We finally got to see the school where Obegard learnt his trade—The Spire.
Such a grand name. Maybe it would live up to it if we had seen more of it but as it was the trip started with Obegard running around saying “The Spire is in trouble. We have to go. It must be the undead, but how did they breach the shield???”
Well okay, maybe it wasn’t that whiny but I wasn’t really paying that much attention. Everything’s a crisis in the Upworld so I’ve started tuning a bunch of stuff out. Like which of my companions panics in what particular way.
Leaping into the middle of trouble with no real knowledge of what’s happening really upsets the spellcasters. Livia seems a bit more easy-going, and Durthen and I, well, we kind of just try to deal using the skills we’ve developed.
The thing that had me really concerned about this trip was the whole undead aspect. I mean it’s hard to stick my blade into something vital when there is nothing vital to stick it into. And the feel is wrong—once you get through their armour there’s no feeling of resistance as you guide it towards its target. Oh yeah, I have my bracers that allow me to do a few magically enhanced blows but even then it’s still missing that look of shock and surprise, or perhaps outrage, you see on the faces of the living. With the undead there’s just the frozen features of a corpse. No, not satisfying at all.
The others eventually talked me into going along and Obegard cast a teleport spell. We wound up in the office of the boss dude, who gave us a brief rundown. Yep, it was undead. They’d brought down the shield (whatever that was) and were invading, killing everyone that couldn’t get out fast enough. The Spire has a bunch of teleport devices but they needed help protecting people long enough to get to them, and then to activate the devices so people could teleport.
The one advantage we had was that as agents of The Spire we would be able to bypass the wards against movement spells, where the undead would be unable to cast such spells, or apparently even move through walls in their incorporeal forms.
We jumped from the office to some other part of the building. I have no idea where it was relative to where we’d been and I wondered whether the inhabitants of The Spire even know its layout. I mean, does it even have passages and stairs and things that link everything together? Or are they only used in small sections of the building to avoid having to blow their daily spell reservoirs?
There was a whole bunch of undead where we landed, and we killed a few before moving out to act as rearguard for a bunch of residents. It was almost like these guys wanted to be ghoul snacks they were moving so slow, but Durthen blocked the corridor behind them and most of them made it to the device and zapped out with us close behind.
Not much later we get contacted by Lord Robert, current leader of the Free Kingdoms. He was almost killed because one of his knights, Sir Tython, had let the elves through and has since gone missing. We were asked to track him down and “take care of him.” See what I mean about panic, panic, panic all the time here?
When we found him there was carnage everywhere. It was suggested we try talking to him, but as soon as he saw us he charged into combat. His glowing red eyes suggested something foul, but we had little choice other than to take him down.
I got in a few good licks and my ring stopped him from hitting me back anywhere near as well. Durthen was also whacking him but good, but he seemed to be able to avoid most of the spells our casters were trying.
Malakar pumped in some healing spells, though truth be told I hadn’t really been touched so it was just fixing a few scratches. Durthen seemed to have need of it though. Maybe we should get him a blinky ring as well.
We’d taken many chunks out of this guy when all of a sudden he started glowing. Experience tells me that when things that don’t usually glow start glowing, trouble is usually close behind. You have to love experience. Next thing I knew, the guy exploded sending chunks everywhere. Naturally I dodged all the chunks that flew in my direction, but others weren’t so lucky. Malakar was killed by it, and Durthen would have been as well if Malakar hadn’t just finished casting some spell to protect from just this sort of thing, though I think Malakar was expecting the damage to come from the melee attacks the guy had been slicing Durthen up with, rather than him going boom.
It took most of the potions in Durthen’s kit to get him stable before Malakar’s spell ran out but their was nothing we could do to save Malakar.
Showing posts with label Borrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borrow. Show all posts
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
I'm so proud
I really wish I worshipped a chaotic god because I’m sure I’d be able to claim some sort of bonus if I did. For all the lip service my companions pay to Law they seem to be moving over to my point of view.
Take our latest outing for example. Those that agreed to share Livia’s oath with Witchthorn were initially talking about ways to collect the items and raise the money, but we finished up deciding we take the “alternative solution” where the oath would expire if Witchthorn did.
So we geared up, went to see Witchthorn, and tried to kill him. I suspect that this is by no means unusual for Witchthorn and it wasn’t long before he had a bunch of plant-things to help him.
We managed to clear out his helpers but Witchthorn was continuing to be elusive. I hadn’t been paying him much mind because I figured the others would get more enjoyment from “terminating their agreement” but when we ran out of helpers it was clear they needed help as Witchthorn was sitting up in a tree and whenever the others got near him he moved easily away.
I turned invisible and changed stance to allow myself to climb faster and was almost ready to strike when Durthen spooked him and he moved to another tree. I was behind him again in moments, but he’d decided his chances weren’t god and left using some sort of teleport spell.
