They don't build 'em like they used to...
Jul. 30th, 2004 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we FINALLY invaded Frost's lair, in Jeff's dragonlance campaign. We actually had our priorities straight, for once -- rescue important hostages, then destroy totem, then free prisoners, THEN loot the lair -- but only coincidentally.
Then we found an unbelievably expensive weapon, and gave it to the person who shows up least often, because it was too damn expensive to sell.
Alhana (the elf queen) sent Murphy a telepathic message to warn them when the attack was starting, so they were in position near the entrance to the first cavern when the final signal to attack came, despite the two weeks of utter boredom spent sitting in the icy cave.
Walking into the cavern triggered a Forbiddance, damaging most of the party (Sawyer's companion hawk exploded in a shower of feathers) -- and the cavern was connected to the rest of Frost's lair by teleport circles, which meant each cavern needed its own Forbiddance, which would damage them more every time they changed rooms. So they tried to keep that to a minimum.
The golems were unable to use the teleport circles, as they lacked a will of their own, and had to be left behind, where they did no one any good. Sigh.
At least the layout of the lair was simple -- a central chamber with 8 teleport-circle doors, labeled in draconian. 'Lab', 'Prison', 'Cold Storage', 'Temple', 'Hoard', 'Quarters', 'Back Door' (which they'd come in through).
Since part of their mission was to free some elves, who were supposedly encased in an icy prison, they headed to 'Cold Storage' first. Or rather, Mike did -- his amulet of mind blank made him immune to the Forbiddances, so the rest of the party stayed in the central room, waiting for him to tell them (through a telepathic link Lini set up) if they needed to come help him deal with whatever was in the room.
In this case, they didn't -- the elves were frozen in icy pillars, so he used two rods of cancellation to free them. They were strong enough to survive one forbiddance back to the main chamber, then the half-silver-dragon princess turned herself and the elven prince invisible and flew out the front exit (a hole in the ceiling of the main chamber). Well, that was easy.
They guessed that the 'Temple' might be the location of the totem, so again they sent Mike ahead to investigate. The room on the other side was dark, and too large for his darkvision to help much, so he flew up to try to find the ceiling and was ambushed by a breath of cold from the darkness.
So everyone else came in to help him, although most of them waited for Kijj and Lini, who had the bright light to illuminate the situation. By the time they arrived, Mike was nearly dead from the vile bite of the mishapen gargantuan white dragon, and flying too far up for anyone to really help him.
Luckily for Mike, Sonnet cast an obscuring mist around the people who'd just come through the portal, trying to hide them from the dragon -- which inspired the dragon to get cute and use its breath weapon on the lot of them. Uselessly, as everyone in the party had protection from cold up. Then Morgan and Thor and Kijj got some hits in, and the dragon forgot all about Mike.
As it turned out, this was a mistake -- Mike used a limited wish to consecrate Lini, letting her heal the vile damage the creature was putting out, and before it could switch targets to eliminate the healer, the three meleers had it down to where it TRIED to flee. And failed. And, shortly, died, as they coup-de-graced it.
That battle over, and the wounds all healed, Murphy looked around the room and spotted Frost's totem, piled up on a platform of ice across an icy bridge behind a waterfall of what looked like blood. Tests showed that the blood was highly acidic, and true seeing revealed that the bridge was illusionary. Mike disintegrated one of the ice elementals guarding the totem, waking them all up, and while they tried to swim their way towards the party, argued that they should go find some loot first before blowing up the totem. Thor flew out to plant the bomb, only to be recalled at the last second, and they all teleported back to the main chamber.
FLUMPH! The corpse of the red dragon from Mount Nevermind, the main combatant Alhana had lined up against Frost, dropped down through the hole in the ceiling, and a shriek of triumph shook the area. "Okay, no time, we go blow up totem now."
So Thor flew BACK to the totem and planted the crystal, making his save against the symbol of death guarding it, then Kijj cast true strike and chucked a javelin 100 feet to shatter it, setting off a massive explosion that did, in fact, seem to destroy the totem. And destabilize the room, which shook and cracked and started to flood.
