in the blink of an eye. What a nasty sword though - gigantic and toothed.
Durthen, instead of disabling malekar so we could question him, of course decided to chop him in two. He loves that axe. I think he uses it to make up for the lack of chances to use his other "weapon." At least Malekar seemed to return to his original form after the chopping - unconscious, but alive and no longer with evil-infused armor and weapons. Perhaps he has returned to his old self. His old, not quite evil yet most definitely not good self. Human gods have very loose definitions of morals.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Malakar stayed the same (evil) but now we got to hit him! yay!
Step one in killing a deity is apparently standing around in a circle chanting some crap. I wasn't really paying attention, I was thinking about this Oleanth thing. I can understand why, if you're going to be stuck in a tower for thousands of years, that you do it as 4 seperate versions of yourself. You've got a hand for bridge right there, so the years won't be too boring.
But why not 1 male Oleanth and 3 hottie female Oleanths? Bridge can be fun, but there are other ways to pass thousands of years. Plus, now he has to darn his own socks instead of having herself do it for himself. Gee, for a wizardy type, that Oleanth is pretty stupid sometimes.
Apparently while I was thinking about this, a giant dragon swooped in and stole one of the too many male Oleanths, and Malakar went chasing after them faster than I've ever seen him run -- it's like the dragon stole a continual flame torch or something.
So we hustled after them with a cleric on loan from one of the other (male!) Oleanths. Got to a clearing where his tracks disappeared, and we stopped to collect our thoughts. My thoughts involved a dragon swooping down, flying into the sky, and dropping me on my head. YES! What a dumb dragon -- my head is the safest thing for me to land on. Thank god it wasn't one of my weapon hands, or my running feet, or my entertainment crotch.
A short healing spell from the cleric later, and I ducked off into the woods to wait for the dragon to come close. The other guys did stuff, and the dragon got close, and I wacked it, and eventually something killed it (not me, unfortunately).
After the dragon bought it, Malakar stepped out of the woods so I ran after him to smash him in the face with my axe.
Malakar was kind of a pain, he managed to deal me a fair amount of damage. Also wiped out the cleric that came to help us. Still, in the long run he managed to not get out of the way of my axe -- a fatal mistake.
Later my friends told me Malakar was possesed by evil, which meant I did the right thing by trying to kill him. Hey, I just trust my instincts -- they're based on a high 8 wisdom after all. I bet I subconsciously noticed the glowing blue axe with my -1 spot. yep. I must have noticed it, which is why it made sense to smash his face in. Damn but I am good.
After fighting that dragon though, I have this great idea for a new maneuver where I use my opponent's bulky size against them. And I'll be practicing close quarters fighting next time something tries to swoop in on me like that, I bet I can get a blow off first! That's what she said!
But why not 1 male Oleanth and 3 hottie female Oleanths? Bridge can be fun, but there are other ways to pass thousands of years. Plus, now he has to darn his own socks instead of having herself do it for himself. Gee, for a wizardy type, that Oleanth is pretty stupid sometimes.
Apparently while I was thinking about this, a giant dragon swooped in and stole one of the too many male Oleanths, and Malakar went chasing after them faster than I've ever seen him run -- it's like the dragon stole a continual flame torch or something.
So we hustled after them with a cleric on loan from one of the other (male!) Oleanths. Got to a clearing where his tracks disappeared, and we stopped to collect our thoughts. My thoughts involved a dragon swooping down, flying into the sky, and dropping me on my head. YES! What a dumb dragon -- my head is the safest thing for me to land on. Thank god it wasn't one of my weapon hands, or my running feet, or my entertainment crotch.
A short healing spell from the cleric later, and I ducked off into the woods to wait for the dragon to come close. The other guys did stuff, and the dragon got close, and I wacked it, and eventually something killed it (not me, unfortunately).
After the dragon bought it, Malakar stepped out of the woods so I ran after him to smash him in the face with my axe.
Malakar was kind of a pain, he managed to deal me a fair amount of damage. Also wiped out the cleric that came to help us. Still, in the long run he managed to not get out of the way of my axe -- a fatal mistake.
Later my friends told me Malakar was possesed by evil, which meant I did the right thing by trying to kill him. Hey, I just trust my instincts -- they're based on a high 8 wisdom after all. I bet I subconsciously noticed the glowing blue axe with my -1 spot. yep. I must have noticed it, which is why it made sense to smash his face in. Damn but I am good.
After fighting that dragon though, I have this great idea for a new maneuver where I use my opponent's bulky size against them. And I'll be practicing close quarters fighting next time something tries to swoop in on me like that, I bet I can get a blow off first! That's what she said!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
I slew the Dragon (mostly), but I did not slay the Malakar (mostly)
After we rested and re-equipped, Oleanth's four avatars escorted us back to the Isle of Secrets to the forest just outside the tower entrance. There he/they constructed a conjuration circle and began the ritual to teleport us to the moon.
