Playing Catchup
Oct. 19th, 2004 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had a session of Jeff's Darksun D+D game. We sort of completed another mission for our employer, but once again failed to bring back any proof of our allegations. So we have to try again... and we *still* aren't very sneaky.
I spent a lot of time tonight wishing that I was high enough level to wild shape into tiny creatures. }:P
After accepting the job to spy on Nadar once more, the party left the inn to retrieve their mounts and -- well, and immediately get attacked by an assassin.
Brightstone was in front, and got hit by a poisonous dagger in a very sensitive area -- this time most of the party saw the halfling assassin who threw it, at least, clinging to the side of a wall about thirty feet down an alleyway. Brightstone faery-fired him before fleeing to get his crodlu (and heal himself), while Saurian and Santino rushed into the alleyway, and stepped on the poisonous caltrops spread across the ground.
The assassin got another sneaky dagger off at Saurian before she could move, and a few not-quite-as-sneaky at April, then fled, as various damaging spells and attacks from the party were taking thier toll -- running up the side of the wall faster than the party thought could be possible, and vanishing over the edge of the rooftop. April, Saurian, and Brightstone all flew up (by various means) to try to spot him, hoping that the faery fire would reveal his location, but it was broad daylight, and if the assassin was still anywhere nearby (NOT a certainty with how ludicrously fast he'd climbed the wall) they couldn't see any sign of him.
So there was nothing for them to do but heal themselves up and continue the mission. They got their complimentary kanks, and staked out the gate for the road to Alterac. Around nightfall, when it was obvious that Nadar wasn't leaving through that gate, they remembered [read: were fed information by the GM that their characters might have known, but which the players had never been informed of] that some of the house Vordon estates were located outside the city, and Nadar might never have been inside in the first place.
But they knew he was headed to Alterac, so if they hurried they might be able to pick up his trail. They were hassled by a templar on the way out, who insisted that their kanks were infested with contagious lice, and had to be taken to a slaughterhouse and destroyed, but a few silver (each) convinced him that their 'special papers' were in order. Saurian was extremely bothered by the idea of paying a bribe, and April had to eventually pay it for her.
They travelled on through the gathering gloom as far as they could, safely, and stopped in a border fort to talk to the locals and verify if Nadar had come that way -- and he had. Furthermore, he and Kratek, and their eight guards, were the *only* other travellers heading to Alterac, so if they got close enough Brightstone's Crodlu would probably be able to pick up the scent. April used a daylight spell to buy them another hour of travel, and they slept the night in a rope trick, without incident.
The next day, they ran across a dehydrated elf passed out by the side of the road. Since it cost him little, Brightstone used a cantrip to create some water to give the elf to bring him back to consciousness, whereupon the fallen tribesman revealed that he knew Nadar, from when just a few days ago the trader had hired him and his tribe to ambush the salt caravan and kill all the guards and passengers except for him and Kratek. In return for sabotaging the caravan by dismissing most of the guards, Nadar received the promise of a future favor from the elf tribe. They left the elf enough water and food to get to the nearest settlement, and pressed on.
By the time they got within a day of Alterac, they were only a few hours behind Nadar's party, and so it was fairly obvious when the tracks turned off the road and headed towards the nearby mountains. They turned off and followed suit, and making excellent progress when a pair of giants showed up a few hundred yards away, charging towards them! They fled, on their Kanks and Crodlu (and Santino on foot), and managed to keep just ahead of the massive humanoids. Luckily, the giants weren't in the mood for a prolonged chase, and gave up following after a half hour's run.
The party continued to follow the trail as it led into the mountains, now much closer thanks to the hour's hustle fleeing the giants. Suddenly, they turned a corner to see eleven crodlu tied up, with two men standing guard. April used a silence to keep them from raising an alarm, and Santino and Saurian quickly dropped the guards. This was as far as they could take thier own mounts, though -- to proceed onwards required walking up a narrow switchbacked trail up the side of a ridge.
So Cypher mindlinked the party, and Brightstone was sent on a forward scouting mission, in the form of a Kestrekel. His scouting mission was nearly cut short when he flew over the ridge, into line of sight of a massive training camp, with plenty of archers eager to down a living creature to prove their skill. He was hit by three arrows, and so when he fell out of the sky as if he'd been killed, it wasn't that much of a bluff.
Of course, he had no interest in being captured, plucked, beheaded, and roasted, so he used his other wild shape for the day to turn into a small snake and hide under the edge of a nearby tent. The soldiers found the arrows and blood and feathers, and figured that some predator had eaten their kill.
