Arrogant Worms!
Jun. 18th, 2004 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had a session of Jeff's Dragonlance campaign. Kijj picked up a pet cleric, then the party returned to the underda -- er, the secret passage under the mountains of Southern Ergoth, and gradually made their way towards Frost's realm, exterminating the monsters and other denizens they came across along the way.
In addition to the now-standard situation of Luis being absent, Sonnet missed today as well (due to the lack of a car, which broke down last week a few blocks from the building we play at). That meant we only had to split the XP and treasure four ways. Well, six if you count cohorts, but we didn't.
In response to constant complaints of boredom, what with being cooped up more or less permanently inside a familiar pocket, Kijj dismissed his familiar, which reverted to being an ordinary raven and flew off. Murphy scorching-rayed it and had it for dinner. Or at least mimed doing so, teasingly.
Feeling lonely, the minotaur then went to the Temple of Mishakal and acquired a cohort -- a rather powerful cleric, specializing in healing, who was also on a quest in general to free the world of the dragon overlords, and would therefore be willing to follow Kijj at least until his current mission was complete.
Sawyer took the opportunity to relate to Sonnet rumors relating to her life-quest, which she'd been sadly neglecting, and so she decided to follow up on them for a while -- the party could continue without her, and teleport her back with them on their next stop back to the city. According to their guide, it was safe to teleport back and forth as long as they were underground, as Frost's totem didn't watch the tunnels. The area watched was really obvious, because it was also really really really cold.
So it was only Mike, Murphy, Kijj, Morgan, Tetsuyo (who may have been given a different name in the last episode -- Murphy's cohort), Lini'enni (Kijj's new cohort), and Oyou (the ranger) who teleported back underground to where the ropers remained dead. Lini'enni's 'beacon of righteousness' provided more than enough light to let every monster in a hundred miles see them coming, but it was better than only being able to see dimly 40 feet from the light of the continually flaming ioun stones.
They pressed onwards to the first side passage that Oyou hadn't been able to explore on his last visit, and travelled down it a ways. After a few hours, it opened into a large cavern with a calm pool of water. Ever suspicious of calm pools of water, the adventurers chucked several rocks into the middle, and saw no reaction. Not even a splash. THAT was even more suspicious, so they were very very careful about walking around the pool, to the point of flying over a 20-foot wide, six-inch deep section where it abutted the cavern wall.
The passage in the back of the cavern led to a 900-foot vertical chimney that just led outside. Boooring. So they headed back... and found themselves hedged in by a giant black pudding, completely blocking the (rather narrow) passage.
The fight was a mess, but not all that dangerous. The party flung elemental spells down the hall at the mass of blob, while slowly backing away from it as it slowly advanced (thanks to a Slow spell). Eventually, their backing away proved TOO slow, and Tetsuyo and Morgan were engulfed. By that point, the blob was on its last pseudopods, though, and it died before they were badly hurt.
There was no treasure, but they decided it was as good a place as any to rest. That night and the entire next day passed uneventfully.
The day after THAT, though, as they left the rope trick they found strangely smoothed and dimpled pits in the walls and floor of the cavern. Oyou located a dead insect -- a giant (that is, still really tiny) ant, and surmised that a swarm of rock-eating ants had passed their rope-trick in the night, heading back the way they'd come.
They decided to press on, instead, and followed the trail of the ants back to a suspicious chamber -- 20 feet across, with a sloped, slick floor surrounding a cocooned mass, from within which Murphy detected a magical aura. After Murphy and Morgan noticed one of the walls *breathing*, Kijj cast Improved Blink on himself (in case the walls decided to eat him) and flew out over the middle, where he carefully ripped open the cocoon with his axe.
Before he could retrieve the dessicated corpse within, however, he was attacked by a 20-foot long worm, that lashed out and bit him on the arm. Chill poison started to spread through his body, quickly turning his arm white, and gradually paralyzing him by wrapping him up in slick whiteness -- much faster than normal poison.
The party, of course, started to attack the worm, flinging spells at it, mostly, although Tetsuyo flung himself with an impressive flying kick. Kijj pulled out his longsword with his other arm, and chopped off the worm's head with a single blow.