I was raiding the treasure from his helpers before we went looking for him when he zapped back and bargained with us, offering to release the oath if we left him alone. The others were happy with that so we’ll have to make do with the treasure I scraped off the helpers, but I’m somewhat disappointed about all the treasure Witchthorn must have had hidden away that we’ll never get too. Though that disappointment is offset by my pride in my fellow adventurers for double-crossing Witchthorn. As long as they don’t do that to me.
Now I have to decide whether to share these treats with them, or whether I should keep it all to compensate for not getting my hands on Witchthorn’s goodies. But then I’d have to work out for myself which of these things are magical and what they do...
Take our latest outing for example. Those that agreed to share Livia’s oath with Witchthorn were initially talking about ways to collect the items and raise the money, but we finished up deciding we take the “alternative solution” where the oath would expire if Witchthorn did.
So we geared up, went to see Witchthorn, and tried to kill him. I suspect that this is by no means unusual for Witchthorn and it wasn’t long before he had a bunch of plant-things to help him.
We managed to clear out his helpers but Witchthorn was continuing to be elusive. I hadn’t been paying him much mind because I figured the others would get more enjoyment from “terminating their agreement” but when we ran out of helpers it was clear they needed help as Witchthorn was sitting up in a tree and whenever the others got near him he moved easily away.
I turned invisible and changed stance to allow myself to climb faster and was almost ready to strike when Durthen spooked him and he moved to another tree. I was behind him again in moments, but he’d decided his chances weren’t god and left using some sort of teleport spell.
I was raiding the treasure from his helpers before we went looking for him when he zapped back and bargained with us, offering to release the oath if we left him alone. The others were happy with that so we’ll have to make do with the treasure I scraped off the helpers, but I’m somewhat disappointed about all the treasure Witchthorn must have had hidden away that we’ll never get too. Though that disappointment is offset by my pride in my fellow adventurers for double-crossing Witchthorn. As long as they don’t do that to me.
Now I have to decide whether to share these treats with them, or whether I should keep it all to compensate for not getting my hands on Witchthorn’s goodies. But then I’d have to work out for myself which of these things are magical and what they do...
Sunday, March 9, 2008
A disturbing thought
The return to Dragon Keep was a welcome relief. The dwarves have finished their work and for the first time in so long I have a place of my own.
Things have been so weird for so long that I made a mistake and lowered my guard slightly. Big mistake.
There was a call to arms and when I reached the source of the trouble it was some incredible demonic/angelic thing. I had no idea what to make of it and I knew things were bad when Obegard’s only comment was “Oh crap.”
We fought for a little while and then everything went blank. Next thing I knew there was a cat in a cage and some elf I’d never seen before standing there talking about how he’d been testing us.
So here’s the disturbing part. We’ve been so used to people pushing us around that we’ve become accustomed to being pawns in some huge power struggle. But in all the games to which I’m accustomed it’s the players that introduce the pieces. Could it be that, in fact, we are the ones running this show and all that’s missing is for us to work out the rules of the game and how to use our pieces?
What a horrible, scary thought that is.
Things have been so weird for so long that I made a mistake and lowered my guard slightly. Big mistake.
There was a call to arms and when I reached the source of the trouble it was some incredible demonic/angelic thing. I had no idea what to make of it and I knew things were bad when Obegard’s only comment was “Oh crap.”
We fought for a little while and then everything went blank. Next thing I knew there was a cat in a cage and some elf I’d never seen before standing there talking about how he’d been testing us.
So here’s the disturbing part. We’ve been so used to people pushing us around that we’ve become accustomed to being pawns in some huge power struggle. But in all the games to which I’m accustomed it’s the players that introduce the pieces. Could it be that, in fact, we are the ones running this show and all that’s missing is for us to work out the rules of the game and how to use our pieces?
What a horrible, scary thought that is.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Death of an Aspect
This blinking ring is so trippy...
We fought the aspect of Bascerone and won. I took surprisingly little damage throughout the whole thing, and while the ring didn’t seem as effective as it has before, the range of attacks the aspect made cast a whole new light on this avoidance thing.
“Best laid plans” and all that; when we got to the moon we spent a minute or so making sure we weren’t under immediate threat and for Obegard to cast some ritual that dispatched a bunch of little detector eyes or something in a big circle around us.
Then two dragons attacked. Obegard yelled something about them being chaos dragons. I assume that was meant to mean something—I think Obegard both realises and doesn’t realise that we don’t know as much about dragons. I think he thinks that if he tells us what kind they are we’ll know exactly what to do. I don’t know why he’d think that given the consistent evidence to the contrary, but that’s Upworlders for you.
No sooner had we dealt with those than Evil Malakar made an appearance. Except it can’t really have been Evil Malakar because not-so-Evil Malakar was still with us. Hmmm. Ah. Aspect of Bascerone.
He invited Malakar to join him, which Malakar declined. I’m not sure why, because it kind of looks like Bascerone owns him already. Maybe he’s afraid that since we beat him once we can do it again. Last time he had two mooncalves, this time he’d have an aspect of a god. Personally I’d favour his odds more with the god, but Malakar’s not really your big risk taker.
