Litany of the Doomed
Oct. 5th, 2004 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a session of the Dark Sun campaign. Stacey and her brother were back with us, so we had a full party. Most of the night was overland travel, and we spent a lot of time running away.
The telepath that the party had rescued from the halflings, along with Ducati and Saurian and the other Pterrans, was named Cypher, and asked to join them, since travelling alone was suicidal. When he demonstrated his telepathic abilities by sending his thoughts to Saurian, they decided he was probably worth the water he'd use up, and agreed to take him on to Lost Scale.
There wasn't any more trouble with halflings in the forest, but they did run into some regular wildlife. The first encounter was with a giant sloth, which lurked in wait next to the game trail they didn't even really realize they were following. Laika was scouting ahead, and spotted it before they walked right under it and got ambushed, but not until they were really close. He suggested that everyone else go carefully around while he stood still, but Saurian wanted to talk to it to see if it was friendly, using a spell that could sense emotions.
Laika and Ducati crept forwards with her to guard her, Ducati keeping an itchy eye on the beast in case it attacked. Sure enough, no sooner did Saurian sense its 'hunger and excitement', than it lept off the tree with blinding speed and tried to eat Laika, who fled like a startled pigeon. The rest of the party took it down, with varying amounts of injury suffered from its flashing claws and fangs.
That night, Ducati heard a noise nearby, and after checking it out, wisely decided not to rile up the termites eating random trees.
The night after that, Laika heard a chirping noise that seemed to be coming closer, and after waking Ducati up so as to not leave the camp unguarded, headed out to investigate -- and saw a score of small chirping lizards heading right for the camp! They seemed jumpy, so he tried to scare them away by firing arrows in their path -- which made them jump, but didn't make them change their course. So he shot one of the leaders in the leg...
The injured lizard gave off a deafening (literally) screech, which woke the rest of the party up, and ran off, along with the three who'd seen him injured. The other sixteen continued on, so Laika shot them again -- and this time *all* of them started shrieking, and the pack ran off in a random direction, which unfortunately took them close enough to the camp to deafen the party as well.
But, they did pass the party by, and eventually everyone got back their hearing, and Laika had managed to grab onto a tree branch as the lizards stunned him, so he didn't fall out of the tree and break his neck or anything.
Still, the party was very happy to be out of the menacing jungle and out on the open desert. They got about a half day's travel into the desert before having to camp.
Now, the first two watches the party had been keeping had been the Pterran traders they'd rescued, since most of the actual party was spellcasters. So when the second watch wasn't woken up by the first watch, they woke up Ducati just in case, while one of them tried to follow the tracks of the previous watch and find them.
The party was camped next to a dune, and Ducati, who decided to help look for the missing watch, was about thirty feet behind the Pterran when he crested the dune... and saw no sign of him. Oh, no, wait -- there was his sword, lying in the sand.
So, everyone woke up, and gathered at the top of the dune. They tied a rope to Ducati and sent him down to investigate the scene -- it was his own idea, although he'd tried to get Laika to be the bait on the end of the fishing line. Ducati got to the sword, and saw blood splattered in the sand around it, not a good sign -- and another, similar sword another thirty feet down the hill. No sign of the enemy yet, though, so he continued on...
...and the rope went slack. April was the only one to spot the shadowy figure that seemed to lunge out at Ducati, and she yelled for Laika to pull Ducati back. Laika wasn't that strong -- Ducati was the only strong person left in the party, after Zehara's death -- but fortunately, the 'fish' decided to run up and attack instead of chewing on the paralyzed elf.
Well, it wasn't fortunate for the last remaining Pterran trader (other than Tellac), who lost his head to the giant spiky camoflauged Thri-Kreen's giant crystal sword.
So the party attacked! Cypher started flailing at the creature with his telepathic powers, while Laika lept up into the air to shoot at it from overhead. Neither of them had any effect -- it deflected Laika's arrows effortlessly, and seemed to be completely immune to Cypher's mind-affecting spells (although not to the entangling ectoplasm or the spray of crystals he switched to after noticing that). Cypher was caught next to the creature, so his life was probably saved by Saurian's summoned astral construct, which bull rushed the monster away from him, and then absorbed a full sequence of attacks from it.