As a snake, it was impossible for Brightstone to sneak close enough to hear Nadar's secret council, since that tent was in the center of camp, but after a while the camp leader decided to give a public speech. He didn't reveal the organization's overall goal, but sent six hand-picked minions to go with Nadar and perform 'some small preliminary task'.
At this point, the rest of the party was attacked by primitive humanoids. They fled on their kanks -- bringing the rest of Nadar's crodlu with them, and as they rounded the corner to get out of sight, soldiers from the camp rushed over the hill to fight the humanoids. While the party wasn't actually seen, evidence of the unnatural way in which the guards were killed led to suspicions amoung the enemy, and with their Crodlu gone they had no choice but to find an alternate method to get their group back to Tyr. So they pulled an eleventh-or-higher level cleric out of their... tent, and had him cast a pair of wind walks on Nadar and his new followers, which meant that they'd be in Tyr by nightfall.
Brightstone relayed this information to the party through the mindlink, and carefully slithered away before anyone noticed he existed, to rejoin the rest of the party. Since catching up to Nadar was impossible now -- he was probably *already* in Try -- they insead took the Crodlu to the nearby town of Alterac, and sold them for lots of money.
The travel back to Tyr was not uneventful. They were first attacked by a pair of flailers, like giant land turtles, who hid by the side of the path like two huge rocks, then instantly animated to ambush the party. Brightstone blessed his Crodlu with nature's favor, and sent her to distract the flailer that was in the process of killing Saurian, and between the Crodlu and Santino, it was quickly taken down. The other Flailer didn't like that, though, and zapped Peppermint with some hideous mental spell that left her bleeding and dying -- but it too was soon dispatched (even without Peppermint), and while April and Brightstone tended to the wounded, Santino spent the time recovering the flailer's shells for sale to an armorsmith.
That wasn't the last excitement, though. On the last day before reaching the city, they came across another destroyed caravan -- but this one looked destroyed by a monster instead of by raiders, and the monster was, in fact, still present. The party discussed when to attack, but were still discussing strategy when the thing made the first move, dominating Santino!
Santino didn't stay dominated for long -- he made his save after getting hit by the hidous debilitating intelligence-damaging feathery tentacles of the large, dome-shaped creature (since it wasn't in his nature to stand there calmly while a monster sucked out his brain). Brightstone tried to send Peppermint into combat again, but she drew an attack of opportunity from the creature as she closed the range, and was hit by a tentacle and intelligence-drained into an instant coma. Crodlu don't really start with a lot of intelligence to begin with.
It didn't take long before hit point and intelligence damage took down Santino as well, so soon it was mostly mages against the large, spell-resistant critter. Brightstone got lucky, and managed to take out its last few hitpoints with a Produce Flame spell. There were more than a thousand ceramic worth of trade goods to steal from the caravan...
Of course, the caravaneers were still alive, for the most part, but in comas from int drain. Brightstone suggested giving them water, so that they'd survive being in a coma until they woke up the next day, and would sleep easier. With a druid in the party, water was free, so they went with that plan. They made sure not to actually wake any of the erstwhile caravan guards up until they were well away, having stolen everything of value, of course.
Back in Tyr, the city was in chaos -- a massive wave of attempted assassinations had swept through the city, and the council was holding an open meeting. The party missed the gate the night they came in, and after resting and memorizing spells, had only barely enough time to get to the meeting.
At the meeting, Thraxus -- Nadar's boss, and effectively the current head of house Vordon -- decried the ineffective city guard, insisting that Tyr was doomed if they relied on them and the council, especially when the army was out fighting the bugs. Out of the goodness of his heart, though, he'd bring House Vordon troops into the city to restore order... the crowd ate it up, and the council had no choice but to accept his proposal.
The party, of course, knew that he was behind the attacks, and feared that they were just a pretext to stage a coup. Their employer, when they finally found her, had the same suspicions, but Thraxus was so popular that any accusation without proof would be literal suicide -- and once again, the party had failed to bring back proof (although it's unclear what proof they could have obtained, as there was nothing illegal about operating a military training camp in the wilderness far outside of Tyr's jurisdiction). She had another lead for them to follow, though -- Thraxus had been seen frequently visiting the grounds of House Troika, which seemed to be one of his dummy-houses. Maybe if the party broke into that estate, they could find some sort of proof that would out Thraxus as a traitor?
last week | next week
I spent a lot of time tonight wishing that I was high enough level to wild shape into tiny creatures. }:P
After accepting the job to spy on Nadar once more, the party left the inn to retrieve their mounts and -- well, and immediately get attacked by an assassin.
