Travel Arrangements
Apr. 2nd, 2004 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had a session of Jeff's Dragonlance campaign. Everyone was there on time this time (which means that it probably *was* a misunderstanding that made the two new people late the last few sessions), but we still spent a very long time bickering (or at least, vigorously discussing an important issue) before actually accomplishing anything, or for that matter leaving the city.
So the party was heading for Nightlund, to retrieve a magic gem for Dalamar, the head of the order of the black robes. Said party had no cleric. This was seen as a huge danger to most of them, although Sonnet thought that between her bard spells and various items and potions, they had enough healing.
Through long argument, it eventually came down to the question of Restoration. They were going to face lots of undead, it seemed certain, and had no forseeable source of the healing magic that would reverse the more permanent kinds of ability drain and life drain. Unless they hired a cleric.
Hiring a cleric experienced enough to heal the party was not going to be cheap... unless you compared it to the quite considerable price of buying potions and salves. They eventually decided to put the decision off until they'd travelled three days to the city nearer to the border with Nightlund, since those three days were on a well traveled and patrolled highway.
After stocking up on a few more things (some people needed horses, and Mike decided to fill up his bag of holding with 500 feet of rope and a year's supply of trail rations), the three days on the well-traveled highway passed uneventfully. The city did have clerics for hire, so they took on Nerilka, a seventh level cleric of Mishakal, who agreed to follow them around for 35 steel a day, and cast healing spells on them for an additional fee, provided they kept her out of combat. If she was forced to fight for them, her fee would increase to 'a share of all the treasure found on the expedition', which was likely to be considerably more.
It was only one day from that city to the small town where they were to meet Kelwick, who Dalamar's agent had told them would be able to lead them to the gem they sought. On the way, Murphy spotted an obvious ambush spot, where the path narrowed to single file as it passed through a dense forest. Mike and Kijji loaded Kijji's raven up with invisible defensive spells, and sent it to scout out the area and see if there was actually an ambush in place, and it quickly discovered that yes, there *was* an ambush, and apparently they had a wizard who habitually cast Detect Magic on passing birds to see if they were familiars. The precautions proved sufficient to keep the raven from actually being injured by the multiple arrows that flew at it, and it returned to report the general area where the ambush was staged.
"Maybe we should just go around..."
"Are you kidding? They might have good treasure."
"Right! I mean, that is, we can't leave them here to ambush the next group of innocent people to happen along."
So Sonnet pulled a lion out of her bag of tricks, and sent it ahead of the party to draw fire, while the rest waited at the edge of long range, Mike and Murphy preparing to unleash fireballs once the archers gave their position away by firing. Unfortunately, the path was a bit too narrow, and the forest too thick, for them to get a good bead on the archers from six hundred feet away. More unfortunately, the wizard among the bandits knew how to cast fireball spells too.
So after pegging where they thought the wizard was with a couple fireballs, the party raced forwards at their various speeds, except for Mike, who hung back readying a counterspell -- a good move. It saved Kijj, who got to the front the fastest, from getting fried. Kijj's shiny new amulet, and armor, and the shield spell he'd cast as soon as the lion (now deceased) had seemed to smell the enemy kept him safe from the first volley of arrows. Kijj magic-missiled the one archer he managed to spot, endured another volley of fire, and was then lightning bolted, along with Sonnet and Thor, by the wizard, who boldy set down in the middle of the path to aim his spell.
Kijj charged forwards, channeling magic energy through his spear, and skewered the wizard, who was then finished off by an arrow from Thor's bow. Twelve arrows shot down from the trees towards the poor minotaur, and he decided it was time to run back and drink a few healing potions.
By this time, Morgan had snuck close to the archers, but they were safely up in various trees, thirty feet off the ground. So Sonnet reached again into her back of tricks and found -- what luck! -- a rhinoscerous. "Knock down THAT tree!" she ordered it, and it proceeded to try its hardest to do just that. The archer plummeted from his perch, but was saved by a safety line... and left dangling upside down, without his bow, fifteen feet off the ground, at which point Morgan shot him with his hand crossbows.
The archers were tough, though, and even with the rhino (and Murphy's grease spells) knocking them out of the trees, it still took a long time to take them down. Sonnet was taken out, but saved by her dog, which ran her to safety in the person of Mike and his healing gloves. Mostly they wasted their arrows on the rhino, though, and eventually only one was left. He jumped out of the tree and tried to run away, but was shot down where he stood (by Morgan's dual-sneak-attack-hand-crossbows-from-hiding move, again), and the party was victorious.