When Malakar spurned him the Aspect turned into a crazy mass of tentacles. It was disgusting. But it made me wonder if this is why Upworlders are so unstable. I mean, what if all their gods are really like this—they put on some nice facade when it pleases them, but in reality they have some alien form that reeks of the insane.
The number of things that I was sure would paste me in that fight was large and I can’t recall them all because I was busy dodging them in case I happening to be on the wrong plane at the wrong time, while still trying to stick my knife in somewhere it could do some good. Because of my “now I’m here, now I’m not”-edness I was taking damage at a much slower rate than the others, so when Malakar was casting spells to heal everyone he was pretty much just topping me up. Mind you, I was glad we did that thing with the incense beforehand because at one stage I got hit bad and that went off to provide a nice comfy cushion of protection against later damage.
I think I held my own in the fight, but it was Dearthen that delivered the death blow. And it was the last insane attack of an insane Aspect, because as it died it exploded spewing some vile acid all over the place. Again I avoided most it but some of the others weren’t so lucky. Poor Livia, she was covered in the stuff and completely dead before anyone could do anything about it.
Some of the others are talking about casting some druidic spell that will call her soul back, but possibly into a different body. Fine for those Upworlders but if I die I don’t want some sub-standard Upworlder body. Give me dwarfdom or give me death! Preferably dwarfdom.
We fought the aspect of Bascerone and won. I took surprisingly little damage throughout the whole thing, and while the ring didn’t seem as effective as it has before, the range of attacks the aspect made cast a whole new light on this avoidance thing.
“Best laid plans” and all that; when we got to the moon we spent a minute or so making sure we weren’t under immediate threat and for Obegard to cast some ritual that dispatched a bunch of little detector eyes or something in a big circle around us.
Then two dragons attacked. Obegard yelled something about them being chaos dragons. I assume that was meant to mean something—I think Obegard both realises and doesn’t realise that we don’t know as much about dragons. I think he thinks that if he tells us what kind they are we’ll know exactly what to do. I don’t know why he’d think that given the consistent evidence to the contrary, but that’s Upworlders for you.
No sooner had we dealt with those than Evil Malakar made an appearance. Except it can’t really have been Evil Malakar because not-so-Evil Malakar was still with us. Hmmm. Ah. Aspect of Bascerone.
He invited Malakar to join him, which Malakar declined. I’m not sure why, because it kind of looks like Bascerone owns him already. Maybe he’s afraid that since we beat him once we can do it again. Last time he had two mooncalves, this time he’d have an aspect of a god. Personally I’d favour his odds more with the god, but Malakar’s not really your big risk taker.
When Malakar spurned him the Aspect turned into a crazy mass of tentacles. It was disgusting. But it made me wonder if this is why Upworlders are so unstable. I mean, what if all their gods are really like this—they put on some nice facade when it pleases them, but in reality they have some alien form that reeks of the insane.
The number of things that I was sure would paste me in that fight was large and I can’t recall them all because I was busy dodging them in case I happening to be on the wrong plane at the wrong time, while still trying to stick my knife in somewhere it could do some good. Because of my “now I’m here, now I’m not”-edness I was taking damage at a much slower rate than the others, so when Malakar was casting spells to heal everyone he was pretty much just topping me up. Mind you, I was glad we did that thing with the incense beforehand because at one stage I got hit bad and that went off to provide a nice comfy cushion of protection against later damage.
I think I held my own in the fight, but it was Dearthen that delivered the death blow. And it was the last insane attack of an insane Aspect, because as it died it exploded spewing some vile acid all over the place. Again I avoided most it but some of the others weren’t so lucky. Poor Livia, she was covered in the stuff and completely dead before anyone could do anything about it.
Some of the others are talking about casting some druidic spell that will call her soul back, but possibly into a different body. Fine for those Upworlders but if I die I don’t want some sub-standard Upworlder body. Give me dwarfdom or give me death! Preferably dwarfdom.
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.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
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.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Meeting our host
We finally made our way to Jartik, and he wasn’t very hospitable. He was expecting us, because his desk was some sort of scrying device that allowed him to observe the rest of the keep.
We tried to talk to him—honest—but after laughing at our attempts at diplomacy he just attacked us. Him and his big red wolf.
Jartik engaged our combat guys and seemed to get them on their back foot, especially since he was pretty big and was able to use his bulk to push them around. Even with the shield guardian helping it looked like it was going to be a long fight as Jartik dictated terms.
At the same time his wolf went for Livia and given the weirdness of the creatures we’d encountered here I feared it would go badly for her so I went to help out. While the wolf was fierce, it turned out to be nowhere near as fearsome as some of the other things we’ve found and we were able to take it down quickly.
Then a played a nasty little trick on Jartik. As he was deciding who to attack next I made some nasty comments about the “special bond” he’d shared with his wolf. I know the others thought I was mad but when Jartik charged me I was able to use his size against him and divert his charge straight into a position where the others could surround him.
He was clearly experienced at fighting against multiple opponents but the opportunity for everyone to get attacks on him before he could once more take command of the fight and engage people one at a time was enough for us to get the upper hand and we quickly took him down.