Back in the main chamber, the party decided to split up -- Mike was going back to Cold Storage to try to get the gems he'd seen glittering 20 feet down under the ice, while the rest of the party was going to go rescue the prisoners. As they teleported to the prison (without taking any damage -- the forbiddances had been generated by the totem, and were gone now), a gnome popped out of the dead dragon's body, wailing about how all his experiments in 'internal combustion' were ruined, but was distracted by Mike asking for his help.
And he helped, sort of. Using his dynamite, he freed up a few gems, at the price of cracking Cold Storage as well. As this room too started to fill with water, the gnome quickly set up a LOT of dynamite to free ALL the rest of the gems, then he and Mike fled back through the teleport circle.
Meanwhile, the party was fighting against the prison guards -- dragonspawn. Only one of them was a threat, nearly killing Tetsuyo with his big-ass shocking spear (thanks to a critical hit on an attack of opportunity as Tetsuyo charged) before Kijj and Morgan took him down. Mike and Murphy used area spells to deal with the peons, who'd pretty much shot their load after all nine of them threw their single Javelin of Lightning at the party, failing to kill anyone (although it was a near thing in several cases).
Then they freed the prisoners. There were elves, gnomes, humans, ogres, thanoi, draconians, and a stupid frost giant who started eating the other prisoners after he was let out. They let out the good races first, then started on the others, but had to abort as the prison started cracking and falling apart -- apparently, it was near either Cold Storage or Temple, and had been destabilized by the explosions.
Mike and Murphy took a quick look through the 'Horde' circle, and came back nearly dead, reporting that a massive chest lay at the bottom of the sea on the other side, but neither of them had been able to lift it. Kijj was sure he could lift it, and ran through to do so -- and sure enough, he was able to pick it up and carry it out.
Then it was time to flee, as even the main chamber was breaking down. Melkor showed up to teleport his golems home with him immediately (as soon as they gave him the control earrings), which let them use the portable hole to take about twenty random prisoners back with them -- the only survivors, aside from the party, as the glacier basically exploded as they left, shattering the lair and everyone still in it.
They teleported back to the Tower of High Sorcery, and quickly ran outside to release the prisoners. A red robe showed up and had to be bribed not to tell on them for bringing in unauthorized guests ("But they would have died!" "I don't care!"), pissing off Morgan immensely. He wanted to turn in the corrupt wizard, even though it would mean paying a fine for their (minor) crime, but was talked out of it, although he remained grumpy until treasure was split up.
Ah, treasure.
Most of the treasure came from the dragon's horde, which was inside the ice chest. Murphy wouldn't let Mike disjunct the magically cold chest without identifying it first, which turned out to be a really good thing, as the magical cold was what kept the portal to the plane of fire in the second layer from wreaking mass destruction. The chest was moved into a room warded against planar energies, and them gradually dismantled. The portal to fire was disjuncted, the outer layer split, and the inner layer identified. "There's another portal inside this layer," Murphy said, "Although it doesn't seem to be giving off energy. Better disjunct it too, just to be safe."
"No, wait!" Kijj said, "Maybe it's a portal to the treasure room?"
That did, in fact, turn out to be the case. Mike blinked through the second shell of ice, filled his bag of holding full of dragon loot on the other side, then used a limited wish to plane-shift back to Krynn because he didn't trust that the portal was really two-way. Sonnet volunteered to go back for the second load of loot, and yes, the portal was two-way.
There wasn't a huge number of magical items, but they were damned expensive -- especially the Solar's Blade, a +7 vorpal holy dancing bastard sword, market price 4 million steel. Not that anyone on Krynn would actually be able to pay that much for it. Thor took the sword, and Kijj claimed the shocking longspear (because he missed his old shocking longspear that a mean-ol ogre had sundered) and some upgrades for Lini's equipment, Morgan a book of dex +4 and a staff of madness, Sonnet a pair of weird rods (Alertness and Rulership), Murphy an amulet of mighty fists +5 for Tetsuyo, and Mike a Staff of Power. Enough other items were sold to give everyone nearly 200,000 in cash to spend.