Between the entangling keeping it from effectively engaging in melee or ranged combat, Saurian's energy bolts, April's magic missiles, and Cypher's crystal spray, the party BARELY managed to take the creature down, expending all their magic in the process. Saurian was very nearly killed by thrown Chachkas, and Tellac and Cypher were wounded by its sword. April used up the rest of her spells on healing, and the party decided to rest an extra long time that night to recover their magic despite the mid-night excitement.
On Laika's watch -- a four-hour watch, four hours after the fight, when the sun was working its way up into the sky -- he spotted another of the creatures hiding nearby, examining the corpse of its friend. It saw him at the same time -- you can't hide while flying -- and ran off to the north. To get help? Laika woke up Ducati again, and told him that he'd follow the creature to make sure it wasn't bringing friends. Knowing that the rest of the party needed their rest, Ducati let them sleep.
Laika followed the giant thri-kreen for an hour, flying as fast as he could to keep up with its frantic run, and saw it approaching four more of its kind -- so he immediately turned around to warn the party that company was coming -- lots of company.
April was prepared this time, and -- a little ways away from the campsite -- cast a rope trick, with Laika and Ducati doing their best to cover the tracks leading up to it. There, the party finished their rest, while the giant thri-kreen prowled around the campsite looking for them. The 'kreen seemed to give up after a little while, but they waited out the full duration of the rope trick, just in case, and came out ready to fight -- but the enemy was gone.
Still, not wanting to risk it -- these things were awful stealthy -- they hustled across the desert towards Lost Scale. Laika and Ducati were fast enough to keep up the pace without tiring, but the others soon started to feel fatigue -- but April spotted the 'Kreen following them, and that spurred them on. Soon, there were two 'kreen, then three...
They ran across a group of Pterrans, survivors of another 'kreen attack, who joined them in their flight. Laika poisoned the corpses with halfling sleep poison, figuring the 'kreen might stop to eat, and while they DID eat the poisoned corpses, it didn't seem to do anything (the kreen not being stupid, Laika didn't slather the poison on as thickly as they had against the cave lizard).
After another two hours of running, though, it was obvious that they just weren't going to make it -- everyone was wiped out, some already requiring healing to keep moving, and the next two hours would only get worse. So they found a good place to hide a rope trick, and as many people as could fit inside took refuge there. Three Pterrans had to settle for hiding by more conventional means, while Laika, Tellac, and Ducati made a run for Lost Scale to get help, Laika towing Tellac across the ground like a waterskiier, while Tellac 'skated'.
The Pterrans of Lost Scale let the three of them in, and their druids summoned up a powerful earthquake, and called down bolts of lightning, to take out the five pursuing 'kreen, but it took a *lot* to kill the bugs. Hearing about the refugees hiding in the canyon, they agreed to send out riders to find them in the morning, since it was dark by this point, and at night they wouldn't be able to verify that all the 'kreen in the area were gone.
None of them had any idea what these creatures were -- they weren't native to the desert, at least.
In the morning, they flew out to rescue the people hiding in the canyon. The 'kreen did all seem to be gone, but only the people who'd stayed in the rope trick were still alive, and they were not at all pleased that Laika and Ducati had waited so long to come back for them, since they'd had to hide the last four hours out in the open at the bottom of the canyon, next to the bloody bones of the unfortunate Pterrans who hadn't secured a place inside.
But back at Lost Scale, a trade route opened was a trade route opened, and a joyous celebration was planned! While shopping around for somewhere to sell their loot, the party found a strange-looking halfling, and asked him about the stone tablet they'd found. He found it very interesting, and asked for the whole story, which they were happy to give him.
When he heard about the giant spiky thri-kreen, he panicked. "What are they doing up here?! They can't climb! That's the only thing that's stopped them from scouring this whole desert! They're the advanced scouts for the kreen army, from below the cliffs!" At the party, they saw him discussing this with the village chief, and had Saurian listen in.
"Kreen don't make armies, they run in packs," the chief insisted, but agreed to send out some scouts. Laika went with them, to see for himself. It was a four day scouting trip, during which they saw more of the 'Tor-kreen' scouts in larger and larger groups scattered through the desert, and a giant rift in the desert, miles long and wide and, eventually, deep, which provided a perfect ramp from the bottom of the cliffs up to the tablelands. "Um, that wasn't there before. The quake must have caused it." And sure enough, there at the bottom was an army of 'kreen of various flavors, as well as a platoon of defilers. Not good.