While we were concentrating (at least those of us with the necessary attention span were), a huge dragon winged out of the sky at top speed and stole away the lead Oleanth. Just as suddenly and without a word, Malakar sprinted off in the same direction at inhuman speed. I identified the dragon as a Tarterian Dragon from a chaotic plane, an apropriate servant for Bascaron, but I couldn't figure out why Malakar was behaving so strangely. The remaining Oleanthkin warned us that if the lead Oleanth were kept captive, they would be unable to complete the ritual, so we set off immediately to follow Malakar's unmistakable trail through the woods. The Oleanthkin sent a powerful servitor with us, a Ghaele Eladrin, to assist.
We hadn't been hustling very long when Malakar's trail suddenly disappeared. As we paused, cautious of a trap, the dragon returned to swoop and breathe a foul gas of despair at us. Of course I shrugged off its suggestion, but Durthen may have been affected, as he seemed to pause to recollect himself and reconsider his approach to this combat. He didn't have to wait long for a clear answer, as the dragon chose to picked him up and hurled him bodily to earth from the zenith of its next swooping pass. Fortunately for us, Durthen bounces well, though perhaps not in the sense his usual boasts intend.
We peppered the force-oriented dragon with ranged attacks (many trusty magic missiles from my staff) while the Ghaele kept us healed. Eventually the dragon came to earth to attack a small grouping of us, and the Shield Guardian dealt the killing tap.
But before the body had ceased twitching, an alternate version of Malakar charged us from the nearby trees. Clad in reddened mithril plate mail, and bearing a toothed falchion in place of his usual greatsword, he hurling a defiantly coarse cry of "Bring it!" at us. Evil Malakar had arrived, and in signature Malakar style he glowed with stacks of divine spells to aid his fell purpose. Since we had no everburning torches with which to sate his hunger, we were forced to fight.
Unlike the dragon, Malakar knew our strengths and weaknesses and deployed his forces and abilities to great tactical effect. He commanded two Mooncalves to surround and harry Borrow with their plethora of tentacles, while he concentrated his efforts on the Ghaele, trying to remove our ability to heal and protect ourselves. He was as difficult to hit as ever, and magically defended too: my scorching rays were deflected astray, and my chain missiles blocked completely. I didn't manage to hit him with my staff either, but that's a surprise to no one. Fortunately Borrow was having better luck with the Mooncalves, dodging tentacle blow after tentacle blow and piercing their most sensitive anatomy with uncanny accuracy -- a reversal of their usual experience with humanoids, I am sure.
Livia proved essential again, stripping Malakar of most of his defences with her incomparable innate dispelling abilities. Even hampered thus, Malakar managed to kill the Ghaele before he was finally brought low by a blow from Durthen. As the killing blow became apparent, we feared that we had lost Malakar permanently, out of the frying pan of Evil and into the fire of Death, as it were. However his form blurred momentarily and Malakar, our Malakar and breathing freely, returned. I hope his possession by Evil has been purged, since we omitted the crucial "looting" phase of his concurrent defeat and rescue.
Now we return to the eldritch ritual of fleimituthamune, flush with success yet knotted with worry about our ally Malakar. We'll need his tactical genius unfettered by moral confusion if we're to face a nigh-immortal Aspect of Bascaron.
I just hope I can get some sleep during the flight.
While we were concentrating (at least those of us with the necessary attention span were), a huge dragon winged out of the sky at top speed and stole away the lead Oleanth. Just as suddenly and without a word, Malakar sprinted off in the same direction at inhuman speed. I identified the dragon as a Tarterian Dragon from a chaotic plane, an apropriate servant for Bascaron, but I couldn't figure out why Malakar was behaving so strangely. The remaining Oleanthkin warned us that if the lead Oleanth were kept captive, they would be unable to complete the ritual, so we set off immediately to follow Malakar's unmistakable trail through the woods. The Oleanthkin sent a powerful servitor with us, a Ghaele Eladrin, to assist.
We hadn't been hustling very long when Malakar's trail suddenly disappeared. As we paused, cautious of a trap, the dragon returned to swoop and breathe a foul gas of despair at us. Of course I shrugged off its suggestion, but Durthen may have been affected, as he seemed to pause to recollect himself and reconsider his approach to this combat. He didn't have to wait long for a clear answer, as the dragon chose to picked him up and hurled him bodily to earth from the zenith of its next swooping pass. Fortunately for us, Durthen bounces well, though perhaps not in the sense his usual boasts intend.
We peppered the force-oriented dragon with ranged attacks (many trusty magic missiles from my staff) while the Ghaele kept us healed. Eventually the dragon came to earth to attack a small grouping of us, and the Shield Guardian dealt the killing tap.
