Icy Doom, Kinda
Jul. 16th, 2004 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight only a few of us -- Stacey (who plays Sonnet), Ed, and I -- showed up for Jeff's Dragonlance campaign, but we forged ahead anyway. We slaughtered some helpless rats (that almost killed us), then began the final approach to Frost's lair. 20 days ahead of schedule.
The party set out onto the glacier, following the map left them by the late Oyou. The path they'd take wouldn't take them near any of the dragons' patrol routes, but it would take them past a strange marking indicating some creatures the ranger hadn't been able to clearly make out.
So, as they neared the mark, they sent up Sonnet's cohort's companion, an eagle. Sonnet painted him white to make him an 'ice eagle', and Mike turned him invisible for good measure. He reported that there was a 'shimmering area of snow' about ten miles ahead... so the party marched closer, and sent Sonnet and Kijj ahead invisibly to scout it out.
Actually, they were supposed to go straight up, but Sonnet couldn't make out enough details, even with her spyglass, and convinced Kijj to fly closer. A half mile out, she finally was able to tell that it was a swarm of countless dire rats, all covered in snow-white fur.
Hating swarms with a passion, the party hid in a rope trick until it passed, then continued on their way. As they passed the place where the swarm had gone by, however, Sonnet spotted a single rat, apparently left behind as a scout, pop out of the snow and run to warn his friends. She charged forwards on Sawyer and took it out, but the next sentry-rat saw the flaming arrows fly and popped out to run and warn his friends -- there was a chain of them, apparently, and escaping notice was hopeless at this point.
So the party tried to run, and for a while were actually outdistancing their pursuers... but they had to hustle to do it, and were leaving plain tracks, and the rats weren't *that* far behind them by the time they'd gone an hour. Mike decided it was time to turn and take on the enemy from the air. Kijj said he'd come along and assist with his staff of frost, which could do Ice Storms. Sonnet said she'd come along on the ground, which Kijj and Mike would have said was a horrible idea, if they'd noticed her following. The rest of the party continued on to try to make some extra distance, in case the foolish suicide mission failed.
Kijj's first ice storm impacted on the swarm, as he and Mike floated invisibly at the edge of long range above it, but didn't kill that many rats, considering -- maybe six froze to death, of the 200-odd that were in the area of effect, taking enough punishment to kill rats of their sort six times over [since the rules say that swarms don't take damage from area spells as individuals, GAH]. Mike's fireball had even less effect, as a matching fireball flew up to counter it.
Then five more flew up to fry Mike, but fortunately he evaded most of them -- then quickly flew up out of range. Two more of his fireballs were countered, while Kijj's amulet let him withstand his own fireball barrage, and a protection from cold helped him survive an array of ice storms. Mike was discouraged by all the countering, and cast some defensive spells, while Kijj plugged away with his staff.
By this time Sonnet had arrived, with her own attacks -- flaming arrows (surprisingly effective) and some animals from the bag of tricks. The rats ate the bag of tricks animals, and the plants making up Sawyer's Entangle, and send 40 magic missiles streaking at Sonnet, nearly killing her. She tried to stay out of range, while continuing to attack (since Sawyer was faster than the rats), but misjudged the distance once and got hit by a second barrage, which would have killed her, except that she was borrowing the Orb of Good from Morgan, and it auto-healed her instead of letting her die.
But then the rats were out of spells, and their demise, while lingering, was inevitable. They couldn't close to melee range, especially not with the people flying overhead, and over the course of ten minutes Mike, Kijj, and Sonnet pumped enough fireballs, arrows, ice storms, magic missiles, and elemental darts to kill all thousand-plus rats, leaving charred, skewered, and frozen corpses floating in a hundred-foot lake of melted glacier.
The rats had no treasure, their pelts were ruined (and ratty, at any rate), and they weren't even edible. Gah! The party walked back off the glacier in disgust, as Mike was distressed by his lack of Prismatic Spray and wanted to read his XP-increasing book to learn how to cast it.
Lini, Kijj's cohort and a cleric, also increased in power during the week spent studying, and was then powerful enough to turn the entire party into wind, allowing them to cover vast distances quickly. So, on their return, they bypassed the entire glacier in less than a day, camping just outside the glacial chasm that they were told led eventually to Frost's Lair.
It was a long, slippery treck through the twisting ice-tunnel, but nothing exciting happened for eight hours, after which they were attacked by a pair of elder ice elementals. They were strong, but Kijj's axe hurt them more than they could hurt him, especially with Lini backing him up and healing him, and Mike's fireballs hurt them a lot. Sonnet mostly sang encouraging songs and got ice-chunks dropped on her, but regardless, both elementals were soon piles of crushed ice.