And with Frost no doubt pissed off beyond all belief at them, and losing power at the rate of only one hit die per week, they'd have PLENTY of time sitting around the (well-warded) tower to spend that money.
last week | next week
Then we found an unbelievably expensive weapon, and gave it to the person who shows up least often, because it was too damn expensive to sell.
Alhana (the elf queen) sent Murphy a telepathic message to warn them when the attack was starting, so they were in position near the entrance to the first cavern when the final signal to attack came, despite the two weeks of utter boredom spent sitting in the icy cave.
Walking into the cavern triggered a Forbiddance, damaging most of the party (Sawyer's companion hawk exploded in a shower of feathers) -- and the cavern was connected to the rest of Frost's lair by teleport circles, which meant each cavern needed its own Forbiddance, which would damage them more every time they changed rooms. So they tried to keep that to a minimum.
The golems were unable to use the teleport circles, as they lacked a will of their own, and had to be left behind, where they did no one any good. Sigh.
At least the layout of the lair was simple -- a central chamber with 8 teleport-circle doors, labeled in draconian. 'Lab', 'Prison', 'Cold Storage', 'Temple', 'Hoard', 'Quarters', 'Back Door' (which they'd come in through).
Since part of their mission was to free some elves, who were supposedly encased in an icy prison, they headed to 'Cold Storage' first. Or rather, Mike did -- his amulet of mind blank made him immune to the Forbiddances, so the rest of the party stayed in the central room, waiting for him to tell them (through a telepathic link Lini set up) if they needed to come help him deal with whatever was in the room.
In this case, they didn't -- the elves were frozen in icy pillars, so he used two rods of cancellation to free them. They were strong enough to survive one forbiddance back to the main chamber, then the half-silver-dragon princess turned herself and the elven prince invisible and flew out the front exit (a hole in the ceiling of the main chamber). Well, that was easy.
They guessed that the 'Temple' might be the location of the totem, so again they sent Mike ahead to investigate. The room on the other side was dark, and too large for his darkvision to help much, so he flew up to try to find the ceiling and was ambushed by a breath of cold from the darkness.
So everyone else came in to help him, although most of them waited for Kijj and Lini, who had the bright light to illuminate the situation. By the time they arrived, Mike was nearly dead from the vile bite of the mishapen gargantuan white dragon, and flying too far up for anyone to really help him.
Luckily for Mike, Sonnet cast an obscuring mist around the people who'd just come through the portal, trying to hide them from the dragon -- which inspired the dragon to get cute and use its breath weapon on the lot of them. Uselessly, as everyone in the party had protection from cold up. Then Morgan and Thor and Kijj got some hits in, and the dragon forgot all about Mike.
As it turned out, this was a mistake -- Mike used a limited wish to consecrate Lini, letting her heal the vile damage the creature was putting out, and before it could switch targets to eliminate the healer, the three meleers had it down to where it TRIED to flee. And failed. And, shortly, died, as they coup-de-graced it.
That battle over, and the wounds all healed, Murphy looked around the room and spotted Frost's totem, piled up on a platform of ice across an icy bridge behind a waterfall of what looked like blood. Tests showed that the blood was highly acidic, and true seeing revealed that the bridge was illusionary. Mike disintegrated one of the ice elementals guarding the totem, waking them all up, and while they tried to swim their way towards the party, argued that they should go find some loot first before blowing up the totem. Thor flew out to plant the bomb, only to be recalled at the last second, and they all teleported back to the main chamber.
FLUMPH! The corpse of the red dragon from Mount Nevermind, the main combatant Alhana had lined up against Frost, dropped down through the hole in the ceiling, and a shriek of triumph shook the area. "Okay, no time, we go blow up totem now."
So Thor flew BACK to the totem and planted the crystal, making his save against the symbol of death guarding it, then Kijj cast true strike and chucked a javelin 100 feet to shatter it, setting off a massive explosion that did, in fact, seem to destroy the totem. And destabilize the room, which shook and cracked and started to flood.