The bandits did, indeed, have quite a lot of loot on them, including the black-robed wizard's spellbook.
A few hours later, the party reached the town, where they met up with Kelwick. Who turned out to be a kender. He told them that they'd need to be able to fly or climb to get across a huge chasm, so they stocked up on fly scrolls while selling and identifying the loot. Morgan was leery about that part of the journey, but Kelwick insisted that if there was another way through the forest, he didn't know it, and eventually he relented.
After taking a ferry across the river, they were accosted by a Sivak draconian, who told them that since they'd killed the bandit gang, they were now responsible for his debts -- or rather, of the treasure they'd retrieved from his body, a share should have been set aside to pay off his creditors. The party objected that based on the rules of their homelands, that was not the case. The incident ended when Mike demanded proof that the Sivak was actually owed money by the black robe they'd killed.
"I'll, um, go get it."
"Great, we'll be back this way in a couple weeks."
"If I find it quickly, I'll catch up to you."
"Okay. We're heading for this village named blah."
The party was heading for blah, but didn't stop there, instead continuing until nightfall forced them to set up, well, Rope Tricks. Those didn't last the whole night, however, and during the last hour of the night, while the non-casters were standing a proper watch, Kelwick leapt to his feet, exclaiming that 'Jasper says something's coming!'
Kelwick sent Jasper -- his imaginary friend, that he'd been talking to all day -- out to scout out the nature of the opponent, but Sonnet and Thor didn't trust that Jasper actually existed, and went out to scout on their own. Thor in particular wandered 200 feet from the camp, and only found the Dread Wraith as its chill claws passed through his armor and drained his health.
Thor tried to attack it with his sword, but it didn't work, and he was drained again, and sent running for Nerilka to heal him. Morgan woke up the casters, and they started firing magic missiles at the creature, while it flew around draining health at will from assorted party members. Kelwick hit it once with his black sling-staff, then managed to miss it twice in a row with his returning throwing axe... but the endless stream of magic missiles from two wands, a wizard, and two sorcerers was too much for even that fearsome a creature, and it was destroyed.
During the aftermath, Kelwick revealed that Jasper was his axe. By arguing with it, while it hovered in front of him and wiggled back and forth in response.
Nerilka healed those who were wounded (and would otherwise have remained wounded for the duration of the mission), and the party got what rest it could in the remainder of the night, but everyone would be down a few spells for the next day, since the incident had happened so close to morning.
last week next week
So the party was heading for Nightlund, to retrieve a magic gem for Dalamar, the head of the order of the black robes. Said party had no cleric. This was seen as a huge danger to most of them, although Sonnet thought that between her bard spells and various items and potions, they had enough healing.
Through long argument, it eventually came down to the question of Restoration. They were going to face lots of undead, it seemed certain, and had no forseeable source of the healing magic that would reverse the more permanent kinds of ability drain and life drain. Unless they hired a cleric.
Hiring a cleric experienced enough to heal the party was not going to be cheap... unless you compared it to the quite considerable price of buying potions and salves. They eventually decided to put the decision off until they'd travelled three days to the city nearer to the border with Nightlund, since those three days were on a well traveled and patrolled highway.
After stocking up on a few more things (some people needed horses, and Mike decided to fill up his bag of holding with 500 feet of rope and a year's supply of trail rations), the three days on the well-traveled highway passed uneventfully. The city did have clerics for hire, so they took on Nerilka, a seventh level cleric of Mishakal, who agreed to follow them around for 35 steel a day, and cast healing spells on them for an additional fee, provided they kept her out of combat. If she was forced to fight for them, her fee would increase to 'a share of all the treasure found on the expedition', which was likely to be considerably more.
It was only one day from that city to the small town where they were to meet Kelwick, who Dalamar's agent had told them would be able to lead them to the gem they sought. On the way, Murphy spotted an obvious ambush spot, where the path narrowed to single file as it passed through a dense forest. Mike and Kijji loaded Kijji's raven up with invisible defensive spells, and sent it to scout out the area and see if there was actually an ambush in place, and it quickly discovered that yes, there *was* an ambush, and apparently they had a wizard who habitually cast Detect Magic on passing birds to see if they were familiars. The precautions proved sufficient to keep the raven from actually being injured by the multiple arrows that flew at it, and it returned to report the general area where the ambush was staged.
"Maybe we should just go around..."
"Are you kidding? They might have good treasure."
"Right! I mean, that is, we can't leave them here to ambush the next group of innocent people to happen along."