We did a fairly careful search of the area but we haven’t really found any answers to our questions. There are many books here, some of which are journals, but it seems unlikely there will be enough detail to be of use to us. I guess we’ll have to rely on Malakar to interrogate Jartik’s spirit.
Obegard’s condition continues to follow a predictable decline. As I expected, “the book” wants to go home to the wizard’s college. What? No! Really?
Almost as soon as we got there we were attacked by some spirit that concealed itself inside solid objects and cast spells at us. We were unable to reason with it and could only really attack it by causing massive damage to the objects it was hidden in.
Not surprisingly when there was something that a talking book familiar with the college could have helped with, it appears to have become upset with us and stopped talking. How very convenient.
We tried to talk to him—honest—but after laughing at our attempts at diplomacy he just attacked us. Him and his big red wolf.
Jartik engaged our combat guys and seemed to get them on their back foot, especially since he was pretty big and was able to use his bulk to push them around. Even with the shield guardian helping it looked like it was going to be a long fight as Jartik dictated terms.
At the same time his wolf went for Livia and given the weirdness of the creatures we’d encountered here I feared it would go badly for her so I went to help out. While the wolf was fierce, it turned out to be nowhere near as fearsome as some of the other things we’ve found and we were able to take it down quickly.
Then a played a nasty little trick on Jartik. As he was deciding who to attack next I made some nasty comments about the “special bond” he’d shared with his wolf. I know the others thought I was mad but when Jartik charged me I was able to use his size against him and divert his charge straight into a position where the others could surround him.
He was clearly experienced at fighting against multiple opponents but the opportunity for everyone to get attacks on him before he could once more take command of the fight and engage people one at a time was enough for us to get the upper hand and we quickly took him down.
We did a fairly careful search of the area but we haven’t really found any answers to our questions. There are many books here, some of which are journals, but it seems unlikely there will be enough detail to be of use to us. I guess we’ll have to rely on Malakar to interrogate Jartik’s spirit.
Obegard’s condition continues to follow a predictable decline. As I expected, “the book” wants to go home to the wizard’s college. What? No! Really?
Almost as soon as we got there we were attacked by some spirit that concealed itself inside solid objects and cast spells at us. We were unable to reason with it and could only really attack it by causing massive damage to the objects it was hidden in.
Not surprisingly when there was something that a talking book familiar with the college could have helped with, it appears to have become upset with us and stopped talking. How very convenient.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Friday, October 12, 2007
Obegard's romantic delusions
Construction in Dragon Keep is proceeding well, and the architect was showing me the drawings. While everything he pointed out for my part of the keep sounded familiar his plans seemed to bear very little resemblance to the sketch I’d given to him on the crumpled up parchment I’d handed him a couple of weeks before.
We were chillin’ when Sorscha arrived, telling us some story of someone who knew someone who knew something about something to do with someone, yada, yada, yada Medusan Lords.
Long story short, Road Trip!
Someone else has shown up, an elf named Livia. I think she’s another manipulator of the Arcane, but so far I haven’t seen her and Oby getting all wet together. Which, I gotta say, is probably a good thing...
The others seem very accepting, given how judgemental they normally are. Perhaps Ili’s misfortune has taught them something about being more accepting.
Obegard has come up with yet another way to travel long distances. This one supposedly puts us on the edge of some so-called shadow plane. I must say it seemed quite pleasant.
In this new city, we found a brawl on the first evening. A couple of us had the sense to stay out of it, but it turned quite nasty. The watch arrived and took Dearthen away, but our spellcasters had already magically debunked, not a bad move given all the rules this place has around fighting and magic. The commander took my statement, but forgot to say the magic words (“Here’s a thousand gold”) so I evaded nimbly and he went away none the wiser.
It sounded like Dearthen wasn’t going to be in too much trouble, partly because the guys that started things were from the fighter’s college. He finished up paying a fairly small fine, and also coughed up for the others to avoid them getting into more trouble.
We asked the scholars in the library to try and find out something about someone or something in the big chain of things we were here to investigate. It was going to take some time so we headed for the market, when some Upworlder woman walked up to Obegard and handed him an envelope, saying she had what we were looking for. She leaned in toward him and I could see Obegard start to pull away, but then Malakar hit him across the head and pushed him back into her.
It appeared that all she wanted was to give him a kiss, but later we discovered she’d lifted an amulet he wore. I have to admire her style—we didn’t see anything and she probably picked the easiest mark to get close to.
We opened the envelope to find a coin that none of us recognised, so it was back to the library. This was a sufficiently difficult task that we were required to engage the head librarian but as before we were given preferential terms due to Obegard’s membership in the Tower.
When we returned to check on the state of the research there were three people working on the coin and the told us they’d identified it as being from Mourn, an ancient city in the Shattered Lands now long gone and which nobody knew the location of, or anything much else.
We didn’t tell them that we’d seen a map showing the location of Mourn, or that it had been a city of the Medusans, since we knew all that through our association with Sorscha, and it was important that we help maintain her secrecy.
