Friends in Low Places
Dec. 6th, 2003 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lazar's friday Shadake game. He wasn't feeling very well, so we spent a bit of time talking about the game I'm going to run for this group next, but we did eventually get quite a bit done.
Sophie was awoken in the middle of the night by the ghost of the steel wizard, taking his stuff back. "Stop it!" she said. "No, it's mine!" "You can't use it! You're a ghost!" "..." "I need it to... to save the city!" "From who?" "The Argent Claw!"
At that, he vanished, with all his stuff. But he came back a while later to announce that he would help her save the city. Then immediately vanished, never to be seen again.
It turned out that not *everything* she'd stolen was 'his', though, although the vast majority was. Some experimentation identified a wand of bubbles, a bag of holding with another opening that didn't seem to be in the same city, and possibly not in the same world, a book of magic spells that taught one spell to you, as long as you didn't turn the page (Sophie learned 'Polymorph Self', after turning the page away from 'Feign Death'), and a ball of yarn that expanded and tangled you up, holding you paralyzed all night while you screamed for help that never came until Morning, when your friends came looking for you, worried.
Tsuru released Sophie from the ball of twine, then they gathered up all the magic items (to sell after class) and headed to History, where they were to learn about the Second War of Midreign.
When they came to the house where class was supposed to be held, it was dark, quiet, and locked. Knocking on the door proved futile, so Sophie decided to knock harder, and accidentally (thanks to a surge of power from the crown she hadn't been able to remove) blew the door to splinters.
"Oh, don't worry, it's probably just his idea of a doorbell. It'll reform after we walk inside, watch."
Sure enough, it did, to her complete surprise.
The inside was deserted, empty and uninteresting, but Sophie saw a spell hit them just before they decided that, and readied a barrier to catch it as she convinced her friends to 'double check' everything.
"Obviously, someone doesn't want us to search this house," Lazarus said, appearing like a ghost behind the trio, "We should investigate further." Then he ran down the corridor and vanished.
Tsuru, Kiet, and even Flokin followed, but Sophie was reluctant to walk into a field that made people go away, and only did so in the end because Flokin had acted angry at something he saw beyond the field of making things disappear, which implied that there was something on the other side.
Sure enough, on the other side was... chaos. And lots of fire, in all different colors, thanks to seven different-colored fire elementals prowling around under the direction of Wesley (aka The Argent Claw Reborn) who seemed to be interrogating the teacher.
Tsuru leaped to attack, but was intercepted by several elementals. Kiet threw a spear of doom at The Argent Claw, wounding him, but as the fiend turned to respond BOTH of them were blown out of the room in different directions as Lord Aberhad's voice rang out, "You shall NOT touch him!" Just the same as when Lazarus had been blown back out through the waterfall.
Sophie summoned a magma elemental out of a stone pillar, Tsuru flailed about with Magebane, and Kiet used his own magic, and the battle was soon over -- the elementals had little stomach for fighting people who could injure them without their master present. The only casualty was the teacher, who'd been cruelly slaughtered by an elemental as soon as the fighting started. Apparently there'd been a hostage standoff going on before the trio arrived, that no one had seen fit to inform them of.
Lazarus was also wounded - set on fire by a bluish flame that didn't seem to be burning his body. Sophie reluctantly put him out along with the rest of the house, and he woke up after muttering 'but he *didn't* know!'
Chatting with Lazarus, he agreed to take the party to see Lord Aberhad, since with Sophie's crown (which was actually a demilich), Tsuru's Magebane, and Kiet's anti-Argent-Claw protection spells, none of them could be made to talk.
Lord Aberhad was hidden deep underground, in the cellars beneath Lord Mosher's mansion (a nearly unheard of arrangement -- houses in Midreign didn't *have* cellars, as a rule). He was unconscious, having been poisoned by his head servant (Tsuru related). Lord Mosher was working on a cure, but had been working on one for some time, so...
Mentioning the Argent Claw in Lord Aberhad's presence elicited a raving outburst -- 'Bring me the crystal to trap him!'
After selling Lord Mosher a salt shaker of purifying (which they guessed was probably meant to de-poison food) to try, the party + Lazarus set out to get the crystal.
The crystal was probably in Lord Aberhad's tower... but fortunately, Theckla Roper, their sadly-neglected-cell leader and also Tsuru's occasional girlfriend, had managed to get inside during the entrance exam. She'd know how to get back in.