That didn't even slow it down -- in fact, it quickly grew two new heads from the severed ends, and its 'tail' started attacking as well! No one but Kijj was hit, though, and Kijj managed to blink out of the thing's grasp and fly back to where Lini'enni could get at him.
Morgan, Tetsuyo and Mike between them were able to kill off the worm without anyone else being bit, the finishing blow being a disintegration spell that reduced the entire length to dust.
Meanwhile, Lini's attentions served to slow the spread of what she identified as a virulent magic disease, but she couldn't cure it. A dispel magic bought some time for a Restoration to revert it to its initial, tiny infection, at which point she cast 'align weapon' on her sword and used its holy power to cut out the infected portion of Kijj's flesh. The severed chunk was quickly cocooned and converted into a (very very small) swarm of ants.
Murphy spotted that the magic from inside the cocoon -- an amulet engraved with a worm and an ant -- was linked to the disease, and to the slowly regenerating corpse of the worm. Kijj took the still-good-aligned sword and smashed the amulet to bits, ending the curse.
The next day or so was boring, but Oyou eventually told the party that they were coming up on a major crossroads, with four side branches that he hadn't explored any of. When they arrived, one of the side passages was missing, and Mike's disintegrate went right through it. Right. An illusion. Mike decided to be clever, and put the nightly rope trick in the cavity opened by the errant disintegrate, while replacing the missing wall with a Wall of Stone. With air holes.
No one bothered them that night, and nothing seemed to be waiting for them in the morning. The end of the illusion-concealed passage had an illusion-concealed niche with a heavily trapped bag inside. Morgan deftly disarmed the mechanical trap, and deftly evaded the ludicrously humongous sonic explosion from the magical trap he failed to disarm, and the party braced itself for combat. Combat did not ensue.
So they sat down right there and identified the bag's components. Wow, a rod that cast 'Gust of Wind' 5 times a day! Mike sneered at it as the world's least useful artifact -- as it was an artifact, one part of the rod of seven parts. There was also a 'glowgem', that could recharge other magical items by draining its own power. It would only be able to restore 950 more charges before it was used up. Murphy immediately claimed it for use recharging his powerful, but nearly drained, staff.
So, two hours spent, with no sign of enemy activity, they headed out past the illusion, and were immediately Mind Fogged. Apparently, the enemies were *patient*.
Tetsuyo and Murphy were in the back of the party, and not fogged, and Tetsuyo took the Rod and used its gust to blow away the fog. Kijj was already fogged, though, and soon was also dominated AND unsuccesfully disintegrated. Before he could turn to kill his cohort, she cast a circle against evil, cutting off the dominating power temporarily.
"Stay close," she told him, and he did, sloooowly advancing towards the nearest of the three wormlike spell-like-ability-using creatures, which Tetsuyo kept pinned down by repeated stunning fists, until Kijj could slaughter it in a single attack sequence.
Meanwhile, Oyou and Morgan rushed forwards to attack the farthest worm, and were both dominated, and set fighting each other. Mike -- having just saved Kijj's life by counterspelling another disintegrate -- cast a magic circle off a scroll, and ran through the fray to get Oyou and Morgan inside it before either of them was killed, pausing to use his own disintegrate on the worm they'd been trying to go after on the way.
Murphy turned the third worm into a toad, but that didn't really slow it down. Kijj continued to carefully inch towards it, while chucking javelins and spells its way, while Lini used her magic to support him and reverse even more magic that tried to take him out of the fight. It was Tetsuyo that scored the third kill, however, grappling the frog and breaking its back -- after which it turned back into a worm, dead of a broken back despite a complete lack of vertebrae.
There were smaller worms around, but they fled before the party which had just killed their elders, and the worm lairs were thoroughly looted -- powerful magic items, and tons of cash or the equivalent. With such bounty, as well as some potentially valuable but rather difficult-to-transport worm eggs, the party decided to teleport back to the Tower at Wayreth to do some business.
They sold the eggs and more elf-blood potions to high ranking black robes, and decided to rest and rearm a bit before returning to the fray, hopefully with Sonnet along next time.
last week | next week
Woah. Lovely thunderstorm outside. The lightning dogged me all the way home, and then WHAM. A five minute storm rolled over and past, and now it's quiet again. Neat weather.