So the Pterrans took the party on a ride back to Tyr, or at least most of the way -- they had to walk through the treacherous pass themselves, since the Pterran flyers weren't very maneuverable. Saurian had made a side trip to her own village, and brought back an official to negotiate trade agreements, not that the trade route was likely to get many travellers if the 'kreen invaded. The halfling also came with them, to tell the council of Tyr what he knew about the army, as well as to find out if they'd really caused the great earthquake, which in addition to dooming everyone by giving the 'kreen a ramp, had apparently destroyed his village (although really, that's what you get for building on the edge of a two-mile high cliff).
On the way back, they came across a work party widening the narrow part of the pass. "Um, you should stop that, there's an army of kreen a couple weeks behind, that are probably heading right this way." They wouldn't buy it. Saurian offered to take a message to their next of kin, and one of the dwarves told her to go stand outside the 'Hungry Halfling' restaurant with Laika and Ducati (the other nonhumans) and say a short phrase in Thri-kreen. When they got back to Tyr, she actually tried to do it, but was physically restrained. "No, you fool! He was lying! They'd eat us! Thri-kreen eat anything, and he probably told us to tell him 'eat me' or something!"
Laika too the halfling to the council, and reported about the army. They didn't believe him -- "Kreen don't make armies, they run in packs!" -- until he let them read his mind and see for themselves. THEN they believed him, and gave him an extra four silver for his trouble. He asked about the earthquake, and if they'd caused it on purpose, but they insisted that they hadn't... but it had happened as soon as the dragon was killed, and might have been the dragon's revenge. The halfling seemed satisfied by that, and stayed behind to help them plan strategy.
Then they sold off the giant sapphire they'd gotten from the temple, which made all of them filthy stinking rich (rich enough to buy a *magic item*) and April identified the magic items they'd gotten (Tellac let them keep the bone dagger, and there was a wooden shortsword from the druid) and found that the shortsword was *+3* -- so it could be sold for almost as much as the gemstone, although they weren't sure they wanted to.
last session | next week
The telepath that the party had rescued from the halflings, along with Ducati and Saurian and the other Pterrans, was named Cypher, and asked to join them, since travelling alone was suicidal. When he demonstrated his telepathic abilities by sending his thoughts to Saurian, they decided he was probably worth the water he'd use up, and agreed to take him on to Lost Scale.
There wasn't any more trouble with halflings in the forest, but they did run into some regular wildlife. The first encounter was with a giant sloth, which lurked in wait next to the game trail they didn't even really realize they were following. Laika was scouting ahead, and spotted it before they walked right under it and got ambushed, but not until they were really close. He suggested that everyone else go carefully around while he stood still, but Saurian wanted to talk to it to see if it was friendly, using a spell that could sense emotions.
Laika and Ducati crept forwards with her to guard her, Ducati keeping an itchy eye on the beast in case it attacked. Sure enough, no sooner did Saurian sense its 'hunger and excitement', than it lept off the tree with blinding speed and tried to eat Laika, who fled like a startled pigeon. The rest of the party took it down, with varying amounts of injury suffered from its flashing claws and fangs.
That night, Ducati heard a noise nearby, and after checking it out, wisely decided not to rile up the termites eating random trees.
The night after that, Laika heard a chirping noise that seemed to be coming closer, and after waking Ducati up so as to not leave the camp unguarded, headed out to investigate -- and saw a score of small chirping lizards heading right for the camp! They seemed jumpy, so he tried to scare them away by firing arrows in their path -- which made them jump, but didn't make them change their course. So he shot one of the leaders in the leg...
The injured lizard gave off a deafening (literally) screech, which woke the rest of the party up, and ran off, along with the three who'd seen him injured. The other sixteen continued on, so Laika shot them again -- and this time *all* of them started shrieking, and the pack ran off in a random direction, which unfortunately took them close enough to the camp to deafen the party as well.
But, they did pass the party by, and eventually everyone got back their hearing, and Laika had managed to grab onto a tree branch as the lizards stunned him, so he didn't fall out of the tree and break his neck or anything.