Theckla's answer turned out to be 'I'll seduce the guards, while the rest of you are carried in in cleverly concealed bottles'. She knew a bottle mage. A crazy, insane procyonisk bottle mage, who spent what looked like millions of mana from The Largest Mana Crystal Ever bottling Sophie and her materia and all the magic items she was carrying and her PET DEMILICH.
The party was released onto the third floor of the tower, that night, having spent the intervening hours in stasis. They were given instructions to get to Lord Aberhad's Special Treasure Room. One of the instructions was 'don't touch anything'.
With Tsuru walking in front, waving MageBane around to cut through the detection spells that filled the air like spiderwebs to Sophie's sight, the party made its way up two flights to the treasure chamber, where all their money was automatically teleported out of their pockets and pouches and added to the neatly sorted stacks.
"This is an EVIL ROOM!" Lazarus whined.
Tsuru phased them through the wall, and they stole the crystal dagger reeking with spiritual magic that was, no doubt, the crystal Lord Aberhad had spoke of. Getting away would have been routine, but they weren't about to leave their money behind. Using Magebane to try to clear away the magic guarding the coins as they had the spells on the stairs, Lazarus snagged 48 diamonds (about 48 million qz).
The spell wasn't fooled, and the golems were outside waiting, although they didn't immediately strike. After some quiet consultation ("Look, we're trying to save the whole city from the Argent Claw. That's worth more than 48 diamonds." "This is more than we're going to be *paid* for saving the city, Tsuru." "Your LIFE is worth more than 48 diamonds, Sophie." "My family's really in trouble...") they decided that Lazarus, as the one already holding the coins, would take them and run for it, after Sophie cast an obscurement spell on him.
She cast it on him very well. The golems were only fooled for a moment, but that was long enough for them to miss their target, and for the rest of the party to follow him down and out the window.
Below, the guards had arrested Theckla's companions (since being seduced while the tower was robbed and the alarms were set off was a little suspicious, even to a guard in the middle of being seduced), but Theckla herself was warned to escape in advance (by Tsuru's familiar) and got away. Thus did Tsuru evade his death vision.
Lazarus played straight with the party, and gave them their share of the loot, then everyone headed down to see Lord Aberhad again to, hopefully, elicit more insane ramblings about how to actually *use* the crystal dagger.
last session next session
Sophie was awoken in the middle of the night by the ghost of the steel wizard, taking his stuff back. "Stop it!" she said. "No, it's mine!" "You can't use it! You're a ghost!" "..." "I need it to... to save the city!" "From who?" "The Argent Claw!"
At that, he vanished, with all his stuff. But he came back a while later to announce that he would help her save the city. Then immediately vanished, never to be seen again.
It turned out that not *everything* she'd stolen was 'his', though, although the vast majority was. Some experimentation identified a wand of bubbles, a bag of holding with another opening that didn't seem to be in the same city, and possibly not in the same world, a book of magic spells that taught one spell to you, as long as you didn't turn the page (Sophie learned 'Polymorph Self', after turning the page away from 'Feign Death'), and a ball of yarn that expanded and tangled you up, holding you paralyzed all night while you screamed for help that never came until Morning, when your friends came looking for you, worried.
Tsuru released Sophie from the ball of twine, then they gathered up all the magic items (to sell after class) and headed to History, where they were to learn about the Second War of Midreign.
When they came to the house where class was supposed to be held, it was dark, quiet, and locked. Knocking on the door proved futile, so Sophie decided to knock harder, and accidentally (thanks to a surge of power from the crown she hadn't been able to remove) blew the door to splinters.
"Oh, don't worry, it's probably just his idea of a doorbell. It'll reform after we walk inside, watch."
Sure enough, it did, to her complete surprise.
The inside was deserted, empty and uninteresting, but Sophie saw a spell hit them just before they decided that, and readied a barrier to catch it as she convinced her friends to 'double check' everything.
"Obviously, someone doesn't want us to search this house," Lazarus said, appearing like a ghost behind the trio, "We should investigate further." Then he ran down the corridor and vanished.
Tsuru, Kiet, and even Flokin followed, but Sophie was reluctant to walk into a field that made people go away, and only did so in the end because Flokin had acted angry at something he saw beyond the field of making things disappear, which implied that there was something on the other side.
Sure enough, on the other side was... chaos. And lots of fire, in all different colors, thanks to seven different-colored fire elementals prowling around under the direction of Wesley (aka The Argent Claw Reborn) who seemed to be interrogating the teacher.
