Who can you trust?
Aug. 9th, 2003 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonigh was Lazar's Friday Shadake game, in which our heroes were blackmailed into stealing back a valuable artifact that they'd previously stolen for their employers. And forced to work with their worst enemy -- the teacher's pet!
The explosions provided enough of a distraction for the pirates the party was escorting to get to their ships, so the three took a short swim in the bay to wash off the sewer grime and blood from the patrol they'd run across, then hid in a secluded section of a farmer's field to clean and dry off. It took about an hour, during which they ate lunch, and contacted their employer about where to send the money... and were told to wait until Sunday when a new cell leader would be chosen.
They'd originally planned to meet their duplicates after class to pick back up where they'd left off, but they were two hours late for that meeting, and decided to track down Baird instead -- he was also in their class, and in their cell of the organization. He was also easily scouted (via flitter) standing next to the White Fence.
Baird related the news about the class that day -- it'd been horribly boring, until explosions had rocked the port and drawn everyone away, causing the class to be let out early. Of course, the explosions Baird had seen were at the Rhazian port, as the party found out when they told him they'd gone to the Shaoli port to watch the explosions... they also filled Baird in on the situation with Glick's disappearance, and agreed to make up an excuse for him to be absent from class the next day.
The next day was combat training, specifically aerial combat, using enchanted Drakivolki wings (a common magical item, as dead or indigent Drakivolki could often be convinced to part with their wings, for a price). The instructor seemed especially desperate to teach them quickly, possibly due to the rapidly deteriorating political situation, and worked them hard... not that that was necessarily anything new. They retired, exhausted, but a bit surer of wing.
It was class the next day that was the problem. The magic instructor had hired a Grrlock to fill in for the missing hearts, but knew that Sophie, Tsuru, and Kiet were responsible for their loss... and threw Lazarus in with them, as he'd been present at the scene, despite the fact that he was Lazarus' father. Or perhaps he sent Lazarus to keep an eye on them.
At any rate, they were sent with a Finder (a compass that didn't point north) that would point to the last person to possess the vial of mist that had been stolen from him who didn't currently have the vial on his person (since the vial and its current owner were shielded from detection). If they could bring back that person, or find out what he knew, he wouldn't press charges. If they could bring back the vial itself, he wouldn't make them pay to replace the Grrlock hearts.
So they followed the Finder to the marketplace, where they spotted an invisible creature making its way through the crowds by the gap it left. Sophie, whose strangely altered vision could actually see a faint outline of the person, created a giant flaming arrow pointing him out, allowing Kiet to cast Faerie Fire on him (which, as a side effect, dispelled the invisibility, as 'being targetted by a spell' was the trigger for the invisibility to end).
The chase was on! Kiet jumped on Sophie's back, while Tsuru made his way deftly between the legs of the crowd, following the glowing hannah. Lazarus was left behind because, among other things, the trio suspected that they were chasing one of their comrades from the order, and didn't want an outsider to be in on the capture, as aiding in a fellow's capture by outside forces was grounds for soul-destruction -- capturing another member yourself was perfectly allowable, though.
The slippery hannah leaped over a fruit stand to escape, a feat that Sophie was manifestly unable to duplicate. Kiet did manage to leap from her shoulders and continue the chase, joined by Tsuru who climbed onto his shoulders.
Sophie haphazardly extricated herself from the remains of the fruit stand, tossed the proprieter a coin (worth enough to buy three fruit stands), apologized, and continued the chase, just as Kiet tossed Tsuru at the hannah... who blinked away from the attack, appearing right in front of Sophie. WHAM!
Sophie demanded he surrender, but instead he ran off again... so she tried a nonlethal fire spell, to subdue him with intense flames that didn't *quite* touch the skin, calling on Flokin to increase the spell's power. The spell's power was increased, but instead of nonlethal flamelets manifested as 52 ruby-studded daggers, that flew from her hand and missed the hannah, as he blinked again, stabbing various and sundry members of the shopping crowd in his stead. Sophie fled to escape blame, just as Lazarus arrived on the scene to take it.