But before the body had ceased twitching, an alternate version of Malakar charged us from the nearby trees. Clad in reddened mithril plate mail, and bearing a toothed falchion in place of his usual greatsword, he hurling a defiantly coarse cry of "Bring it!" at us. Evil Malakar had arrived, and in signature Malakar style he glowed with stacks of divine spells to aid his fell purpose. Since we had no everburning torches with which to sate his hunger, we were forced to fight.
Unlike the dragon, Malakar knew our strengths and weaknesses and deployed his forces and abilities to great tactical effect. He commanded two Mooncalves to surround and harry Borrow with their plethora of tentacles, while he concentrated his efforts on the Ghaele, trying to remove our ability to heal and protect ourselves. He was as difficult to hit as ever, and magically defended too: my scorching rays were deflected astray, and my chain missiles blocked completely. I didn't manage to hit him with my staff either, but that's a surprise to no one. Fortunately Borrow was having better luck with the Mooncalves, dodging tentacle blow after tentacle blow and piercing their most sensitive anatomy with uncanny accuracy -- a reversal of their usual experience with humanoids, I am sure.
Livia proved essential again, stripping Malakar of most of his defences with her incomparable innate dispelling abilities. Even hampered thus, Malakar managed to kill the Ghaele before he was finally brought low by a blow from Durthen. As the killing blow became apparent, we feared that we had lost Malakar permanently, out of the frying pan of Evil and into the fire of Death, as it were. However his form blurred momentarily and Malakar, our Malakar and breathing freely, returned. I hope his possession by Evil has been purged, since we omitted the crucial "looting" phase of his concurrent defeat and rescue.
Now we return to the eldritch ritual of fleimituthamune, flush with success yet knotted with worry about our ally Malakar. We'll need his tactical genius unfettered by moral confusion if we're to face a nigh-immortal Aspect of Bascaron.
I just hope I can get some sleep during the flight.
Aspect-Oriented Powergaming
We passed the tests, fighting projection after projection. Oleanth, the headmaster of Windsong Tower, was testing us to see if we were powerful and cunning enough to aid him in his goals. He wishes to reconnect Windsong Tower to the Accordlands so that it is not isolated by the twisted Isle of Shadows. I'm so glad that the book wasn't angry with us after all -- gaining the enmity of inanimate objects would be a new low for us.
Flush with success, reward, and hope of return to our home, you'd think we could relax now. Ha! The extremity of Oleanth's request is such that I'd laugh it off, were we not already beyond the boundaries of our ordinary reality. He needs us to travel to the Broken Moon to assault and temporarily disrupt the Aspect of Bascaron. Only with the Aspect disrupted can Oleanth break free from Bascaron's pull and reconnect the tower.
It's a good thing we have time to prepare and plan; I know very little about the environment of the Broken Moon, or the powers of his Aspect, but I doubt they'll be hospitable.
Flush with success, reward, and hope of return to our home, you'd think we could relax now. Ha! The extremity of Oleanth's request is such that I'd laugh it off, were we not already beyond the boundaries of our ordinary reality. He needs us to travel to the Broken Moon to assault and temporarily disrupt the Aspect of Bascaron. Only with the Aspect disrupted can Oleanth break free from Bascaron's pull and reconnect the tower.
It's a good thing we have time to prepare and plan; I know very little about the environment of the Broken Moon, or the powers of his Aspect, but I doubt they'll be hospitable.
How many psychos does it take to change a continual light stone?
How much trouble can one party get into? Well, let me point out that the elf that traded her soul for power is looking a little antsy...
We continued on into the magic school, Windsong Tower or whatever it’s called. The place was deserted, and Obegard was upset because his book has stopped talking to him—is it good or bad when the voices in your head stop?
We came across this large auditorium, and Obegard became very excited and started saying something about “wizard’s duel”. Before we knew it he was standing on a pedestal at one end of a large pit and there was someone standing on a pedestal at the other end. Actually, it looked just like the guy we’d taken out downstairs!?!?!
We couldn’t get to Obegard but we could clearly see what was going on as he and the other guy madly summoned critters all over the place. It didn’t look good for Obegard because almost everything he summoned the other guy summoned as well, and summoned more of.
When I wasn’t worrying about what would happen to Obegard which, let’s be honest, was most of the time, I was wondering where all these summoned creatures were when we were stuck in a tough fight. When Obegard claimed to be out of spells, how many of these little surprises was he holding back? Note to self—when Obegard completely loses it and has to be taken care of, remember this little episode.
While I was working through scenarios for killing Obegard I totally lost track of what was happening in the pit, and was only brought back to the present by the other guys cheering. Somehow, despite the overwhelming odds, Obegard had managed to kill his opponent.