We retired for the night and as I slept soundly near the dying fire the magical alarm Obegard had set off near the door went off. I saw a large shape skittering up the wall and across the ceiling, and as others came out of their rooms I pointed it out to them lest it take them by surprise.
I started to suspect it was one of Malakar’s lycanthropic buddies as it shot a spider web while clinging to the ceiling without appearing to cast spells, but after the fight as we examined the corpse of one of the head librarian’s assistants Malakar assured us she wasn’s a lycanthrope and Obegard identified her as an Aranea—some sort of spider-woman.
We were chillin’ when Sorscha arrived, telling us some story of someone who knew someone who knew something about something to do with someone, yada, yada, yada Medusan Lords.
Long story short, Road Trip!
Someone else has shown up, an elf named Livia. I think she’s another manipulator of the Arcane, but so far I haven’t seen her and Oby getting all wet together. Which, I gotta say, is probably a good thing...
The others seem very accepting, given how judgemental they normally are. Perhaps Ili’s misfortune has taught them something about being more accepting.
Obegard has come up with yet another way to travel long distances. This one supposedly puts us on the edge of some so-called shadow plane. I must say it seemed quite pleasant.
In this new city, we found a brawl on the first evening. A couple of us had the sense to stay out of it, but it turned quite nasty. The watch arrived and took Dearthen away, but our spellcasters had already magically debunked, not a bad move given all the rules this place has around fighting and magic. The commander took my statement, but forgot to say the magic words (“Here’s a thousand gold”) so I evaded nimbly and he went away none the wiser.
It sounded like Dearthen wasn’t going to be in too much trouble, partly because the guys that started things were from the fighter’s college. He finished up paying a fairly small fine, and also coughed up for the others to avoid them getting into more trouble.
We asked the scholars in the library to try and find out something about someone or something in the big chain of things we were here to investigate. It was going to take some time so we headed for the market, when some Upworlder woman walked up to Obegard and handed him an envelope, saying she had what we were looking for. She leaned in toward him and I could see Obegard start to pull away, but then Malakar hit him across the head and pushed him back into her.
It appeared that all she wanted was to give him a kiss, but later we discovered she’d lifted an amulet he wore. I have to admire her style—we didn’t see anything and she probably picked the easiest mark to get close to.
We opened the envelope to find a coin that none of us recognised, so it was back to the library. This was a sufficiently difficult task that we were required to engage the head librarian but as before we were given preferential terms due to Obegard’s membership in the Tower.
When we returned to check on the state of the research there were three people working on the coin and the told us they’d identified it as being from Mourn, an ancient city in the Shattered Lands now long gone and which nobody knew the location of, or anything much else.
We didn’t tell them that we’d seen a map showing the location of Mourn, or that it had been a city of the Medusans, since we knew all that through our association with Sorscha, and it was important that we help maintain her secrecy.
We retired for the night and as I slept soundly near the dying fire the magical alarm Obegard had set off near the door went off. I saw a large shape skittering up the wall and across the ceiling, and as others came out of their rooms I pointed it out to them lest it take them by surprise.
I started to suspect it was one of Malakar’s lycanthropic buddies as it shot a spider web while clinging to the ceiling without appearing to cast spells, but after the fight as we examined the corpse of one of the head librarian’s assistants Malakar assured us she wasn’s a lycanthrope and Obegard identified her as an Aranea—some sort of spider-woman.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Ili at ease
I wish these humans would learn to think before they act. Admittedly Ili was more rash than most, or so they would have me believe.
Still it’s disappointing that she couldn’t wait to understand what was going on before attacking the elves, and as a result she was killed and then restored as an undead. Which of course is completely intolerable to her and she has now abandoned us to seek salvation. I have trouble imagining that her god is less tolerant than she, but perhaps she needs to forgive herself in order for Albrecht to forgive her, in which case she’s in for a long penance.
It was interesting to see the Elven court, and to find out that there is so much dissension. Perhaps this is something that the Upworlders should try to foment—having your enemies fight each other is much more efficient than fighting them yourself.
The behaviour of the elves was strange. While we made a deal to get us and the villagers out, once we made it our escorts attacked us. Did they break the deal? Was it Icarus who wanted us dealt with, but required us to get free of the Elven city in order to maximise the shame of the Elf queen?
The intrigue of the Elven houses at least seems to warrant some study, and if I could work out a way to dwell safely in their presence perhaps it would be a valuable exercise. If nothing else it would be diverting, unlike the humans where there seems to be no intrigue and almost as soon as you meet them you know everything there is to be known.
Still it’s disappointing that she couldn’t wait to understand what was going on before attacking the elves, and as a result she was killed and then restored as an undead. Which of course is completely intolerable to her and she has now abandoned us to seek salvation. I have trouble imagining that her god is less tolerant than she, but perhaps she needs to forgive herself in order for Albrecht to forgive her, in which case she’s in for a long penance.
It was interesting to see the Elven court, and to find out that there is so much dissension. Perhaps this is something that the Upworlders should try to foment—having your enemies fight each other is much more efficient than fighting them yourself.