Still, the hannah was glowing, and Kiet had his hawk tracking it, and Sophie had the compass, and Lazarus had his own tracking spell, so it was inevitable that they'd run into him again, literally, again, but this time smashing the compass and teleporting him out of sight, as the collision triggered a blink. Sophie and Lazarus tracked him down regardless, and flushed him out into the open, where he blinked and then dodged the swirling mass of ropes Lazarus conjured to try to trap him.
The chase continued out of the marketplace, and finally ended when Kiet, trying to glue the hannah to the ground, accidentally coated an entire section of street (and shop and hillside) with stringy glue strands, trapping all of them. Kiet levitated into the air to free himself from the webs, and slowly and carefully approached the hannah and grabbed hold of him, finally forcing him to talk. Lazarus, the slowest runner, approached midway through, but was distracted by Sophie and Tsuru arguing about how best to get rid of the webs.
After the interrogation revealed the location of the misty vial, Kiet faked the prisoner's escape, and had his bird 'track' the quarry to the mines where the vial was supposedly located. There was (of course) no sign of the hannah, so the quartet had no choice but to descend into the mines to search for the vial itself.
And descend they did, far far below sea level, until they eventually found a temple-like complex deep beneath the earth, guarded by a bomb. Sophie had summoned a fire-cat earlier (not, unfortunately, her lost love...) and ordered it to attack the bomb, expecting mutual annihilation. Instead, the cat and bomb proved unable to harm each other, so she had it wrestle the bomb to distract it while the party snuck past and into the temple complex beyond.
The first door they tried looked like it might be their destination... but they heard voices, and Tsuru listening at the door heard talk about the 'vessels being prepared' and that the ritual would be completed at midnight. And that the people here were all followers of Mistress Vala, Tsuru's own religion. It was only about 10am, so they had plenty of time.
Sophie's tarot reading told her she should 'make a bad situation worse' and would be saved by 'turning to the gods when skill and thought failed'. Which she interpreted as 'attack right away, and trust that some miracle would let them win.' The others convinced her that the very worst time to attack was right before midnight, when as much power as possible had been invested in the ritual they hoped to disrupt, and so she agreed to wait until then to attack.
So they decided to explore the rest of the temple instead. There were many many well-locked doors, and after opening a few revealed little of use, they decided to only open doors that looked different in some way. The first such door revealed a nearly bottomless pit, with a chain hanging from the ceiling and vanishing into the unknown depths. Kiet threw a torch into the pit, and the party watched it fall... and fall... and fall... for forty seconds, at which point it got suddenly brighter, as if it had ignited something far below. A buzzing sound started, and the party decided to flee before whatever they'd awoken got to the top.
The next door was distinguished by its far superior lock. Sophie called on Flokin's power to aid her in using her 'blow a hole in the wall, temporarily' spell ("Shadow Fire") on the lock mechanism, and as a result the spell crystallized around her hand, into a massive (and illegal) mana-crystal that was able to replicate the spell in question and did, indeed, blow a hole in the lock (temporarily).
Behind the excellent, if somewhat irrelevant, lock was a magical laboratory, with an empty magic circle, three sinister gray statues, and one of their classmates unconscious or dead on a slab.
While Tsuru watched the statues and freaked out, recognizing them as Grey Walkers, the direct servants and warriors of Mistress Vala, Lazarus and Sophie both rushed across the room to save their froggy friend. He was still alive, but couldn't be aroused... Sophie tucked him into her sash and prepared to leave the room.
She was stopped by the Gray Walkers, who blocked the door and hissed, "He stays!" She tried to blow a hole in the wall to escape, but it didn't work, and tried hiding inside the magic circle for protection, which didn't work earlier. So she gave her friend up to them, although she didn't give up on getting him free. She just needed a plan first...
