Where there's smoke...
Jul. 26th, 2003 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lazar's Friday Shadake game, in which my character accidentally killed a bunch of people with a 'harmless' spell, and never found out. More broadly, the party started split up and didn't manage to get in touch with each other until the very end of the session. But it was still kind of fun, since what was happening to each of us was humorous.
So, last session ended with a bang! The house was awake now, and Sophie, Keit, and Tsuru were all in separate rooms.
Tsuru tried to rush the procyonisk mage he was faced with, since he was holding a bag with a pair of anti-magic hearts in it, but as a precaution, the floor of the hallway leading to the mage's bedroom was itself an enchantment, which the hearts suppressed just long enough for Tsuru to fall through the floor.
Sophie, fleeing the demon after snagging a fist-sized pearl from the table next to her, ran for the back stairs, and ended up facing the mage, just as Tsuru had. The mage tried to disintegrate her with a blast of fire, but she was just barely able to protect herself, and was merely horribly wounded instead of killed. Seeing the Tsuru-shaped gap in the paint of the floor, she figured he'd been disintegrated.
But before she could react, the floor opened up and dropped the mage through to the first floor, out of sight. Sophie wondered why the mage had fled when she was winning, but spotted the white falcon, obviously a familiar, creeping up behind her, and cast a smoke-screen spell that filled the entire second floor of the house with thick smoke.
Since she'd been expecting this, Sophie was able to hold her breath, but the falcon was suprised and inhaled a lungful, coughing and thrashing and finally passing out and dying. Sophie didn't wait around to listen to its plight, however, fleeing for the ladder to the attic, since the mage was downstairs.
Keit, in the servants' quarters, was fighting with a Grrlock who'd been awakened by the explosion, while most of the others stayed asleep. He managed to open the door just before Sophie's smoke-bomb, but the Grrlock's antimagic field kept the smoke away from him. As he struggled with the Grrlock in the doorway, he saw Lazarus, from class, stagger out of another room, naked and panicked -- obivously interrupted in the middle of a tryst. Lazarus didn't see him, tripping and falling in the smoke and landing on his belly at Keit's feet, then getting stepped on by the Grrlock.
Downstairs, Tsuru had successfully dropped the mage down to his level by tossing the bag with the hearts up near the ceiling where she'd been standing. He was wedged in a display case, though, and brought her dropping right onto him. She grabbed a huge glass sword Tsuru had seen earlier but been too afraid (and small) to snag, and attacked him! He wasn't overmatched, but the mage was gradually casting a dangerous looking spell while keeping him at bay, and a vor-hound from the backyard got inside somehow, and began menacing him as well.
Desperate to escape, Tsuru lunged at the mage, letting her hit him with her sword (and taking only a grazing wound) and held the hearts up near her... and she vanished, just like the bomb had. But then the Grrlock who'd run from Keit (or more accurately, decided it was more important to protect his master than fight Keit) appeared in the doorway... and Tsuru darted through his legs, leaving the bag of hearts behind to keep the mage suppressed.
Up in the attic, the badly wounded Sophie tried to summon a firecat to watch the trapdoor while she explored the attic, but the spell went a little haywire, and she ended up deeply in love with her blazing elemental. It was so cute! She wanted to cuddle it! But it would kill her! Unless... so she spent some time improving the fire-resistance of her weaver-silk outfit, THEN cuddled. And still got burned.
Keit left Lazarus behind, barely noticing as the drakivolki was lured into the demon's chamber behind him. He ran through the smoke-filled corridors, and collided with the second vor-hound, which had decided to search upstairs. A couple strong blows sent the beast fleeing, whimpering, with its tail between its legs, and Keit headed for the front window to (a) get some fresh air, and (b) pass the magic chalk through the window to his hawk, who took it to a safe place.
Tsuru, a vor hound in close pursuit, fled the house through the front door... and to his suprise and delight the centipedes didn't animate to attack him, since he was leaving. He hid in some bushes nearby to watch for the rest of his party's escape. The vor hound did not follow him, not being allowed out onto the street.
Upstairs, Sophie finally managed to tear herself away from adoring her elemental, and explored the rest of the attic. Most of it was filled with junk. There was a ghost, who couldn't talk, but fled from her into the back room at the far end of the attic. She followed... and was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of impressions from all the magic inside, to the point where she couldn't make out anything except what *wasn't* magic -- the gem and the staff they'd been sent for. She grit her teeth and scrambled through the room blindly to grab them, all the while harassed by the ghost.
She then scavenged some climbing equipment from the attic, went back to the room where she'd left her beloved fire elemental, and had it follow her out a hole she blasted in the roof (using shadow magic, so that the hole would only be temporary). She was still woozy from her wounds, and nearly fell climbing down from the roof, even with the equipment.