The behaviour of the elves was strange. While we made a deal to get us and the villagers out, once we made it our escorts attacked us. Did they break the deal? Was it Icarus who wanted us dealt with, but required us to get free of the Elven city in order to maximise the shame of the Elf queen?
The intrigue of the Elven houses at least seems to warrant some study, and if I could work out a way to dwell safely in their presence perhaps it would be a valuable exercise. If nothing else it would be diverting, unlike the humans where there seems to be no intrigue and almost as soon as you meet them you know everything there is to be known.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Upworlders don't know what they want
These Upworlders are never happy. “Borrow, do this.” “Borrow, do that.”
I try to oblige them but I have no idea why they ask most of the things they do—they never even stop to ask whether I can even do the stuff they ask. I’m a scout, dammit!
I used to sneak into places to check them out and make sure they’re safe and let them know where the trouble spots were. Yet for some reason that wasn’t enough. I had to help Obegard translate the secret notes we found, but that didn’t do it for them either.
Then they started asking me if stuff was trapped. Not my strong suit but I tried to help them out but they’re still not happy. All of a sudden it’s “Why are you even here?”
I can probably do better, but very little I’ve seen so far that’s been trapped has been worth having.
I try to oblige them but I have no idea why they ask most of the things they do—they never even stop to ask whether I can even do the stuff they ask. I’m a scout, dammit!
I used to sneak into places to check them out and make sure they’re safe and let them know where the trouble spots were. Yet for some reason that wasn’t enough. I had to help Obegard translate the secret notes we found, but that didn’t do it for them either.
Then they started asking me if stuff was trapped. Not my strong suit but I tried to help them out but they’re still not happy. All of a sudden it’s “Why are you even here?”
I can probably do better, but very little I’ve seen so far that’s been trapped has been worth having.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Death of a vampire
I worry for Obegard, but having seen his lust for knowledge and power I guess he’s just made himself some sort of lodestone for the bizarre.
He has these weird communication rituals with his Spire, and with Cassandra. Something—I think it’s the stone he uses to communicate with Cassandra—gives him weird dreams.
Then he’s the one that gets the magic messages from Rime, and then no sooner do we get back to Dragon Keep then he starts getting nightmares so disturbing he can’t memorise any of his spells.
We go trekking off into the wilderness in pursuit of the village his dream shows him being razed, and by the time we get there the damage is done. Man, that’s some sicko ability—if you’re going to see something bad happening, you should at least give yourself time to do something about it!
We follow the trail of the undead army (yeah, sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it???) and find an awesome mansion. You know, for an Upworlder building.
Just inside we come across a stunning Elven woman who asks if we have an appointment with her lord, and before I can say anything the others are telling her we don’t so instead we finish up in a fight and she is good.
As we dust her she turns to smoke and drifts away, and the others tell me we have to follow her to her vampire coffin and destroy it.
And on the way we meet an old friend, the crazy dude from Ghostwood that knocked half the party out with little more effort than brushing dandruff off his shoulder. He mutters some warning about interfering with “their” plans, which I think we’re agreed means the Medusan Lords, kills Obegard and then vanishes.
So here’s where it gets really whacky. Obegard gets up again. We confirmed he was dead and then all of a sudden he’s... “not” and the wound on his back is closing up as we look at it. The others seem to think this is perfectly okay. Even Ili, who I would have thought would have been calling for an exorcism whether he detected evil or not.
If it’s not evil it’s at least “extremely disturbing” and I’ll be keeping an eye on Obegard until I hear a satisfactory explanation for what happened.
Oh, yeah, assassin-guy left a bloody dagger at our feet, and in the next room we found the guy we were looking for with blood all over the place. At least he has the manners to stay dead. So maybe if we’d said we were invited then vampire-elf girl would have put some hurting on assassin-guy.
As it is we were still somewhat rattled and continued on our quest for her coffin and destroyed it. In hindsight I’m wondering if that was the best move—I figure she would have wanted revenge and we could use the help.
He has these weird communication rituals with his Spire, and with Cassandra. Something—I think it’s the stone he uses to communicate with Cassandra—gives him weird dreams.
Then he’s the one that gets the magic messages from Rime, and then no sooner do we get back to Dragon Keep then he starts getting nightmares so disturbing he can’t memorise any of his spells.
We go trekking off into the wilderness in pursuit of the village his dream shows him being razed, and by the time we get there the damage is done. Man, that’s some sicko ability—if you’re going to see something bad happening, you should at least give yourself time to do something about it!
We follow the trail of the undead army (yeah, sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it???) and find an awesome mansion. You know, for an Upworlder building.
Just inside we come across a stunning Elven woman who asks if we have an appointment with her lord, and before I can say anything the others are telling her we don’t so instead we finish up in a fight and she is good.
As we dust her she turns to smoke and drifts away, and the others tell me we have to follow her to her vampire coffin and destroy it.
And on the way we meet an old friend, the crazy dude from Ghostwood that knocked half the party out with little more effort than brushing dandruff off his shoulder. He mutters some warning about interfering with “their” plans, which I think we’re agreed means the Medusan Lords, kills Obegard and then vanishes.