Tsuru carefully creaked the door on the far side of the lab open, and saw a sleeping paracil, doubtless the mage whose laboratory this was. Eep! The party crept back out of the laboratory, except for Tsuru, who planned to stay behind to try to negotiate with the Gray Walkers for their friend's release, although he had little hope of success.
last session next session
And so ends another week... tomorrow I'm heading down to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chahala's place in Portland to play some World Tree, and have a look at his new house, and do some other stuff. It's been more than two years, so I've forgotten how long the drive is, which means it's time to refresh my memory. }:)
The explosions provided enough of a distraction for the pirates the party was escorting to get to their ships, so the three took a short swim in the bay to wash off the sewer grime and blood from the patrol they'd run across, then hid in a secluded section of a farmer's field to clean and dry off. It took about an hour, during which they ate lunch, and contacted their employer about where to send the money... and were told to wait until Sunday when a new cell leader would be chosen.
They'd originally planned to meet their duplicates after class to pick back up where they'd left off, but they were two hours late for that meeting, and decided to track down Baird instead -- he was also in their class, and in their cell of the organization. He was also easily scouted (via flitter) standing next to the White Fence.
Baird related the news about the class that day -- it'd been horribly boring, until explosions had rocked the port and drawn everyone away, causing the class to be let out early. Of course, the explosions Baird had seen were at the Rhazian port, as the party found out when they told him they'd gone to the Shaoli port to watch the explosions... they also filled Baird in on the situation with Glick's disappearance, and agreed to make up an excuse for him to be absent from class the next day.
The next day was combat training, specifically aerial combat, using enchanted Drakivolki wings (a common magical item, as dead or indigent Drakivolki could often be convinced to part with their wings, for a price). The instructor seemed especially desperate to teach them quickly, possibly due to the rapidly deteriorating political situation, and worked them hard... not that that was necessarily anything new. They retired, exhausted, but a bit surer of wing.
It was class the next day that was the problem. The magic instructor had hired a Grrlock to fill in for the missing hearts, but knew that Sophie, Tsuru, and Kiet were responsible for their loss... and threw Lazarus in with them, as he'd been present at the scene, despite the fact that he was Lazarus' father. Or perhaps he sent Lazarus to keep an eye on them.
At any rate, they were sent with a Finder (a compass that didn't point north) that would point to the last person to possess the vial of mist that had been stolen from him who didn't currently have the vial on his person (since the vial and its current owner were shielded from detection). If they could bring back that person, or find out what he knew, he wouldn't press charges. If they could bring back the vial itself, he wouldn't make them pay to replace the Grrlock hearts.
So they followed the Finder to the marketplace, where they spotted an invisible creature making its way through the crowds by the gap it left. Sophie, whose strangely altered vision could actually see a faint outline of the person, created a giant flaming arrow pointing him out, allowing Kiet to cast Faerie Fire on him (which, as a side effect, dispelled the invisibility, as 'being targetted by a spell' was the trigger for the invisibility to end).
The chase was on! Kiet jumped on Sophie's back, while Tsuru made his way deftly between the legs of the crowd, following the glowing hannah. Lazarus was left behind because, among other things, the trio suspected that they were chasing one of their comrades from the order, and didn't want an outsider to be in on the capture, as aiding in a fellow's capture by outside forces was grounds for soul-destruction -- capturing another member yourself was perfectly allowable, though.
The slippery hannah leaped over a fruit stand to escape, a feat that Sophie was manifestly unable to duplicate. Kiet did manage to leap from her shoulders and continue the chase, joined by Tsuru who climbed onto his shoulders.
Sophie haphazardly extricated herself from the remains of the fruit stand, tossed the proprieter a coin (worth enough to buy three fruit stands), apologized, and continued the chase, just as Kiet tossed Tsuru at the hannah... who blinked away from the attack, appearing right in front of Sophie. WHAM!
Sophie demanded he surrender, but instead he ran off again... so she tried a nonlethal fire spell, to subdue him with intense flames that didn't *quite* touch the skin, calling on Flokin to increase the spell's power. The spell's power was increased, but instead of nonlethal flamelets manifested as 52 ruby-studded daggers, that flew from her hand and missed the hannah, as he blinked again, stabbing various and sundry members of the shopping crowd in his stead. Sophie fled to escape blame, just as Lazarus arrived on the scene to take it.