As she untangled herself, Flokin appeared, and with an agry hiss destroyed her fire elemental. Sophie screamed and cried... and then the Grrlock appeared at the front door, just a few dozen feet away. She cast another huge ball of smoke and fled back to the White Fence.
Keit and Tsuru took this as the signal to flee as well, although they couldn't find each other or Sophie in all the smoke.
So they met back at the White Fence. Sophie turned in the things she'd stolen for Glick, and also fenced the giant pearl, receiving a diamond coin -- worth 10 million copper pennies -- as an initial payment, with more promised if they were able to sell it. Eventually Tsuru showed up, and last came Keit, with the chalk and a bunch of other loot he'd stolen while sneaking around the smoke-filled house.
Sophie and Keit asked Tsuru where the hearts were. Had he already returned them to storage? He told them he'd left them behind, earning angry looks and unneeded explanations of how much that sucked -- they'd probably never be able to steal anything from the magic class again, since the wards would be upgraded with the hearts turning up missing.
After receiving the items and hearing the debreifing report, Glick was pleased, and offered to reward the party. Keit got an invitation to a high-stakes gambling tournament, Tsuru a set of better daggers and a promise of training in advanced techniques (Keit and Sophie both thought he was crazy for *asking* for more schoolwork), and Sophie was offered a job smuggling weapons, which had been her initial interest in joining the crime family, but asked instead for information on the demon, since it had cursed her and she was worried it might do more, now that she was marked.
Then, after begging Keit for healing, it was back home to rest up before yet another test the next day... no one cared that Keit was up late, and Tsuru merely spent the night on the roof to evade capture, but Sophie's mother was waiting up for her, and grounded her for a week for 'staying out late with her friends', even though it was only barely past midnight.
The last test was the next day, on religious dogma. At the end, the teacher handed out a book he'd written about the 'Argent Claw', a cult in the Shaoli empire, about which he'd be teaching for the next year. Yay. Sophie was grounded for the rest of the day, and spent it bored. [And apparently what Keit and Tsuru did that day is going to be handled in e-mail.]
The day after was the first day of the new term -- without even a week's break between terms! The Life instructor told the class that they'd be spending the term learning to crew a small ship, since an unusual number of them had expressed an interest in sailing. Sophie was terrified that she'd doom the entire class, but was reassured to find out that the boat they'd be using was fireproof.
last week next week
I guess it didn't show up in the summary, but the GM kept rolling for NPCs who hadn't been woken up by the explosion... and several of them died of smoke inhalation. Pretty nasty death toll from a spell that's supposed to be harmless. o.O
I also ended up making a LOT of rolls against will and sanity, both of which are 30 now (normal starting values are 60-100). Ow ow ow ow.
So, last session ended with a bang! The house was awake now, and Sophie, Keit, and Tsuru were all in separate rooms.
Tsuru tried to rush the procyonisk mage he was faced with, since he was holding a bag with a pair of anti-magic hearts in it, but as a precaution, the floor of the hallway leading to the mage's bedroom was itself an enchantment, which the hearts suppressed just long enough for Tsuru to fall through the floor.
Sophie, fleeing the demon after snagging a fist-sized pearl from the table next to her, ran for the back stairs, and ended up facing the mage, just as Tsuru had. The mage tried to disintegrate her with a blast of fire, but she was just barely able to protect herself, and was merely horribly wounded instead of killed. Seeing the Tsuru-shaped gap in the paint of the floor, she figured he'd been disintegrated.
But before she could react, the floor opened up and dropped the mage through to the first floor, out of sight. Sophie wondered why the mage had fled when she was winning, but spotted the white falcon, obviously a familiar, creeping up behind her, and cast a smoke-screen spell that filled the entire second floor of the house with thick smoke.
Since she'd been expecting this, Sophie was able to hold her breath, but the falcon was suprised and inhaled a lungful, coughing and thrashing and finally passing out and dying. Sophie didn't wait around to listen to its plight, however, fleeing for the ladder to the attic, since the mage was downstairs.
Keit, in the servants' quarters, was fighting with a Grrlock who'd been awakened by the explosion, while most of the others stayed asleep. He managed to open the door just before Sophie's smoke-bomb, but the Grrlock's antimagic field kept the smoke away from him. As he struggled with the Grrlock in the doorway, he saw Lazarus, from class, stagger out of another room, naked and panicked -- obivously interrupted in the middle of a tryst. Lazarus didn't see him, tripping and falling in the smoke and landing on his belly at Keit's feet, then getting stepped on by the Grrlock.
Downstairs, Tsuru had successfully dropped the mage down to his level by tossing the bag with the hearts up near the ceiling where she'd been standing. He was wedged in a display case, though, and brought her dropping right onto him. She grabbed a huge glass sword Tsuru had seen earlier but been too afraid (and small) to snag, and attacked him! He wasn't overmatched, but the mage was gradually casting a dangerous looking spell while keeping him at bay, and a vor-hound from the backyard got inside somehow, and began menacing him as well.