Heh. After the game, I ended up 205 xp short of level 13. Dismissing my familiar cost me 800. The likely death I would have faced without the cleric cohort would have cost a bit more, though.
In addition to the now-standard situation of Luis being absent, Sonnet missed today as well (due to the lack of a car, which broke down last week a few blocks from the building we play at). That meant we only had to split the XP and treasure four ways. Well, six if you count cohorts, but we didn't.
In response to constant complaints of boredom, what with being cooped up more or less permanently inside a familiar pocket, Kijj dismissed his familiar, which reverted to being an ordinary raven and flew off. Murphy scorching-rayed it and had it for dinner. Or at least mimed doing so, teasingly.
Feeling lonely, the minotaur then went to the Temple of Mishakal and acquired a cohort -- a rather powerful cleric, specializing in healing, who was also on a quest in general to free the world of the dragon overlords, and would therefore be willing to follow Kijj at least until his current mission was complete.
Sawyer took the opportunity to relate to Sonnet rumors relating to her life-quest, which she'd been sadly neglecting, and so she decided to follow up on them for a while -- the party could continue without her, and teleport her back with them on their next stop back to the city. According to their guide, it was safe to teleport back and forth as long as they were underground, as Frost's totem didn't watch the tunnels. The area watched was really obvious, because it was also really really really cold.
So it was only Mike, Murphy, Kijj, Morgan, Tetsuyo (who may have been given a different name in the last episode -- Murphy's cohort), Lini'enni (Kijj's new cohort), and Oyou (the ranger) who teleported back underground to where the ropers remained dead. Lini'enni's 'beacon of righteousness' provided more than enough light to let every monster in a hundred miles see them coming, but it was better than only being able to see dimly 40 feet from the light of the continually flaming ioun stones.
They pressed onwards to the first side passage that Oyou hadn't been able to explore on his last visit, and travelled down it a ways. After a few hours, it opened into a large cavern with a calm pool of water. Ever suspicious of calm pools of water, the adventurers chucked several rocks into the middle, and saw no reaction. Not even a splash. THAT was even more suspicious, so they were very very careful about walking around the pool, to the point of flying over a 20-foot wide, six-inch deep section where it abutted the cavern wall.
The passage in the back of the cavern led to a 900-foot vertical chimney that just led outside. Boooring. So they headed back... and found themselves hedged in by a giant black pudding, completely blocking the (rather narrow) passage.
The fight was a mess, but not all that dangerous. The party flung elemental spells down the hall at the mass of blob, while slowly backing away from it as it slowly advanced (thanks to a Slow spell). Eventually, their backing away proved TOO slow, and Tetsuyo and Morgan were engulfed. By that point, the blob was on its last pseudopods, though, and it died before they were badly hurt.
There was no treasure, but they decided it was as good a place as any to rest. That night and the entire next day passed uneventfully.
The day after THAT, though, as they left the rope trick they found strangely smoothed and dimpled pits in the walls and floor of the cavern. Oyou located a dead insect -- a giant (that is, still really tiny) ant, and surmised that a swarm of rock-eating ants had passed their rope-trick in the night, heading back the way they'd come.
They decided to press on, instead, and followed the trail of the ants back to a suspicious chamber -- 20 feet across, with a sloped, slick floor surrounding a cocooned mass, from within which Murphy detected a magical aura. After Murphy and Morgan noticed one of the walls *breathing*, Kijj cast Improved Blink on himself (in case the walls decided to eat him) and flew out over the middle, where he carefully ripped open the cocoon with his axe.
Before he could retrieve the dessicated corpse within, however, he was attacked by a 20-foot long worm, that lashed out and bit him on the arm. Chill poison started to spread through his body, quickly turning his arm white, and gradually paralyzing him by wrapping him up in slick whiteness -- much faster than normal poison.
The party, of course, started to attack the worm, flinging spells at it, mostly, although Tetsuyo flung himself with an impressive flying kick. Kijj pulled out his longsword with his other arm, and chopped off the worm's head with a single blow.
That didn't even slow it down -- in fact, it quickly grew two new heads from the severed ends, and its 'tail' started attacking as well! No one but Kijj was hit, though, and Kijj managed to blink out of the thing's grasp and fly back to where Lini'enni could get at him.
