Draco Ex Dairigold
Dec. 20th, 2003 02:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lazar's Friday Shadake game, in which we finished up the Midrien campaign with a big battle of doom... then sort of summarized the aftermath.
Right from the beginning, the plan was messed up. Rather than running through the prepared positions at the port, they had to stage the battle in front of the White Fence, because that was the nearest exit from the sewers to the harbor short of popping out in the water itself.
This meant that the battle was relatively small, and that the powerful anti-elemental weaponry positioned at the port was not present -- so it almost would have been better not to have them the battle there at all.
But hindsight is always easier than foresight, and they had a battle, and the Argent claw teleported in instantly before they even got outside the building, although Tsuru and Keit, and some assassins hired to protect Tsuru, and the bottle mage, and Philander, were already in position, having set up in place well before the battle even started.
The others pushed out from the White Fence, shoving aside the combatants to (ostensibly) clear a path for Sophie to carry Lord Aberhad to the port. Sophie decided that the path being cleared was way, way, WAY too close to the two-dozen or so elementals and priests that had teleported in with the Argent Claw, and decided to go the other way, scooting through the battle to take cover from the enemy horde behind a corner of a building.
Where she ran into two Drakivolki from Shaoli, currently hunting for Razian Manis (like Sophie) to hunt. "Please help me!" she said, to confuse them. "I need to get him to safety!"
As she had no drawn and/or military grade weapons on her, was carrying a wounded Zox of all things, and was being chased by three vicious fire demons by then, the Drakivolki let her pass and tried to block the demons' path.
One of the demons was grounded by a spell of Kiet's, one was pounced by Flokin, and the third was held up be the soldiers, but an enemy priest teleported in front of Sophie. She forced him to dodge back with a spell, and squeezed around him, trying to circle the building.
Meanwhile, the bottle mage was down, his humongous materia claimed by one of the priests of the Argent Claw, who used it to try to blow up the massive kinetic elemental Lazarus had released as a diversion to hold down the Argent Claw and his main forces while they dealt with some fire elementals that had slipped past. The kinetic elemental, having no body, was not capable of being blown up, but the people standing near it were -- including several of the party's allies, a few of the Argent Claw's priests and demons, and many many soldiers from Shaoli and Razia alike. The Argent Claw struck back in anger, taking out the entire building, killing only his own forces, as the bottle mage was already dead, and Philander (who'd been in that building) had already accidentally shifted himself into the middle of melee with a badly tuned caster shell.
Back with Sophie, an ill-aimed spell nearly killed both Flokin and the (other) elemental he was fighting -- and after a few more attacks both fell unconscious. The priest chasing her was brought down by a swarm of white rats from the Muriel Mines, and a summoned wyvern menacing her was crushed by a ball of bone from the sky, where Kiet had wild-surged while putting an elemental (who'd noticed that spells were coming from above, but couldn't see where, and had been flying back and forth and coming dangerously near knocking Kiet out of the air) into stasis. She ran all the way around the building, just in time to see the Argent Claw force Tsuru to blink away, with a massive damaging spell.
Something (something round, made of gold, and sitting on her head) made her charge at the Argent Claw, flailing at him with a whip of white fire. It got his attention, and he fired back with all the power he could muster from the remnant's of the bottle mage's materia, which he summoned. He did about 30,000 damage. Sophie consumed the entirety of her carefully horded shadowfire materia for protection, but didn't know in time that what was coming was fire, and the 'burn away magic' spell just didn't do enough to blunt the attack, not even combined with the demon's protection.
Luckily, she was still wearing weaver silk, impervious to the fire the Argent Claw had chosen to throw at her in his anger, and still had 2 hit points left after the backwash from the fire hitting the fireproof armor singed all the skin (and much of the flesh) from her face, hands, and other unprotected areas.
By this time, most of the other targets were down -- the bird from the procyonisk mage's house had died taking on the twins, the elementals and priests were all pretty much down, the manis and drakivolki -- and all Sophie, Kiet and Tsuru's friends -- were (for the most part) dead or disabled by collateral damage, and even the kinetic elemental was gone, after flying too near the stranger with the cow.
Sophie and Kiet and Tsuru threw everything they had at the Argent Claw -- fire, and magebane, and magma, and zombies, and wild surges. Oh, and Sophie was compelled to try to put the evil crown artifact on the Argent Claw's head, but luckily failed. The embattled archmage blew them all back with an explosion, but was paralyzed from the waist down by that point, and sorely wounded, and Kiet tossed the soul-sucking dagger straight through his eye, delivering the coup-de-grace.
Then the quiet man on the cow walked over, took the crown and the dagger containing the Argent Claw's soul, and left. Tsuru urged Sophie and Kiet not to interfere -- that wasn't just any old man, he told them later, that was the Dragon!
Then they healed who they could, despaired over the lack of priceless magic items carried into battle by the Argent Claw's priest, and headed home to rest. And sure enough, soon Lord Aberhad had recovered, and things went back to normal in Midreign, although the empires were still at war.
Sophie found herself freed from the crown and the demon -- who'd fought for the Argent Claw, and died in the battle -- and later had herself freed from Flokin, who she no longer needed, and could tell did not enjoy being bound to her 'service'.
last week next week, different mostly-failed-attempt-to-start-a-game
Afterwards we helped Shadarack make a character for the next game -- a very lucky Indiana Jones type searching for ancient alien treasure in the moons of Jupiter, and dragging the party along with him. It looks like I'm going to have to give him a ride to the game and back -- it's not far out of my way, but it means going through the worst of traffic on the way there at least. Better than making him ride the bus all the way to Renton, though, and besides, having company in the car should make the *rest* of the trip more interesting.
