Real Time Strategy
Feb. 21st, 2004 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we suffered through a session of the D+D Shadake game. The party immediately split up, because they thought they were just going to pass time without being bothered, then were bothered, and scattered to the four winds. This turned into a long, running combat across and around the martian city, which eventually got really really boring... at least for me.
There were also misunderstandings about what I was trying to describe to them, which I think might have stemmed partially from them not hearing what I was saying -- near the end of the night I was groggy and distracted by a throbbing pain in my mouth, accompanied by a worrysome swelling... the swelling is still there, but the pain is gone; I hope that means it's getting better, and not 'Aleve works for 12 hours as advertised'.
Since some of the party didn't feel it was safe to leave (because of the magical field around the caves), they decided to stay in the city and spend the night working on alchemy and creation magic. Jackie tried to use some alchemical candles he'd made to enhance his own alchemy, but the first one he lit backfired, turning him completely insubstantial. But not his equipment.
He had the party test whether he was invulnerable to energy weapons, and discovered that he was not (at least not against compound beamers), so didn't go on a suicide run to gather information.
So he ran out, yelling for someone to get his stuff, and then Adam sat on guard over him in one pyramid, while Hesperius and Shadarack set up a video game system in a different pyramid and started playing games to pass the time -- they didn't know how long Jackie's intangibility would last, but it was probably going to be quite a while, since the candle had been built to last hours. Being a wild surge, though, it might even be permanent.
After an hour or so, Jackie was still intangible, and Adam was attacked by a trio of fly-eyes that flew up and looked at him. One cast a spell to create walls of stone trapping him in the entrace to the pyramid, and then the three started flying around peering in through the air holes and tossing spells at him, most of which he captured. One destructive beam got through, but was stopped by the 200-point PPF that Hesperius had made with the help of the scale and passed out to the party, along with 'sulfur burp' guns.
Adam tried firing at the fly-eyes back through the air holes, but didn't do so well. Jackie heard the gunfire, and ran down to see what was going on, then ran through the wall of the pyramid to try to get Adam and Hesperius, who were in the next pyramid over. There were more fly eyes outside, and they tried to trap him in a bubble of stone, but of course he just ran through it.
Unfortunately, he ran through the nearest wall of the other pyramid instead of its door, and stumbled blindly into the spherical room at the bottom, sliding down towards the waste-disposal chute. "Ahh! Help!" he screamed, and Adam and Hesperius came down just in time to see him lose his grip and fall into the pipe, and through the bottom of it, as he wondered how he was able to hold onto the edge while insubstantial...
They followed, but were blocked by the disintegration ring for a while -- continued barrage by the sulfur blurp guns took it out. It led down below the city, where piles of bones and rubble and other refuse littered the floor. Jackie was there, standing on the piles of rubble, with a light. He yelled up to them, and was eaten by a giant worm. Which didn't hurt him at all, because he was intangible.
Eventually, they climbed up the wall of the pit and discovered that they were in the same pit outside the city that was crossed by the rail ties. They headed back to the city, only to see that it was full of swarming robots now -- spiders and fly eyes especially. They tried to duck behind a tooth to hide, but like the robots, they were all lit up with various glowing equipment, and were easily spotted. So the robots attacked!
Jackie ducked into one of the stone teeth for cover, while Hesperius and Shadarack fought the eyes. Hesperius turned himself invisible, although his position was marked by a cloud of sulfur smoke since he was still using the scale to enhance his illusion magic. Shadarack fired at the tiny flying eyes with his new burping sulfur gun, taking out one with a single shot (and massively overkilling it) but having trouble hitting them in general as they swarmed around him and peppered him with heat beams, burning through his PPF and getting some lucky hits that started fusing the joints on his armor, making it hard to move.
Then a fly-eye cast a spell at him and blinded him. Another attacked Hesperius, but didn't get through his PPF -- Hesperius was annoyed that the fly-eyes, unlike the rest of the robots, were able to follow the trail of smoke and try to hit him even though he was invisible.