Still, the hannah was glowing, and Kiet had his hawk tracking it, and Sophie had the compass, and Lazarus had his own tracking spell, so it was inevitable that they'd run into him again, literally, again, but this time smashing the compass and teleporting him out of sight, as the collision triggered a blink. Sophie and Lazarus tracked him down regardless, and flushed him out into the open, where he blinked and then dodged the swirling mass of ropes Lazarus conjured to try to trap him.
The chase continued out of the marketplace, and finally ended when Kiet, trying to glue the hannah to the ground, accidentally coated an entire section of street (and shop and hillside) with stringy glue strands, trapping all of them. Kiet levitated into the air to free himself from the webs, and slowly and carefully approached the hannah and grabbed hold of him, finally forcing him to talk. Lazarus, the slowest runner, approached midway through, but was distracted by Sophie and Tsuru arguing about how best to get rid of the webs.
After the interrogation revealed the location of the misty vial, Kiet faked the prisoner's escape, and had his bird 'track' the quarry to the mines where the vial was supposedly located. There was (of course) no sign of the hannah, so the quartet had no choice but to descend into the mines to search for the vial itself.
And descend they did, far far below sea level, until they eventually found a temple-like complex deep beneath the earth, guarded by a bomb. Sophie had summoned a fire-cat earlier (not, unfortunately, her lost love...) and ordered it to attack the bomb, expecting mutual annihilation. Instead, the cat and bomb proved unable to harm each other, so she had it wrestle the bomb to distract it while the party snuck past and into the temple complex beyond.
The first door they tried looked like it might be their destination... but they heard voices, and Tsuru listening at the door heard talk about the 'vessels being prepared' and that the ritual would be completed at midnight. And that the people here were all followers of Mistress Vala, Tsuru's own religion. It was only about 10am, so they had plenty of time.
Sophie's tarot reading told her she should 'make a bad situation worse' and would be saved by 'turning to the gods when skill and thought failed'. Which she interpreted as 'attack right away, and trust that some miracle would let them win.' The others convinced her that the very worst time to attack was right before midnight, when as much power as possible had been invested in the ritual they hoped to disrupt, and so she agreed to wait until then to attack.
So they decided to explore the rest of the temple instead. There were many many well-locked doors, and after opening a few revealed little of use, they decided to only open doors that looked different in some way. The first such door revealed a nearly bottomless pit, with a chain hanging from the ceiling and vanishing into the unknown depths. Kiet threw a torch into the pit, and the party watched it fall... and fall... and fall... for forty seconds, at which point it got suddenly brighter, as if it had ignited something far below. A buzzing sound started, and the party decided to flee before whatever they'd awoken got to the top.
The next door was distinguished by its far superior lock. Sophie called on Flokin's power to aid her in using her 'blow a hole in the wall, temporarily' spell ("Shadow Fire") on the lock mechanism, and as a result the spell crystallized around her hand, into a massive (and illegal) mana-crystal that was able to replicate the spell in question and did, indeed, blow a hole in the lock (temporarily).
Behind the excellent, if somewhat irrelevant, lock was a magical laboratory, with an empty magic circle, three sinister gray statues, and one of their classmates unconscious or dead on a slab.
While Tsuru watched the statues and freaked out, recognizing them as Grey Walkers, the direct servants and warriors of Mistress Vala, Lazarus and Sophie both rushed across the room to save their froggy friend. He was still alive, but couldn't be aroused... Sophie tucked him into her sash and prepared to leave the room.
She was stopped by the Gray Walkers, who blocked the door and hissed, "He stays!" She tried to blow a hole in the wall to escape, but it didn't work, and tried hiding inside the magic circle for protection, which didn't work earlier. So she gave her friend up to them, although she didn't give up on getting him free. She just needed a plan first...
Tsuru carefully creaked the door on the far side of the lab open, and saw a sleeping paracil, doubtless the mage whose laboratory this was. Eep! The party crept back out of the laboratory, except for Tsuru, who planned to stay behind to try to negotiate with the Gray Walkers for their friend's release, although he had little hope of success.
last session next session
And so ends another week... tomorrow I'm heading down to
chahala's place in Portland to play some World Tree, and have a look at his new house, and do some other stuff. It's been more than two years, so I've forgotten how long the drive is, which means it's time to refresh my memory. }:)