So here’s where it gets really whacky. Obegard gets up again. We confirmed he was dead and then all of a sudden he’s... “not” and the wound on his back is closing up as we look at it. The others seem to think this is perfectly okay. Even Ili, who I would have thought would have been calling for an exorcism whether he detected evil or not.
If it’s not evil it’s at least “extremely disturbing” and I’ll be keeping an eye on Obegard until I hear a satisfactory explanation for what happened.
Oh, yeah, assassin-guy left a bloody dagger at our feet, and in the next room we found the guy we were looking for with blood all over the place. At least he has the manners to stay dead. So maybe if we’d said we were invited then vampire-elf girl would have put some hurting on assassin-guy.
As it is we were still somewhat rattled and continued on our quest for her coffin and destroyed it. In hindsight I’m wondering if that was the best move—I figure she would have wanted revenge and we could use the help.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
drake v. drake
Previously the stuff of legends, I’m learning there are many subtleties to word “dragon”; indeed, Obegard has a whole host of variants. Not only are there different colours which are somehow linked to their abilities, but there are different degrees of drakedom. The variety is mind-boggling, seemingly akin to saying that humans are related to dwarves.
Perhaps ignorance has some reward, however, as in order to trade for the remaining dwarves we had to drink potions that allowed us to breathe underwater, swim for hours, and when we finally emerged into another dwarven complex the only thing breathing was a large copper-coloured dragon, whom we found out was called Ironfang.
He had quite the little treasure trove sitting there for us to admire and I could see Obegard near to slobbering at the rather pretty green gem sparkling in the reflected light, but afraid to do anything about it.
Ironfang had apparently been told by our buddy Rime that we’d be along, and it became clear we’d been set up because Ironfang had been told we go around wantonly slaying dragons and were coming for him. Yeah, right, like there are even enough dragons around for anyone to be “wantonly” slaying them.
We managed to set him right and avoid a confrontation, and the others were getting ready to genuflect their way out of Ironfang’s presence but I figured we had some crap to dump, and Ironfang had some stuff that looked a lot more portable so I asked if he was interested in trading.
The others looked at me with crazy eyes and I heard Obegard whispering something about shutting up and getting out while we could, but it was all drowned out by Ironfang’s booming voice asking what we had to offer. Man, you should have seen how quickly the dudes changed their tune and were dragging out all those weird pincer staves and other stuff that we’d never be able to trade for more than a few gold elsewhere. Sure, we still didn’t get as much as we might under perfect selling conditions, but since we were never going to get perfect selling conditions I think we did pretty darn well.
Obegard was particularly happy as we were able to scrape up enough to score him that big green gem that will apparently allow him to bad the arse out of his staff.
We were just about done when Rime and a bunch of buddies arrived. There were four of those nasty fighting types, and another thing that Obegard later told me was a half-dragon (as opposed to Rime being a dragon-spawn—I wonder if the difference is anything more than academic?). They were all beefed up for dragon fighting, and I had a brief moment of satisfaction at Rime’s disappointment that we’d avoided fighting Ironfang, and then we were embroiled in a fight with Rime’s bunch.
It would have been way too much for us, but with Ironfang there they had to expend considerable effort just keeping him out of it, though they did that with some skill. The half-dragon shot nasty rays from his fingers that seemed to disorient Ironfang and as a result he wasn’t doing much throughout the fight.
Obegard was instrumental, despite being almost out of magical reserves for the day. He managed to pull off a spell to speed everyone up, then managed to completely immobilise Rime just in time for me to slit his throat, and then made me invisible so I could start cutting down the fighting lizards while they concentrated on Ironfang.
Dearthen seemed obsessed with taking out the half-dragon himself—anytime he was offered help he seemed to go almost crazy as he shouted that it was “his.” That wasn’t working out so well for anyone, as Dearthen seemed unable to do much damage, the half-dragon kept casting spells that were making a mess of Ironfang, and as the only one picking on the other lizards it was taking a while to take them down.
But it eventually started to come together. One by one the fighting lizards fell, Ironfang was able to take to the air to stop the last one or two from finishing him off while I continued to pick at them, and Dearthen managed to start doing some damage once someone managed to dissipate some of the magical protections the half-dragon had woven around itself.
Perhaps ignorance has some reward, however, as in order to trade for the remaining dwarves we had to drink potions that allowed us to breathe underwater, swim for hours, and when we finally emerged into another dwarven complex the only thing breathing was a large copper-coloured dragon, whom we found out was called Ironfang.
He had quite the little treasure trove sitting there for us to admire and I could see Obegard near to slobbering at the rather pretty green gem sparkling in the reflected light, but afraid to do anything about it.
Ironfang had apparently been told by our buddy Rime that we’d be along, and it became clear we’d been set up because Ironfang had been told we go around wantonly slaying dragons and were coming for him. Yeah, right, like there are even enough dragons around for anyone to be “wantonly” slaying them.
