Grand Theft Everything
Nov. 22nd, 2003 01:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lazar's Friday Shadake game, wherein a complicated magical ritual was performed, and some stuff got itself stolen, like.
Outside the mine, the party considered the things they'd stolen from the green room where Tormierre had been tortured to death. Most of the magical stuff had been a pile of Tormierre's possessions, which meant selling it was a bad idea, but a magic sword and some gems, and some other stuff, would probably be fenceable.
Not that they could fence it with Lazarus watching over their shoulder! They set off back to Lord Mosher's place to ditch him, and (incidentally) hand over the crystal they'd been sent to get. The extra crystals were concealed in Lazarus and Kiet's suspiciously voluminous pockets.
Lord Mosher told them that he couldn't do the ritual himself, and that he'd want Keit to perform it, with Lazarus and Sophie assisting. Tsuru was fortunate enough not to know enough magic to help, and got to go home and eat supper, and bum around the city, and get really drunk on the brandy liberated from the zombie temple, and so on. The rest spent TEN HOURS casting a lengthy ritual, which did eventually end in success.
Mr. Montegue, free of his zombieness, began to babble and chatter about everything he'd thought while zombied, in chronological order. One of the first things he babbled about were ways to prevent or counteract his current state, or to defeat the Argent claw -- most of them were famous artifacts that he knew the last location of.
One of the artifacts was Magebane, already in Tsuru's possession. Another was a crown currently owned by the master of the demon that branded Sophie -- the procyonisk whose house they'd raided, and who had an attic so full of magic items that Sophie'd been blinded looking at it. A third was a kinetic spirit said to be imprisoned by the Church of the Eternal Void. The rest weren't obviously or recognizably anywhere near Midrein.
Eventually he shifted to complaining about mundane things, like being an enslaved zombie miner, and Lord Mosher suggested everyone get home to rest. When asked, he said that the zombification had been his will and thoughts being stolen by the Gray Lady (Tsuru's god) -- they were all being transformed into Gray Walkers. This wasn't supposed to be possible except on volunteers loyal to the Gray Lady. The 'cure' had been to enhance what was left until it was as strong as it was supposed to be, which was hoped would also stop the degeneration.
After a much needed snack, the trio headed home, but was sidetracked by Keit's suggestion that they go check out the procyonisk lady's house to see if she was even still there -- after all, wouldn't the demon Sophie had accidentally summoned, who the procyonisk had had imprisoned, be out for revenge?
The house was still there. The vor hounds in the backyard were several days dead, and the whole house glowed eerily blue, with blue bombs wandering around all inside it. The trio hid several hundred feet away, and Sophie made an illusion of the demon walk up and attack the wall, to see what would happen.
The resulting reaction was so powerful that Sophie felt it even through the tenuous connection of her illusion spell, which was utterly destroyed in what would be massive overkill if it hadn't been aimed at destroying a powerful demon. Luckily, it seemed to be a one-shot deal. So, maybe they could shadow-burn a hole in the wall near the room full of items, and Kiet could levitate said items out the hole?
About this time, they noticed that the hawk familiar was watching them through a large window on the second floor. After a bit of argument over *why* it was absolutely necessary to run away immediately, they immediately ran away, everyone piling onto Sophie's back.
After running really not all that far, Tsuru alerted them that the bird was following them. "Put up a smoke screen!" Kiet suggested. Sophie sneezed out a huge ball of smoke, and ran through the nearest door, into a meeting of what was obviously a band of criminals, much like themselves.
"What are you doing here?" They asked. Sophie stared at them, mute.
"Maybe we should leave," Kiet suggested.
"But it's OUT THERE!" Sophie cried.
"Squawk," said the bird, from just outside the door.
"I think it's friendly," Tsuru said. "That wasn't an angry squawk."
"Maybe we should just invite it in for dinner, then," Sophie snapped. The criminals were not amused with the suggestion.
"I bet it's a nice bird," Tsuru said.
"Why don't you go pet it then?" Sophie replied. Tsuru proceeded to go do so, following it off into the smoke as it moved back from the door.
Sophie, with Kiet still on her back, calmly walked out the door, then bolted off down the street... and slammed into a building, throwing Kiet off. She whirled in a random direction, and ran that way, repeating as necessary, until she emerged from the smoke cloud back at the procyonisk's house, which Flokin was in the process of burning down.