Jackie tried to go get Adam, but ran into a spider and hid back in the tooth again for a bit, popping back out to help Hesperius and Shadarack with a cloud of paint. The little flying robots couldn't blink.
But the spiders and heat-beaming little flying guns continued to harass Shadarack, fusing his armor solid since they couldn't burn through it easily -- and then a fly-eye entombed the poor Hannah in a giant 10m cube of rock. Hesperius took out the spiders, then was trapped in a bubble of rock of his own, just after seeing a cloud of bubble-like robots swarming towards the cube with Shadarack inside.
Unable to move, Shadarack began focusing his luck on somehow escaping from the stony prison. This took a long time. Hesperius decided that he didn't want to emerge from the bubble until he had an army of fractals -- or rather, sulfurous fractals, since he was using the scale still -- at his side, and summoned and blasted his way out over the course of a minute.
Jackie finally got to Adam, though. All this time, Adam had been waiting in the pyramid for Jackie to bring back help -- not trapped, since he discovered that his compound beamer cut through the created stone like butter, but just waiting. After Jackie explained the situation, he ran outside and started trying to clear off the bubbles dragging Shadarack away... but was frustrated by the spellcasting fly-eyes, who *still* couldn't get a spell to stick on him, but had no problem putting up barriers of rock in his path to protect the cube from him. The cube got to the robot factory, and its bubbles were massively replenished, quickly dragging it into the center of the city where three tripods stood guard.
Adam was also harassed by a spider patrol, but his PPF held until Hesperius and his cavalry could come to the rescue, blowing it apart with massive overkill.
But was it too late for Shadarack? His cube was moving very quickly, and was almost to the central pyramid of the city, when his luck finally kicked in, and a tripod standing guard mistook it for an enemy and blasted it, killing the little bubble bots that were floating it along, and eating away at the stone, until Shadarack was freed. As soon as one arm was free, Shadarack used his digging tool to free himself the rest of the way, and took cover behind the remains of the cube from the tripod's disintegration cone.
Only to see a drakivolki emerge from the top of the pyramid, curse at him, and fire off a blue ray of destruction.
last week next week
And of course, I got home, sore and tired, to discover that they *still* haven't finished the anti-mold stuff in my bathroom. The half done job is much worse than living with the mold. This stinks!
There were also misunderstandings about what I was trying to describe to them, which I think might have stemmed partially from them not hearing what I was saying -- near the end of the night I was groggy and distracted by a throbbing pain in my mouth, accompanied by a worrysome swelling... the swelling is still there, but the pain is gone; I hope that means it's getting better, and not 'Aleve works for 12 hours as advertised'.
Since some of the party didn't feel it was safe to leave (because of the magical field around the caves), they decided to stay in the city and spend the night working on alchemy and creation magic. Jackie tried to use some alchemical candles he'd made to enhance his own alchemy, but the first one he lit backfired, turning him completely insubstantial. But not his equipment.
He had the party test whether he was invulnerable to energy weapons, and discovered that he was not (at least not against compound beamers), so didn't go on a suicide run to gather information.
So he ran out, yelling for someone to get his stuff, and then Adam sat on guard over him in one pyramid, while Hesperius and Shadarack set up a video game system in a different pyramid and started playing games to pass the time -- they didn't know how long Jackie's intangibility would last, but it was probably going to be quite a while, since the candle had been built to last hours. Being a wild surge, though, it might even be permanent.
After an hour or so, Jackie was still intangible, and Adam was attacked by a trio of fly-eyes that flew up and looked at him. One cast a spell to create walls of stone trapping him in the entrace to the pyramid, and then the three started flying around peering in through the air holes and tossing spells at him, most of which he captured. One destructive beam got through, but was stopped by the 200-point PPF that Hesperius had made with the help of the scale and passed out to the party, along with 'sulfur burp' guns.
Adam tried firing at the fly-eyes back through the air holes, but didn't do so well. Jackie heard the gunfire, and ran down to see what was going on, then ran through the wall of the pyramid to try to get Adam and Hesperius, who were in the next pyramid over. There were more fly eyes outside, and they tried to trap him in a bubble of stone, but of course he just ran through it.