Back in the main chamber, the party decided to split up -- Mike was going back to Cold Storage to try to get the gems he'd seen glittering 20 feet down under the ice, while the rest of the party was going to go rescue the prisoners. As they teleported to the prison (without taking any damage -- the forbiddances had been generated by the totem, and were gone now), a gnome popped out of the dead dragon's body, wailing about how all his experiments in 'internal combustion' were ruined, but was distracted by Mike asking for his help.
And he helped, sort of. Using his dynamite, he freed up a few gems, at the price of cracking Cold Storage as well. As this room too started to fill with water, the gnome quickly set up a LOT of dynamite to free ALL the rest of the gems, then he and Mike fled back through the teleport circle.
Meanwhile, the party was fighting against the prison guards -- dragonspawn. Only one of them was a threat, nearly killing Tetsuyo with his big-ass shocking spear (thanks to a critical hit on an attack of opportunity as Tetsuyo charged) before Kijj and Morgan took him down. Mike and Murphy used area spells to deal with the peons, who'd pretty much shot their load after all nine of them threw their single Javelin of Lightning at the party, failing to kill anyone (although it was a near thing in several cases).
Then they freed the prisoners. There were elves, gnomes, humans, ogres, thanoi, draconians, and a stupid frost giant who started eating the other prisoners after he was let out. They let out the good races first, then started on the others, but had to abort as the prison started cracking and falling apart -- apparently, it was near either Cold Storage or Temple, and had been destabilized by the explosions.
Mike and Murphy took a quick look through the 'Horde' circle, and came back nearly dead, reporting that a massive chest lay at the bottom of the sea on the other side, but neither of them had been able to lift it. Kijj was sure he could lift it, and ran through to do so -- and sure enough, he was able to pick it up and carry it out.
Then it was time to flee, as even the main chamber was breaking down. Melkor showed up to teleport his golems home with him immediately (as soon as they gave him the control earrings), which let them use the portable hole to take about twenty random prisoners back with them -- the only survivors, aside from the party, as the glacier basically exploded as they left, shattering the lair and everyone still in it.
They teleported back to the Tower of High Sorcery, and quickly ran outside to release the prisoners. A red robe showed up and had to be bribed not to tell on them for bringing in unauthorized guests ("But they would have died!" "I don't care!"), pissing off Morgan immensely. He wanted to turn in the corrupt wizard, even though it would mean paying a fine for their (minor) crime, but was talked out of it, although he remained grumpy until treasure was split up.
Ah, treasure.
Most of the treasure came from the dragon's horde, which was inside the ice chest. Murphy wouldn't let Mike disjunct the magically cold chest without identifying it first, which turned out to be a really good thing, as the magical cold was what kept the portal to the plane of fire in the second layer from wreaking mass destruction. The chest was moved into a room warded against planar energies, and them gradually dismantled. The portal to fire was disjuncted, the outer layer split, and the inner layer identified. "There's another portal inside this layer," Murphy said, "Although it doesn't seem to be giving off energy. Better disjunct it too, just to be safe."
"No, wait!" Kijj said, "Maybe it's a portal to the treasure room?"
That did, in fact, turn out to be the case. Mike blinked through the second shell of ice, filled his bag of holding full of dragon loot on the other side, then used a limited wish to plane-shift back to Krynn because he didn't trust that the portal was really two-way. Sonnet volunteered to go back for the second load of loot, and yes, the portal was two-way.
There wasn't a huge number of magical items, but they were damned expensive -- especially the Solar's Blade, a +7 vorpal holy dancing bastard sword, market price 4 million steel. Not that anyone on Krynn would actually be able to pay that much for it. Thor took the sword, and Kijj claimed the shocking longspear (because he missed his old shocking longspear that a mean-ol ogre had sundered) and some upgrades for Lini's equipment, Morgan a book of dex +4 and a staff of madness, Sonnet a pair of weird rods (Alertness and Rulership), Murphy an amulet of mighty fists +5 for Tetsuyo, and Mike a Staff of Power. Enough other items were sold to give everyone nearly 200,000 in cash to spend.
And with Frost no doubt pissed off beyond all belief at them, and losing power at the rate of only one hit die per week, they'd have PLENTY of time sitting around the (well-warded) tower to spend that money.
last week | next week