Tsuru leaped to attack, but was intercepted by several elementals. Kiet threw a spear of doom at The Argent Claw, wounding him, but as the fiend turned to respond BOTH of them were blown out of the room in different directions as Lord Aberhad's voice rang out, "You shall NOT touch him!" Just the same as when Lazarus had been blown back out through the waterfall.
Sophie summoned a magma elemental out of a stone pillar, Tsuru flailed about with Magebane, and Kiet used his own magic, and the battle was soon over -- the elementals had little stomach for fighting people who could injure them without their master present. The only casualty was the teacher, who'd been cruelly slaughtered by an elemental as soon as the fighting started. Apparently there'd been a hostage standoff going on before the trio arrived, that no one had seen fit to inform them of.
Lazarus was also wounded - set on fire by a bluish flame that didn't seem to be burning his body. Sophie reluctantly put him out along with the rest of the house, and he woke up after muttering 'but he *didn't* know!'
Chatting with Lazarus, he agreed to take the party to see Lord Aberhad, since with Sophie's crown (which was actually a demilich), Tsuru's Magebane, and Kiet's anti-Argent-Claw protection spells, none of them could be made to talk.
Lord Aberhad was hidden deep underground, in the cellars beneath Lord Mosher's mansion (a nearly unheard of arrangement -- houses in Midreign didn't *have* cellars, as a rule). He was unconscious, having been poisoned by his head servant (Tsuru related). Lord Mosher was working on a cure, but had been working on one for some time, so...
Mentioning the Argent Claw in Lord Aberhad's presence elicited a raving outburst -- 'Bring me the crystal to trap him!'
After selling Lord Mosher a salt shaker of purifying (which they guessed was probably meant to de-poison food) to try, the party + Lazarus set out to get the crystal.
The crystal was probably in Lord Aberhad's tower... but fortunately, Theckla Roper, their sadly-neglected-cell leader and also Tsuru's occasional girlfriend, had managed to get inside during the entrance exam. She'd know how to get back in.
Theckla's answer turned out to be 'I'll seduce the guards, while the rest of you are carried in in cleverly concealed bottles'. She knew a bottle mage. A crazy, insane procyonisk bottle mage, who spent what looked like millions of mana from The Largest Mana Crystal Ever bottling Sophie and her materia and all the magic items she was carrying and her PET DEMILICH.
The party was released onto the third floor of the tower, that night, having spent the intervening hours in stasis. They were given instructions to get to Lord Aberhad's Special Treasure Room. One of the instructions was 'don't touch anything'.
With Tsuru walking in front, waving MageBane around to cut through the detection spells that filled the air like spiderwebs to Sophie's sight, the party made its way up two flights to the treasure chamber, where all their money was automatically teleported out of their pockets and pouches and added to the neatly sorted stacks.
"This is an EVIL ROOM!" Lazarus whined.
Tsuru phased them through the wall, and they stole the crystal dagger reeking with spiritual magic that was, no doubt, the crystal Lord Aberhad had spoke of. Getting away would have been routine, but they weren't about to leave their money behind. Using Magebane to try to clear away the magic guarding the coins as they had the spells on the stairs, Lazarus snagged 48 diamonds (about 48 million qz).
The spell wasn't fooled, and the golems were outside waiting, although they didn't immediately strike. After some quiet consultation ("Look, we're trying to save the whole city from the Argent Claw. That's worth more than 48 diamonds." "This is more than we're going to be *paid* for saving the city, Tsuru." "Your LIFE is worth more than 48 diamonds, Sophie." "My family's really in trouble...") they decided that Lazarus, as the one already holding the coins, would take them and run for it, after Sophie cast an obscurement spell on him.
She cast it on him very well. The golems were only fooled for a moment, but that was long enough for them to miss their target, and for the rest of the party to follow him down and out the window.
Below, the guards had arrested Theckla's companions (since being seduced while the tower was robbed and the alarms were set off was a little suspicious, even to a guard in the middle of being seduced), but Theckla herself was warned to escape in advance (by Tsuru's familiar) and got away. Thus did Tsuru evade his death vision.
Lazarus played straight with the party, and gave them their share of the loot, then everyone headed down to see Lord Aberhad again to, hopefully, elicit more insane ramblings about how to actually *use* the crystal dagger.
last session next session