We managed to set him right and avoid a confrontation, and the others were getting ready to genuflect their way out of Ironfang’s presence but I figured we had some crap to dump, and Ironfang had some stuff that looked a lot more portable so I asked if he was interested in trading.
The others looked at me with crazy eyes and I heard Obegard whispering something about shutting up and getting out while we could, but it was all drowned out by Ironfang’s booming voice asking what we had to offer. Man, you should have seen how quickly the dudes changed their tune and were dragging out all those weird pincer staves and other stuff that we’d never be able to trade for more than a few gold elsewhere. Sure, we still didn’t get as much as we might under perfect selling conditions, but since we were never going to get perfect selling conditions I think we did pretty darn well.
Obegard was particularly happy as we were able to scrape up enough to score him that big green gem that will apparently allow him to bad the arse out of his staff.
We were just about done when Rime and a bunch of buddies arrived. There were four of those nasty fighting types, and another thing that Obegard later told me was a half-dragon (as opposed to Rime being a dragon-spawn—I wonder if the difference is anything more than academic?). They were all beefed up for dragon fighting, and I had a brief moment of satisfaction at Rime’s disappointment that we’d avoided fighting Ironfang, and then we were embroiled in a fight with Rime’s bunch.
It would have been way too much for us, but with Ironfang there they had to expend considerable effort just keeping him out of it, though they did that with some skill. The half-dragon shot nasty rays from his fingers that seemed to disorient Ironfang and as a result he wasn’t doing much throughout the fight.
Obegard was instrumental, despite being almost out of magical reserves for the day. He managed to pull off a spell to speed everyone up, then managed to completely immobilise Rime just in time for me to slit his throat, and then made me invisible so I could start cutting down the fighting lizards while they concentrated on Ironfang.
Dearthen seemed obsessed with taking out the half-dragon himself—anytime he was offered help he seemed to go almost crazy as he shouted that it was “his.” That wasn’t working out so well for anyone, as Dearthen seemed unable to do much damage, the half-dragon kept casting spells that were making a mess of Ironfang, and as the only one picking on the other lizards it was taking a while to take them down.
But it eventually started to come together. One by one the fighting lizards fell, Ironfang was able to take to the air to stop the last one or two from finishing him off while I continued to pick at them, and Dearthen managed to start doing some damage once someone managed to dissipate some of the magical protections the half-dragon had woven around itself.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Who should we kill first?
Obegard received some sort of mystical message from our foe effectively leaving us no option but to clean out the other denizens if we wished to save the lives of the remaining dwarves (assuming there really are any).
We still had a choice—fulfil the deal, or use the time to hunt down the dragonspawn and rescue his captives. Since we already knew where the other denizens were we decided it wouldn’t hurt to spend some time trying to concentrate our efforts on the enemy against whom we really wanted revenge.
We rested for several hours to permit everyone to recover their energy and then we headed off, leaving Ili and Dearthen to stay with the dwarves we’d already rescued. We didn’t find much of use, though we discovered another worked area which turned out to be a dwarven adamantine mine. There were a couple of gargoyles there but I was unable to get them to leave their post, even though the area was long abandoned. It also appeared that abyssals have made their way up to this area, which will at least start to make them a more immediate concern of the upworlders.
It became clear we wouldn’t find the dragonspawn so we backtracked to the other area occupied by the Kuatoa (or whatever it was that Erson called them).
With a bit of preparation we were able to blow past their defences and before long we were in battle with their leader, apparently called the Whip. The fight was tough but we managed to finish the Whip off quickly and I think that gave us the advantage. A couple of the Kuatoa dived into the pool of water at the back of the chapel (yes, more water!) and as we were cleaning up and preparing a huge creature began to break the surface of the pool.
The smart thing would be to run for it, but we don’t have much of a history in doing the smart thing.
We still had a choice—fulfil the deal, or use the time to hunt down the dragonspawn and rescue his captives. Since we already knew where the other denizens were we decided it wouldn’t hurt to spend some time trying to concentrate our efforts on the enemy against whom we really wanted revenge.
We rested for several hours to permit everyone to recover their energy and then we headed off, leaving Ili and Dearthen to stay with the dwarves we’d already rescued. We didn’t find much of use, though we discovered another worked area which turned out to be a dwarven adamantine mine. There were a couple of gargoyles there but I was unable to get them to leave their post, even though the area was long abandoned. It also appeared that abyssals have made their way up to this area, which will at least start to make them a more immediate concern of the upworlders.
It became clear we wouldn’t find the dragonspawn so we backtracked to the other area occupied by the Kuatoa (or whatever it was that Erson called them).
With a bit of preparation we were able to blow past their defences and before long we were in battle with their leader, apparently called the Whip. The fight was tough but we managed to finish the Whip off quickly and I think that gave us the advantage. A couple of the Kuatoa dived into the pool of water at the back of the chapel (yes, more water!) and as we were cleaning up and preparing a huge creature began to break the surface of the pool.
The smart thing would be to run for it, but we don’t have much of a history in doing the smart thing.
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