The next day, they travelled through more stupid ice caves, until they finally came to a dead end. "That's an illusion," Murphy helpfully informed them, and a couple of them were able to see through it, to a wall of stone behind it. Mike hadn't been able to convince himself it was an illusion, but wall of ice or wall of stone, it all got handled the same. Disintegrate time!
last session | next session
The party set out onto the glacier, following the map left them by the late Oyou. The path they'd take wouldn't take them near any of the dragons' patrol routes, but it would take them past a strange marking indicating some creatures the ranger hadn't been able to clearly make out.
So, as they neared the mark, they sent up Sonnet's cohort's companion, an eagle. Sonnet painted him white to make him an 'ice eagle', and Mike turned him invisible for good measure. He reported that there was a 'shimmering area of snow' about ten miles ahead... so the party marched closer, and sent Sonnet and Kijj ahead invisibly to scout it out.
Actually, they were supposed to go straight up, but Sonnet couldn't make out enough details, even with her spyglass, and convinced Kijj to fly closer. A half mile out, she finally was able to tell that it was a swarm of countless dire rats, all covered in snow-white fur.
Hating swarms with a passion, the party hid in a rope trick until it passed, then continued on their way. As they passed the place where the swarm had gone by, however, Sonnet spotted a single rat, apparently left behind as a scout, pop out of the snow and run to warn his friends. She charged forwards on Sawyer and took it out, but the next sentry-rat saw the flaming arrows fly and popped out to run and warn his friends -- there was a chain of them, apparently, and escaping notice was hopeless at this point.
So the party tried to run, and for a while were actually outdistancing their pursuers... but they had to hustle to do it, and were leaving plain tracks, and the rats weren't *that* far behind them by the time they'd gone an hour. Mike decided it was time to turn and take on the enemy from the air. Kijj said he'd come along and assist with his staff of frost, which could do Ice Storms. Sonnet said she'd come along on the ground, which Kijj and Mike would have said was a horrible idea, if they'd noticed her following. The rest of the party continued on to try to make some extra distance, in case the foolish suicide mission failed.
Kijj's first ice storm impacted on the swarm, as he and Mike floated invisibly at the edge of long range above it, but didn't kill that many rats, considering -- maybe six froze to death, of the 200-odd that were in the area of effect, taking enough punishment to kill rats of their sort six times over [since the rules say that swarms don't take damage from area spells as individuals, GAH]. Mike's fireball had even less effect, as a matching fireball flew up to counter it.
Then five more flew up to fry Mike, but fortunately he evaded most of them -- then quickly flew up out of range. Two more of his fireballs were countered, while Kijj's amulet let him withstand his own fireball barrage, and a protection from cold helped him survive an array of ice storms. Mike was discouraged by all the countering, and cast some defensive spells, while Kijj plugged away with his staff.
By this time Sonnet had arrived, with her own attacks -- flaming arrows (surprisingly effective) and some animals from the bag of tricks. The rats ate the bag of tricks animals, and the plants making up Sawyer's Entangle, and send 40 magic missiles streaking at Sonnet, nearly killing her. She tried to stay out of range, while continuing to attack (since Sawyer was faster than the rats), but misjudged the distance once and got hit by a second barrage, which would have killed her, except that she was borrowing the Orb of Good from Morgan, and it auto-healed her instead of letting her die.
But then the rats were out of spells, and their demise, while lingering, was inevitable. They couldn't close to melee range, especially not with the people flying overhead, and over the course of ten minutes Mike, Kijj, and Sonnet pumped enough fireballs, arrows, ice storms, magic missiles, and elemental darts to kill all thousand-plus rats, leaving charred, skewered, and frozen corpses floating in a hundred-foot lake of melted glacier.
The rats had no treasure, their pelts were ruined (and ratty, at any rate), and they weren't even edible. Gah! The party walked back off the glacier in disgust, as Mike was distressed by his lack of Prismatic Spray and wanted to read his XP-increasing book to learn how to cast it.
Lini, Kijj's cohort and a cleric, also increased in power during the week spent studying, and was then powerful enough to turn the entire party into wind, allowing them to cover vast distances quickly. So, on their return, they bypassed the entire glacier in less than a day, camping just outside the glacial chasm that they were told led eventually to Frost's Lair.
It was a long, slippery treck through the twisting ice-tunnel, but nothing exciting happened for eight hours, after which they were attacked by a pair of elder ice elementals. They were strong, but Kijj's axe hurt them more than they could hurt him, especially with Lini backing him up and healing him, and Mike's fireballs hurt them a lot. Sonnet mostly sang encouraging songs and got ice-chunks dropped on her, but regardless, both elementals were soon piles of crushed ice.
The next day, they travelled through more stupid ice caves, until they finally came to a dead end. "That's an illusion," Murphy helpfully informed them, and a couple of them were able to see through it, to a wall of stone behind it. Mike hadn't been able to convince himself it was an illusion, but wall of ice or wall of stone, it all got handled the same. Disintegrate time!
last session | next session