Unfortunately, he ran through the nearest wall of the other pyramid instead of its door, and stumbled blindly into the spherical room at the bottom, sliding down towards the waste-disposal chute. "Ahh! Help!" he screamed, and Adam and Hesperius came down just in time to see him lose his grip and fall into the pipe, and through the bottom of it, as he wondered how he was able to hold onto the edge while insubstantial...
They followed, but were blocked by the disintegration ring for a while -- continued barrage by the sulfur blurp guns took it out. It led down below the city, where piles of bones and rubble and other refuse littered the floor. Jackie was there, standing on the piles of rubble, with a light. He yelled up to them, and was eaten by a giant worm. Which didn't hurt him at all, because he was intangible.
Eventually, they climbed up the wall of the pit and discovered that they were in the same pit outside the city that was crossed by the rail ties. They headed back to the city, only to see that it was full of swarming robots now -- spiders and fly eyes especially. They tried to duck behind a tooth to hide, but like the robots, they were all lit up with various glowing equipment, and were easily spotted. So the robots attacked!
Jackie ducked into one of the stone teeth for cover, while Hesperius and Shadarack fought the eyes. Hesperius turned himself invisible, although his position was marked by a cloud of sulfur smoke since he was still using the scale to enhance his illusion magic. Shadarack fired at the tiny flying eyes with his new burping sulfur gun, taking out one with a single shot (and massively overkilling it) but having trouble hitting them in general as they swarmed around him and peppered him with heat beams, burning through his PPF and getting some lucky hits that started fusing the joints on his armor, making it hard to move.
Then a fly-eye cast a spell at him and blinded him. Another attacked Hesperius, but didn't get through his PPF -- Hesperius was annoyed that the fly-eyes, unlike the rest of the robots, were able to follow the trail of smoke and try to hit him even though he was invisible.
Jackie tried to go get Adam, but ran into a spider and hid back in the tooth again for a bit, popping back out to help Hesperius and Shadarack with a cloud of paint. The little flying robots couldn't blink.
But the spiders and heat-beaming little flying guns continued to harass Shadarack, fusing his armor solid since they couldn't burn through it easily -- and then a fly-eye entombed the poor Hannah in a giant 10m cube of rock. Hesperius took out the spiders, then was trapped in a bubble of rock of his own, just after seeing a cloud of bubble-like robots swarming towards the cube with Shadarack inside.
Unable to move, Shadarack began focusing his luck on somehow escaping from the stony prison. This took a long time. Hesperius decided that he didn't want to emerge from the bubble until he had an army of fractals -- or rather, sulfurous fractals, since he was using the scale still -- at his side, and summoned and blasted his way out over the course of a minute.
Jackie finally got to Adam, though. All this time, Adam had been waiting in the pyramid for Jackie to bring back help -- not trapped, since he discovered that his compound beamer cut through the created stone like butter, but just waiting. After Jackie explained the situation, he ran outside and started trying to clear off the bubbles dragging Shadarack away... but was frustrated by the spellcasting fly-eyes, who *still* couldn't get a spell to stick on him, but had no problem putting up barriers of rock in his path to protect the cube from him. The cube got to the robot factory, and its bubbles were massively replenished, quickly dragging it into the center of the city where three tripods stood guard.
Adam was also harassed by a spider patrol, but his PPF held until Hesperius and his cavalry could come to the rescue, blowing it apart with massive overkill.
But was it too late for Shadarack? His cube was moving very quickly, and was almost to the central pyramid of the city, when his luck finally kicked in, and a tripod standing guard mistook it for an enemy and blasted it, killing the little bubble bots that were floating it along, and eating away at the stone, until Shadarack was freed. As soon as one arm was free, Shadarack used his digging tool to free himself the rest of the way, and took cover behind the remains of the cube from the tripod's disintegration cone.
Only to see a drakivolki emerge from the top of the pyramid, curse at him, and fire off a blue ray of destruction.
last week next week
And of course, I got home, sore and tired, to discover that they *still* haven't finished the anti-mold stuff in my bathroom. The half done job is much worse than living with the mold. This stinks!