Still, the party was very happy to be out of the menacing jungle and out on the open desert. They got about a half day's travel into the desert before having to camp.
Now, the first two watches the party had been keeping had been the Pterran traders they'd rescued, since most of the actual party was spellcasters. So when the second watch wasn't woken up by the first watch, they woke up Ducati just in case, while one of them tried to follow the tracks of the previous watch and find them.
The party was camped next to a dune, and Ducati, who decided to help look for the missing watch, was about thirty feet behind the Pterran when he crested the dune... and saw no sign of him. Oh, no, wait -- there was his sword, lying in the sand.
So, everyone woke up, and gathered at the top of the dune. They tied a rope to Ducati and sent him down to investigate the scene -- it was his own idea, although he'd tried to get Laika to be the bait on the end of the fishing line. Ducati got to the sword, and saw blood splattered in the sand around it, not a good sign -- and another, similar sword another thirty feet down the hill. No sign of the enemy yet, though, so he continued on...
...and the rope went slack. April was the only one to spot the shadowy figure that seemed to lunge out at Ducati, and she yelled for Laika to pull Ducati back. Laika wasn't that strong -- Ducati was the only strong person left in the party, after Zehara's death -- but fortunately, the 'fish' decided to run up and attack instead of chewing on the paralyzed elf.
Well, it wasn't fortunate for the last remaining Pterran trader (other than Tellac), who lost his head to the giant spiky camoflauged Thri-Kreen's giant crystal sword.
So the party attacked! Cypher started flailing at the creature with his telepathic powers, while Laika lept up into the air to shoot at it from overhead. Neither of them had any effect -- it deflected Laika's arrows effortlessly, and seemed to be completely immune to Cypher's mind-affecting spells (although not to the entangling ectoplasm or the spray of crystals he switched to after noticing that). Cypher was caught next to the creature, so his life was probably saved by Saurian's summoned astral construct, which bull rushed the monster away from him, and then absorbed a full sequence of attacks from it.
Between the entangling keeping it from effectively engaging in melee or ranged combat, Saurian's energy bolts, April's magic missiles, and Cypher's crystal spray, the party BARELY managed to take the creature down, expending all their magic in the process. Saurian was very nearly killed by thrown Chachkas, and Tellac and Cypher were wounded by its sword. April used up the rest of her spells on healing, and the party decided to rest an extra long time that night to recover their magic despite the mid-night excitement.
On Laika's watch -- a four-hour watch, four hours after the fight, when the sun was working its way up into the sky -- he spotted another of the creatures hiding nearby, examining the corpse of its friend. It saw him at the same time -- you can't hide while flying -- and ran off to the north. To get help? Laika woke up Ducati again, and told him that he'd follow the creature to make sure it wasn't bringing friends. Knowing that the rest of the party needed their rest, Ducati let them sleep.
Laika followed the giant thri-kreen for an hour, flying as fast as he could to keep up with its frantic run, and saw it approaching four more of its kind -- so he immediately turned around to warn the party that company was coming -- lots of company.
April was prepared this time, and -- a little ways away from the campsite -- cast a rope trick, with Laika and Ducati doing their best to cover the tracks leading up to it. There, the party finished their rest, while the giant thri-kreen prowled around the campsite looking for them. The 'kreen seemed to give up after a little while, but they waited out the full duration of the rope trick, just in case, and came out ready to fight -- but the enemy was gone.
Still, not wanting to risk it -- these things were awful stealthy -- they hustled across the desert towards Lost Scale. Laika and Ducati were fast enough to keep up the pace without tiring, but the others soon started to feel fatigue -- but April spotted the 'Kreen following them, and that spurred them on. Soon, there were two 'kreen, then three...
They ran across a group of Pterrans, survivors of another 'kreen attack, who joined them in their flight. Laika poisoned the corpses with halfling sleep poison, figuring the 'kreen might stop to eat, and while they DID eat the poisoned corpses, it didn't seem to do anything (the kreen not being stupid, Laika didn't slather the poison on as thickly as they had against the cave lizard).