One room seemed immune to the spreading flame -- the display room on the bottom floor where Tsuru had almost been killed so long ago (weeks!). The mistress of the house was probably there. That left the attic room with all the magic virtually unguarded. Sophie shadow-burnt a hole in the wall, and flew up to it -- after the ritual, she'd 'accidentally' taken the non-broken set of drak wings.
As she entered, she was immediately blinded and confused by a confusing mess of floating and swirling runes in all different colors... closing her eyes worked to shut it off, though, and so without looking, she felt around for the crown she'd heard was here, somewhere, tossing everything that *wasn't* a crown out the hole behind her.
Eventually, she managed to find it. "Mr. Montegue said the crown would protect against mental effects," she thought to herself, "So it must be safe to wear." She plopped it onto her head, and it tried to take over her mind.
It failed. She reached out with her now free hands and all the other magic items she'd stolen flew up into them, as if by magic, glomming into a nice compact impossible ball-o-stuff. She tried to use the crown to search for Tsuru and Kiet, but it seemed to want to resist the new usage, and she didn't push it -- who knew what would happen if she lost a contest of will with it?
Flokin seemed very spooked by Sophie's use of the crown, especially in the beginning, when it wasn't clear who was going to win.
Meanwhile, Kiet and Tsuru were left standing near the building they'd tried to hide in while the smoke slowly blew away, and the leader of the group (a procyonisk, whom Kiet recognized from some previous situation in which his hawk had been injured) told them that they'd already lost one leader (Tormierre) and that if it was true (as Kiet and Tsuru asserted) that they'd never really liked the direction he was taking them (that is, starting a war) then they should make sure their new leader didn't go down the same path.
Sophie caught up to them after that. Seeing the bird resting on Tsuru's shoulder, she was a little suspicious.
"Are you being mind controlled, again?"
"No."
"Are you just saying that because you're mind controlled again?"
"No!"
"Well, I'm not mind-controlled either, although I think the crown was trying."
Then they went home, to get some sleep. Sophie stashed the big pile of magic crap under her bed, for later analysis.
last week next week
Outside the mine, the party considered the things they'd stolen from the green room where Tormierre had been tortured to death. Most of the magical stuff had been a pile of Tormierre's possessions, which meant selling it was a bad idea, but a magic sword and some gems, and some other stuff, would probably be fenceable.
Not that they could fence it with Lazarus watching over their shoulder! They set off back to Lord Mosher's place to ditch him, and (incidentally) hand over the crystal they'd been sent to get. The extra crystals were concealed in Lazarus and Kiet's suspiciously voluminous pockets.
Lord Mosher told them that he couldn't do the ritual himself, and that he'd want Keit to perform it, with Lazarus and Sophie assisting. Tsuru was fortunate enough not to know enough magic to help, and got to go home and eat supper, and bum around the city, and get really drunk on the brandy liberated from the zombie temple, and so on. The rest spent TEN HOURS casting a lengthy ritual, which did eventually end in success.
Mr. Montegue, free of his zombieness, began to babble and chatter about everything he'd thought while zombied, in chronological order. One of the first things he babbled about were ways to prevent or counteract his current state, or to defeat the Argent claw -- most of them were famous artifacts that he knew the last location of.
One of the artifacts was Magebane, already in Tsuru's possession. Another was a crown currently owned by the master of the demon that branded Sophie -- the procyonisk whose house they'd raided, and who had an attic so full of magic items that Sophie'd been blinded looking at it. A third was a kinetic spirit said to be imprisoned by the Church of the Eternal Void. The rest weren't obviously or recognizably anywhere near Midrein.
Eventually he shifted to complaining about mundane things, like being an enslaved zombie miner, and Lord Mosher suggested everyone get home to rest. When asked, he said that the zombification had been his will and thoughts being stolen by the Gray Lady (Tsuru's god) -- they were all being transformed into Gray Walkers. This wasn't supposed to be possible except on volunteers loyal to the Gray Lady. The 'cure' had been to enhance what was left until it was as strong as it was supposed to be, which was hoped would also stop the degeneration.