Right from the beginning, the plan was messed up. Rather than running through the prepared positions at the port, they had to stage the battle in front of the White Fence, because that was the nearest exit from the sewers to the harbor short of popping out in the water itself.
This meant that the battle was relatively small, and that the powerful anti-elemental weaponry positioned at the port was not present -- so it almost would have been better not to have them the battle there at all.
But hindsight is always easier than foresight, and they had a battle, and the Argent claw teleported in instantly before they even got outside the building, although Tsuru and Keit, and some assassins hired to protect Tsuru, and the bottle mage, and Philander, were already in position, having set up in place well before the battle even started.
The others pushed out from the White Fence, shoving aside the combatants to (ostensibly) clear a path for Sophie to carry Lord Aberhad to the port. Sophie decided that the path being cleared was way, way, WAY too close to the two-dozen or so elementals and priests that had teleported in with the Argent Claw, and decided to go the other way, scooting through the battle to take cover from the enemy horde behind a corner of a building.
Where she ran into two Drakivolki from Shaoli, currently hunting for Razian Manis (like Sophie) to hunt. "Please help me!" she said, to confuse them. "I need to get him to safety!"
As she had no drawn and/or military grade weapons on her, was carrying a wounded Zox of all things, and was being chased by three vicious fire demons by then, the Drakivolki let her pass and tried to block the demons' path.
One of the demons was grounded by a spell of Kiet's, one was pounced by Flokin, and the third was held up be the soldiers, but an enemy priest teleported in front of Sophie. She forced him to dodge back with a spell, and squeezed around him, trying to circle the building.
Meanwhile, the bottle mage was down, his humongous materia claimed by one of the priests of the Argent Claw, who used it to try to blow up the massive kinetic elemental Lazarus had released as a diversion to hold down the Argent Claw and his main forces while they dealt with some fire elementals that had slipped past. The kinetic elemental, having no body, was not capable of being blown up, but the people standing near it were -- including several of the party's allies, a few of the Argent Claw's priests and demons, and many many soldiers from Shaoli and Razia alike. The Argent Claw struck back in anger, taking out the entire building, killing only his own forces, as the bottle mage was already dead, and Philander (who'd been in that building) had already accidentally shifted himself into the middle of melee with a badly tuned caster shell.
Back with Sophie, an ill-aimed spell nearly killed both Flokin and the (other) elemental he was fighting -- and after a few more attacks both fell unconscious. The priest chasing her was brought down by a swarm of white rats from the Muriel Mines, and a summoned wyvern menacing her was crushed by a ball of bone from the sky, where Kiet had wild-surged while putting an elemental (who'd noticed that spells were coming from above, but couldn't see where, and had been flying back and forth and coming dangerously near knocking Kiet out of the air) into stasis. She ran all the way around the building, just in time to see the Argent Claw force Tsuru to blink away, with a massive damaging spell.
Something (something round, made of gold, and sitting on her head) made her charge at the Argent Claw, flailing at him with a whip of white fire. It got his attention, and he fired back with all the power he could muster from the remnant's of the bottle mage's materia, which he summoned. He did about 30,000 damage. Sophie consumed the entirety of her carefully horded shadowfire materia for protection, but didn't know in time that what was coming was fire, and the 'burn away magic' spell just didn't do enough to blunt the attack, not even combined with the demon's protection.
Luckily, she was still wearing weaver silk, impervious to the fire the Argent Claw had chosen to throw at her in his anger, and still had 2 hit points left after the backwash from the fire hitting the fireproof armor singed all the skin (and much of the flesh) from her face, hands, and other unprotected areas.
By this time, most of the other targets were down -- the bird from the procyonisk mage's house had died taking on the twins, the elementals and priests were all pretty much down, the manis and drakivolki -- and all Sophie, Kiet and Tsuru's friends -- were (for the most part) dead or disabled by collateral damage, and even the kinetic elemental was gone, after flying too near the stranger with the cow.
Sophie and Kiet and Tsuru threw everything they had at the Argent Claw -- fire, and magebane, and magma, and zombies, and wild surges. Oh, and Sophie was compelled to try to put the evil crown artifact on the Argent Claw's head, but luckily failed. The embattled archmage blew them all back with an explosion, but was paralyzed from the waist down by that point, and sorely wounded, and Kiet tossed the soul-sucking dagger straight through his eye, delivering the coup-de-grace.
Then the quiet man on the cow walked over, took the crown and the dagger containing the Argent Claw's soul, and left. Tsuru urged Sophie and Kiet not to interfere -- that wasn't just any old man, he told them later, that was the Dragon!
Then they healed who they could, despaired over the lack of priceless magic items carried into battle by the Argent Claw's priest, and headed home to rest. And sure enough, soon Lord Aberhad had recovered, and things went back to normal in Midreign, although the empires were still at war.
Sophie found herself freed from the crown and the demon -- who'd fought for the Argent Claw, and died in the battle -- and later had herself freed from Flokin, who she no longer needed, and could tell did not enjoy being bound to her 'service'.
last week next week, different mostly-failed-attempt-to-start-a-game
Afterwards we helped Shadarack make a character for the next game -- a very lucky Indiana Jones type searching for ancient alien treasure in the moons of Jupiter, and dragging the party along with him. It looks like I'm going to have to give him a ride to the game and back -- it's not far out of my way, but it means going through the worst of traffic on the way there at least. Better than making him ride the bus all the way to Renton, though, and besides, having company in the car should make the *rest* of the trip more interesting.