After another two hours of running, though, it was obvious that they just weren't going to make it -- everyone was wiped out, some already requiring healing to keep moving, and the next two hours would only get worse. So they found a good place to hide a rope trick, and as many people as could fit inside took refuge there. Three Pterrans had to settle for hiding by more conventional means, while Laika, Tellac, and Ducati made a run for Lost Scale to get help, Laika towing Tellac across the ground like a waterskiier, while Tellac 'skated'.
The Pterrans of Lost Scale let the three of them in, and their druids summoned up a powerful earthquake, and called down bolts of lightning, to take out the five pursuing 'kreen, but it took a *lot* to kill the bugs. Hearing about the refugees hiding in the canyon, they agreed to send out riders to find them in the morning, since it was dark by this point, and at night they wouldn't be able to verify that all the 'kreen in the area were gone.
None of them had any idea what these creatures were -- they weren't native to the desert, at least.
In the morning, they flew out to rescue the people hiding in the canyon. The 'kreen did all seem to be gone, but only the people who'd stayed in the rope trick were still alive, and they were not at all pleased that Laika and Ducati had waited so long to come back for them, since they'd had to hide the last four hours out in the open at the bottom of the canyon, next to the bloody bones of the unfortunate Pterrans who hadn't secured a place inside.
But back at Lost Scale, a trade route opened was a trade route opened, and a joyous celebration was planned! While shopping around for somewhere to sell their loot, the party found a strange-looking halfling, and asked him about the stone tablet they'd found. He found it very interesting, and asked for the whole story, which they were happy to give him.
When he heard about the giant spiky thri-kreen, he panicked. "What are they doing up here?! They can't climb! That's the only thing that's stopped them from scouring this whole desert! They're the advanced scouts for the kreen army, from below the cliffs!" At the party, they saw him discussing this with the village chief, and had Saurian listen in.
"Kreen don't make armies, they run in packs," the chief insisted, but agreed to send out some scouts. Laika went with them, to see for himself. It was a four day scouting trip, during which they saw more of the 'Tor-kreen' scouts in larger and larger groups scattered through the desert, and a giant rift in the desert, miles long and wide and, eventually, deep, which provided a perfect ramp from the bottom of the cliffs up to the tablelands. "Um, that wasn't there before. The quake must have caused it." And sure enough, there at the bottom was an army of 'kreen of various flavors, as well as a platoon of defilers. Not good.
So the Pterrans took the party on a ride back to Tyr, or at least most of the way -- they had to walk through the treacherous pass themselves, since the Pterran flyers weren't very maneuverable. Saurian had made a side trip to her own village, and brought back an official to negotiate trade agreements, not that the trade route was likely to get many travellers if the 'kreen invaded. The halfling also came with them, to tell the council of Tyr what he knew about the army, as well as to find out if they'd really caused the great earthquake, which in addition to dooming everyone by giving the 'kreen a ramp, had apparently destroyed his village (although really, that's what you get for building on the edge of a two-mile high cliff).
On the way back, they came across a work party widening the narrow part of the pass. "Um, you should stop that, there's an army of kreen a couple weeks behind, that are probably heading right this way." They wouldn't buy it. Saurian offered to take a message to their next of kin, and one of the dwarves told her to go stand outside the 'Hungry Halfling' restaurant with Laika and Ducati (the other nonhumans) and say a short phrase in Thri-kreen. When they got back to Tyr, she actually tried to do it, but was physically restrained. "No, you fool! He was lying! They'd eat us! Thri-kreen eat anything, and he probably told us to tell him 'eat me' or something!"
Laika too the halfling to the council, and reported about the army. They didn't believe him -- "Kreen don't make armies, they run in packs!" -- until he let them read his mind and see for themselves. THEN they believed him, and gave him an extra four silver for his trouble. He asked about the earthquake, and if they'd caused it on purpose, but they insisted that they hadn't... but it had happened as soon as the dragon was killed, and might have been the dragon's revenge. The halfling seemed satisfied by that, and stayed behind to help them plan strategy.
Then they sold off the giant sapphire they'd gotten from the temple, which made all of them filthy stinking rich (rich enough to buy a *magic item*) and April identified the magic items they'd gotten (Tellac let them keep the bone dagger, and there was a wooden shortsword from the druid) and found that the shortsword was *+3* -- so it could be sold for almost as much as the gemstone, although they weren't sure they wanted to.
last session | next week