Desperate to escape, Tsuru lunged at the mage, letting her hit him with her sword (and taking only a grazing wound) and held the hearts up near her... and she vanished, just like the bomb had. But then the Grrlock who'd run from Keit (or more accurately, decided it was more important to protect his master than fight Keit) appeared in the doorway... and Tsuru darted through his legs, leaving the bag of hearts behind to keep the mage suppressed.
Up in the attic, the badly wounded Sophie tried to summon a firecat to watch the trapdoor while she explored the attic, but the spell went a little haywire, and she ended up deeply in love with her blazing elemental. It was so cute! She wanted to cuddle it! But it would kill her! Unless... so she spent some time improving the fire-resistance of her weaver-silk outfit, THEN cuddled. And still got burned.
Keit left Lazarus behind, barely noticing as the drakivolki was lured into the demon's chamber behind him. He ran through the smoke-filled corridors, and collided with the second vor-hound, which had decided to search upstairs. A couple strong blows sent the beast fleeing, whimpering, with its tail between its legs, and Keit headed for the front window to (a) get some fresh air, and (b) pass the magic chalk through the window to his hawk, who took it to a safe place.
Tsuru, a vor hound in close pursuit, fled the house through the front door... and to his suprise and delight the centipedes didn't animate to attack him, since he was leaving. He hid in some bushes nearby to watch for the rest of his party's escape. The vor hound did not follow him, not being allowed out onto the street.
Upstairs, Sophie finally managed to tear herself away from adoring her elemental, and explored the rest of the attic. Most of it was filled with junk. There was a ghost, who couldn't talk, but fled from her into the back room at the far end of the attic. She followed... and was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of impressions from all the magic inside, to the point where she couldn't make out anything except what *wasn't* magic -- the gem and the staff they'd been sent for. She grit her teeth and scrambled through the room blindly to grab them, all the while harassed by the ghost.
She then scavenged some climbing equipment from the attic, went back to the room where she'd left her beloved fire elemental, and had it follow her out a hole she blasted in the roof (using shadow magic, so that the hole would only be temporary). She was still woozy from her wounds, and nearly fell climbing down from the roof, even with the equipment.
As she untangled herself, Flokin appeared, and with an agry hiss destroyed her fire elemental. Sophie screamed and cried... and then the Grrlock appeared at the front door, just a few dozen feet away. She cast another huge ball of smoke and fled back to the White Fence.
Keit and Tsuru took this as the signal to flee as well, although they couldn't find each other or Sophie in all the smoke.
So they met back at the White Fence. Sophie turned in the things she'd stolen for Glick, and also fenced the giant pearl, receiving a diamond coin -- worth 10 million copper pennies -- as an initial payment, with more promised if they were able to sell it. Eventually Tsuru showed up, and last came Keit, with the chalk and a bunch of other loot he'd stolen while sneaking around the smoke-filled house.
Sophie and Keit asked Tsuru where the hearts were. Had he already returned them to storage? He told them he'd left them behind, earning angry looks and unneeded explanations of how much that sucked -- they'd probably never be able to steal anything from the magic class again, since the wards would be upgraded with the hearts turning up missing.
After receiving the items and hearing the debreifing report, Glick was pleased, and offered to reward the party. Keit got an invitation to a high-stakes gambling tournament, Tsuru a set of better daggers and a promise of training in advanced techniques (Keit and Sophie both thought he was crazy for *asking* for more schoolwork), and Sophie was offered a job smuggling weapons, which had been her initial interest in joining the crime family, but asked instead for information on the demon, since it had cursed her and she was worried it might do more, now that she was marked.
Then, after begging Keit for healing, it was back home to rest up before yet another test the next day... no one cared that Keit was up late, and Tsuru merely spent the night on the roof to evade capture, but Sophie's mother was waiting up for her, and grounded her for a week for 'staying out late with her friends', even though it was only barely past midnight.
The last test was the next day, on religious dogma. At the end, the teacher handed out a book he'd written about the 'Argent Claw', a cult in the Shaoli empire, about which he'd be teaching for the next year. Yay. Sophie was grounded for the rest of the day, and spent it bored. [And apparently what Keit and Tsuru did that day is going to be handled in e-mail.]
The day after was the first day of the new term -- without even a week's break between terms! The Life instructor told the class that they'd be spending the term learning to crew a small ship, since an unusual number of them had expressed an interest in sailing. Sophie was terrified that she'd doom the entire class, but was reassured to find out that the boat they'd be using was fireproof.
last week next week
I guess it didn't show up in the summary, but the GM kept rolling for NPCs who hadn't been woken up by the explosion... and several of them died of smoke inhalation. Pretty nasty death toll from a spell that's supposed to be harmless. o.O
I also ended up making a LOT of rolls against will and sanity, both of which are 30 now (normal starting values are 60-100). Ow ow ow ow.