So Sonnet pulled a lion out of her bag of tricks, and sent it ahead of the party to draw fire, while the rest waited at the edge of long range, Mike and Murphy preparing to unleash fireballs once the archers gave their position away by firing. Unfortunately, the path was a bit too narrow, and the forest too thick, for them to get a good bead on the archers from six hundred feet away. More unfortunately, the wizard among the bandits knew how to cast fireball spells too.
So after pegging where they thought the wizard was with a couple fireballs, the party raced forwards at their various speeds, except for Mike, who hung back readying a counterspell -- a good move. It saved Kijj, who got to the front the fastest, from getting fried. Kijj's shiny new amulet, and armor, and the shield spell he'd cast as soon as the lion (now deceased) had seemed to smell the enemy kept him safe from the first volley of arrows. Kijj magic-missiled the one archer he managed to spot, endured another volley of fire, and was then lightning bolted, along with Sonnet and Thor, by the wizard, who boldy set down in the middle of the path to aim his spell.
Kijj charged forwards, channeling magic energy through his spear, and skewered the wizard, who was then finished off by an arrow from Thor's bow. Twelve arrows shot down from the trees towards the poor minotaur, and he decided it was time to run back and drink a few healing potions.
By this time, Morgan had snuck close to the archers, but they were safely up in various trees, thirty feet off the ground. So Sonnet reached again into her back of tricks and found -- what luck! -- a rhinoscerous. "Knock down THAT tree!" she ordered it, and it proceeded to try its hardest to do just that. The archer plummeted from his perch, but was saved by a safety line... and left dangling upside down, without his bow, fifteen feet off the ground, at which point Morgan shot him with his hand crossbows.
The archers were tough, though, and even with the rhino (and Murphy's grease spells) knocking them out of the trees, it still took a long time to take them down. Sonnet was taken out, but saved by her dog, which ran her to safety in the person of Mike and his healing gloves. Mostly they wasted their arrows on the rhino, though, and eventually only one was left. He jumped out of the tree and tried to run away, but was shot down where he stood (by Morgan's dual-sneak-attack-hand-crossbows-from-hiding move, again), and the party was victorious.
The bandits did, indeed, have quite a lot of loot on them, including the black-robed wizard's spellbook.
A few hours later, the party reached the town, where they met up with Kelwick. Who turned out to be a kender. He told them that they'd need to be able to fly or climb to get across a huge chasm, so they stocked up on fly scrolls while selling and identifying the loot. Morgan was leery about that part of the journey, but Kelwick insisted that if there was another way through the forest, he didn't know it, and eventually he relented.
After taking a ferry across the river, they were accosted by a Sivak draconian, who told them that since they'd killed the bandit gang, they were now responsible for his debts -- or rather, of the treasure they'd retrieved from his body, a share should have been set aside to pay off his creditors. The party objected that based on the rules of their homelands, that was not the case. The incident ended when Mike demanded proof that the Sivak was actually owed money by the black robe they'd killed.
"I'll, um, go get it."
"Great, we'll be back this way in a couple weeks."
"If I find it quickly, I'll catch up to you."
"Okay. We're heading for this village named blah."
The party was heading for blah, but didn't stop there, instead continuing until nightfall forced them to set up, well, Rope Tricks. Those didn't last the whole night, however, and during the last hour of the night, while the non-casters were standing a proper watch, Kelwick leapt to his feet, exclaiming that 'Jasper says something's coming!'
Kelwick sent Jasper -- his imaginary friend, that he'd been talking to all day -- out to scout out the nature of the opponent, but Sonnet and Thor didn't trust that Jasper actually existed, and went out to scout on their own. Thor in particular wandered 200 feet from the camp, and only found the Dread Wraith as its chill claws passed through his armor and drained his health.
Thor tried to attack it with his sword, but it didn't work, and he was drained again, and sent running for Nerilka to heal him. Morgan woke up the casters, and they started firing magic missiles at the creature, while it flew around draining health at will from assorted party members. Kelwick hit it once with his black sling-staff, then managed to miss it twice in a row with his returning throwing axe... but the endless stream of magic missiles from two wands, a wizard, and two sorcerers was too much for even that fearsome a creature, and it was destroyed.
During the aftermath, Kelwick revealed that Jasper was his axe. By arguing with it, while it hovered in front of him and wiggled back and forth in response.
Nerilka healed those who were wounded (and would otherwise have remained wounded for the duration of the mission), and the party got what rest it could in the remainder of the night, but everyone would be down a few spells for the next day, since the incident had happened so close to morning.
last week next week