We continued to search the school and I made sure to keep Obegard in sight at all times. We entered a room with several passages off it and were assaulted by some dude in super heavy armour that was whacking away at us like crazy. It was clear he had some major mojo involved and it was a pretty tough fight, but eventually we managed to beat him down and it was the same freaking guy!!!
Apparently he decided that three times was enough because now he stopped to actually talk to us and said he’d been testing us to see if we were strong enough to face an aspect of Bascerone. Hahahahahahaha! Oh, wait, he’s serious? Are all non-dwarven magic wielders insane?
The thing I don’t get is with Sorsha who approached us calmly to offer help Malakar and some of the others were like rabid dogs “Kill her, Borrow!”, “Silence her so she can’t cast spells, Borrow!”, “Slit her throat!”, “Don’t let her say anything!” but this psycho tries to kill us a bunch of times and they’re all like “Shall we have some tea and scones?” It’s totally messed up.
I’m keeping my mouth shut for now because this guy may be psycho, but he’s a really powerful psycho, and Obegard’s such a nut case that who knows which way he’d go if a fight broke out?
Also, the guy claims to know how we get back to our own plane and is offering us some cool magic items to help us do what he asks, which will cause the school to be cut off from this plane and re-connected with ours, if I understand all that mumbo-jumbo correctly. I’m kind of suspicious that perhaps the magic items won’t do exactly what we expect, but they’re going to be so shiny and my current bling is looking a little dated.
We continued on into the magic school, Windsong Tower or whatever it’s called. The place was deserted, and Obegard was upset because his book has stopped talking to him—is it good or bad when the voices in your head stop?
We came across this large auditorium, and Obegard became very excited and started saying something about “wizard’s duel”. Before we knew it he was standing on a pedestal at one end of a large pit and there was someone standing on a pedestal at the other end. Actually, it looked just like the guy we’d taken out downstairs!?!?!
We couldn’t get to Obegard but we could clearly see what was going on as he and the other guy madly summoned critters all over the place. It didn’t look good for Obegard because almost everything he summoned the other guy summoned as well, and summoned more of.
When I wasn’t worrying about what would happen to Obegard which, let’s be honest, was most of the time, I was wondering where all these summoned creatures were when we were stuck in a tough fight. When Obegard claimed to be out of spells, how many of these little surprises was he holding back? Note to self—when Obegard completely loses it and has to be taken care of, remember this little episode.
While I was working through scenarios for killing Obegard I totally lost track of what was happening in the pit, and was only brought back to the present by the other guys cheering. Somehow, despite the overwhelming odds, Obegard had managed to kill his opponent.
We continued to search the school and I made sure to keep Obegard in sight at all times. We entered a room with several passages off it and were assaulted by some dude in super heavy armour that was whacking away at us like crazy. It was clear he had some major mojo involved and it was a pretty tough fight, but eventually we managed to beat him down and it was the same freaking guy!!!
Apparently he decided that three times was enough because now he stopped to actually talk to us and said he’d been testing us to see if we were strong enough to face an aspect of Bascerone. Hahahahahahaha! Oh, wait, he’s serious? Are all non-dwarven magic wielders insane?
The thing I don’t get is with Sorsha who approached us calmly to offer help Malakar and some of the others were like rabid dogs “Kill her, Borrow!”, “Silence her so she can’t cast spells, Borrow!”, “Slit her throat!”, “Don’t let her say anything!” but this psycho tries to kill us a bunch of times and they’re all like “Shall we have some tea and scones?” It’s totally messed up.
I’m keeping my mouth shut for now because this guy may be psycho, but he’s a really powerful psycho, and Obegard’s such a nut case that who knows which way he’d go if a fight broke out?
Also, the guy claims to know how we get back to our own plane and is offering us some cool magic items to help us do what he asks, which will cause the school to be cut off from this plane and re-connected with ours, if I understand all that mumbo-jumbo correctly. I’m kind of suspicious that perhaps the magic items won’t do exactly what we expect, but they’re going to be so shiny and my current bling is looking a little dated.
Friday, February 15, 2008
I'm not sure if Obegard was really sane or there just happens to be a bunch of completely mad wizards. The book was plotting to test us along with the crazy spirit who inhabits the wizards college of Windsong Tower.... hrm.....
Oh yeah, and we're about to go fight a god... well only an "aspect" of a god.... a god which one of our own party now appears to serve.... Does anyone else see a teeeny problem in this ? I mean, it may be our only chance to get home, but then again, that assumes that my spirit will be returning home instead of my body.
Oh yeah, and we're about to go fight a god... well only an "aspect" of a god.... a god which one of our own party now appears to serve.... Does anyone else see a teeeny problem in this ? I mean, it may be our only chance to get home, but then again, that assumes that my spirit will be returning home instead of my body.
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