After a much needed snack, the trio headed home, but was sidetracked by Keit's suggestion that they go check out the procyonisk lady's house to see if she was even still there -- after all, wouldn't the demon Sophie had accidentally summoned, who the procyonisk had had imprisoned, be out for revenge?
The house was still there. The vor hounds in the backyard were several days dead, and the whole house glowed eerily blue, with blue bombs wandering around all inside it. The trio hid several hundred feet away, and Sophie made an illusion of the demon walk up and attack the wall, to see what would happen.
The resulting reaction was so powerful that Sophie felt it even through the tenuous connection of her illusion spell, which was utterly destroyed in what would be massive overkill if it hadn't been aimed at destroying a powerful demon. Luckily, it seemed to be a one-shot deal. So, maybe they could shadow-burn a hole in the wall near the room full of items, and Kiet could levitate said items out the hole?
About this time, they noticed that the hawk familiar was watching them through a large window on the second floor. After a bit of argument over *why* it was absolutely necessary to run away immediately, they immediately ran away, everyone piling onto Sophie's back.
After running really not all that far, Tsuru alerted them that the bird was following them. "Put up a smoke screen!" Kiet suggested. Sophie sneezed out a huge ball of smoke, and ran through the nearest door, into a meeting of what was obviously a band of criminals, much like themselves.
"What are you doing here?" They asked. Sophie stared at them, mute.
"Maybe we should leave," Kiet suggested.
"But it's OUT THERE!" Sophie cried.
"Squawk," said the bird, from just outside the door.
"I think it's friendly," Tsuru said. "That wasn't an angry squawk."
"Maybe we should just invite it in for dinner, then," Sophie snapped. The criminals were not amused with the suggestion.
"I bet it's a nice bird," Tsuru said.
"Why don't you go pet it then?" Sophie replied. Tsuru proceeded to go do so, following it off into the smoke as it moved back from the door.
Sophie, with Kiet still on her back, calmly walked out the door, then bolted off down the street... and slammed into a building, throwing Kiet off. She whirled in a random direction, and ran that way, repeating as necessary, until she emerged from the smoke cloud back at the procyonisk's house, which Flokin was in the process of burning down.
One room seemed immune to the spreading flame -- the display room on the bottom floor where Tsuru had almost been killed so long ago (weeks!). The mistress of the house was probably there. That left the attic room with all the magic virtually unguarded. Sophie shadow-burnt a hole in the wall, and flew up to it -- after the ritual, she'd 'accidentally' taken the non-broken set of drak wings.
As she entered, she was immediately blinded and confused by a confusing mess of floating and swirling runes in all different colors... closing her eyes worked to shut it off, though, and so without looking, she felt around for the crown she'd heard was here, somewhere, tossing everything that *wasn't* a crown out the hole behind her.
Eventually, she managed to find it. "Mr. Montegue said the crown would protect against mental effects," she thought to herself, "So it must be safe to wear." She plopped it onto her head, and it tried to take over her mind.
It failed. She reached out with her now free hands and all the other magic items she'd stolen flew up into them, as if by magic, glomming into a nice compact impossible ball-o-stuff. She tried to use the crown to search for Tsuru and Kiet, but it seemed to want to resist the new usage, and she didn't push it -- who knew what would happen if she lost a contest of will with it?
Flokin seemed very spooked by Sophie's use of the crown, especially in the beginning, when it wasn't clear who was going to win.
Meanwhile, Kiet and Tsuru were left standing near the building they'd tried to hide in while the smoke slowly blew away, and the leader of the group (a procyonisk, whom Kiet recognized from some previous situation in which his hawk had been injured) told them that they'd already lost one leader (Tormierre) and that if it was true (as Kiet and Tsuru asserted) that they'd never really liked the direction he was taking them (that is, starting a war) then they should make sure their new leader didn't go down the same path.
Sophie caught up to them after that. Seeing the bird resting on Tsuru's shoulder, she was a little suspicious.
"Are you being mind controlled, again?"
"No."
"Are you just saying that because you're mind controlled again?"
"No!"
"Well, I'm not mind-controlled either, although I think the crown was trying."
Then they went home, to get some sleep. Sophie stashed the big pile of magic crap under her bed, for later analysis.
last week next week