Morgan, Tetsuyo and Mike between them were able to kill off the worm without anyone else being bit, the finishing blow being a disintegration spell that reduced the entire length to dust.
Meanwhile, Lini's attentions served to slow the spread of what she identified as a virulent magic disease, but she couldn't cure it. A dispel magic bought some time for a Restoration to revert it to its initial, tiny infection, at which point she cast 'align weapon' on her sword and used its holy power to cut out the infected portion of Kijj's flesh. The severed chunk was quickly cocooned and converted into a (very very small) swarm of ants.
Murphy spotted that the magic from inside the cocoon -- an amulet engraved with a worm and an ant -- was linked to the disease, and to the slowly regenerating corpse of the worm. Kijj took the still-good-aligned sword and smashed the amulet to bits, ending the curse.
The next day or so was boring, but Oyou eventually told the party that they were coming up on a major crossroads, with four side branches that he hadn't explored any of. When they arrived, one of the side passages was missing, and Mike's disintegrate went right through it. Right. An illusion. Mike decided to be clever, and put the nightly rope trick in the cavity opened by the errant disintegrate, while replacing the missing wall with a Wall of Stone. With air holes.
No one bothered them that night, and nothing seemed to be waiting for them in the morning. The end of the illusion-concealed passage had an illusion-concealed niche with a heavily trapped bag inside. Morgan deftly disarmed the mechanical trap, and deftly evaded the ludicrously humongous sonic explosion from the magical trap he failed to disarm, and the party braced itself for combat. Combat did not ensue.
So they sat down right there and identified the bag's components. Wow, a rod that cast 'Gust of Wind' 5 times a day! Mike sneered at it as the world's least useful artifact -- as it was an artifact, one part of the rod of seven parts. There was also a 'glowgem', that could recharge other magical items by draining its own power. It would only be able to restore 950 more charges before it was used up. Murphy immediately claimed it for use recharging his powerful, but nearly drained, staff.
So, two hours spent, with no sign of enemy activity, they headed out past the illusion, and were immediately Mind Fogged. Apparently, the enemies were *patient*.
Tetsuyo and Murphy were in the back of the party, and not fogged, and Tetsuyo took the Rod and used its gust to blow away the fog. Kijj was already fogged, though, and soon was also dominated AND unsuccesfully disintegrated. Before he could turn to kill his cohort, she cast a circle against evil, cutting off the dominating power temporarily.
"Stay close," she told him, and he did, sloooowly advancing towards the nearest of the three wormlike spell-like-ability-using creatures, which Tetsuyo kept pinned down by repeated stunning fists, until Kijj could slaughter it in a single attack sequence.
Meanwhile, Oyou and Morgan rushed forwards to attack the farthest worm, and were both dominated, and set fighting each other. Mike -- having just saved Kijj's life by counterspelling another disintegrate -- cast a magic circle off a scroll, and ran through the fray to get Oyou and Morgan inside it before either of them was killed, pausing to use his own disintegrate on the worm they'd been trying to go after on the way.
Murphy turned the third worm into a toad, but that didn't really slow it down. Kijj continued to carefully inch towards it, while chucking javelins and spells its way, while Lini used her magic to support him and reverse even more magic that tried to take him out of the fight. It was Tetsuyo that scored the third kill, however, grappling the frog and breaking its back -- after which it turned back into a worm, dead of a broken back despite a complete lack of vertebrae.
There were smaller worms around, but they fled before the party which had just killed their elders, and the worm lairs were thoroughly looted -- powerful magic items, and tons of cash or the equivalent. With such bounty, as well as some potentially valuable but rather difficult-to-transport worm eggs, the party decided to teleport back to the Tower at Wayreth to do some business.
They sold the eggs and more elf-blood potions to high ranking black robes, and decided to rest and rearm a bit before returning to the fray, hopefully with Sonnet along next time.
last week | next week
Woah. Lovely thunderstorm outside. The lightning dogged me all the way home, and then WHAM. A five minute storm rolled over and past, and now it's quiet again. Neat weather.
Heh. After the game, I ended up 205 xp short of level 13. Dismissing my familiar cost me 800. The likely death I would have faced without the cleric cohort would have cost a bit more, though.