Brightstone was in front, and got hit by a poisonous dagger in a very sensitive area -- this time most of the party saw the halfling assassin who threw it, at least, clinging to the side of a wall about thirty feet down an alleyway. Brightstone faery-fired him before fleeing to get his crodlu (and heal himself), while Saurian and Santino rushed into the alleyway, and stepped on the poisonous caltrops spread across the ground.
The assassin got another sneaky dagger off at Saurian before she could move, and a few not-quite-as-sneaky at April, then fled, as various damaging spells and attacks from the party were taking thier toll -- running up the side of the wall faster than the party thought could be possible, and vanishing over the edge of the rooftop. April, Saurian, and Brightstone all flew up (by various means) to try to spot him, hoping that the faery fire would reveal his location, but it was broad daylight, and if the assassin was still anywhere nearby (NOT a certainty with how ludicrously fast he'd climbed the wall) they couldn't see any sign of him.
So there was nothing for them to do but heal themselves up and continue the mission. They got their complimentary kanks, and staked out the gate for the road to Alterac. Around nightfall, when it was obvious that Nadar wasn't leaving through that gate, they remembered [read: were fed information by the GM that their characters might have known, but which the players had never been informed of] that some of the house Vordon estates were located outside the city, and Nadar might never have been inside in the first place.
But they knew he was headed to Alterac, so if they hurried they might be able to pick up his trail. They were hassled by a templar on the way out, who insisted that their kanks were infested with contagious lice, and had to be taken to a slaughterhouse and destroyed, but a few silver (each) convinced him that their 'special papers' were in order. Saurian was extremely bothered by the idea of paying a bribe, and April had to eventually pay it for her.
They travelled on through the gathering gloom as far as they could, safely, and stopped in a border fort to talk to the locals and verify if Nadar had come that way -- and he had. Furthermore, he and Kratek, and their eight guards, were the *only* other travellers heading to Alterac, so if they got close enough Brightstone's Crodlu would probably be able to pick up the scent. April used a daylight spell to buy them another hour of travel, and they slept the night in a rope trick, without incident.
The next day, they ran across a dehydrated elf passed out by the side of the road. Since it cost him little, Brightstone used a cantrip to create some water to give the elf to bring him back to consciousness, whereupon the fallen tribesman revealed that he knew Nadar, from when just a few days ago the trader had hired him and his tribe to ambush the salt caravan and kill all the guards and passengers except for him and Kratek. In return for sabotaging the caravan by dismissing most of the guards, Nadar received the promise of a future favor from the elf tribe. They left the elf enough water and food to get to the nearest settlement, and pressed on.
By the time they got within a day of Alterac, they were only a few hours behind Nadar's party, and so it was fairly obvious when the tracks turned off the road and headed towards the nearby mountains. They turned off and followed suit, and making excellent progress when a pair of giants showed up a few hundred yards away, charging towards them! They fled, on their Kanks and Crodlu (and Santino on foot), and managed to keep just ahead of the massive humanoids. Luckily, the giants weren't in the mood for a prolonged chase, and gave up following after a half hour's run.
The party continued to follow the trail as it led into the mountains, now much closer thanks to the hour's hustle fleeing the giants. Suddenly, they turned a corner to see eleven crodlu tied up, with two men standing guard. April used a silence to keep them from raising an alarm, and Santino and Saurian quickly dropped the guards. This was as far as they could take thier own mounts, though -- to proceed onwards required walking up a narrow switchbacked trail up the side of a ridge.
So Cypher mindlinked the party, and Brightstone was sent on a forward scouting mission, in the form of a Kestrekel. His scouting mission was nearly cut short when he flew over the ridge, into line of sight of a massive training camp, with plenty of archers eager to down a living creature to prove their skill. He was hit by three arrows, and so when he fell out of the sky as if he'd been killed, it wasn't that much of a bluff.
Of course, he had no interest in being captured, plucked, beheaded, and roasted, so he used his other wild shape for the day to turn into a small snake and hide under the edge of a nearby tent. The soldiers found the arrows and blood and feathers, and figured that some predator had eaten their kill.
As a snake, it was impossible for Brightstone to sneak close enough to hear Nadar's secret council, since that tent was in the center of camp, but after a while the camp leader decided to give a public speech. He didn't reveal the organization's overall goal, but sent six hand-picked minions to go with Nadar and perform 'some small preliminary task'.
At this point, the rest of the party was attacked by primitive humanoids. They fled on their kanks -- bringing the rest of Nadar's crodlu with them, and as they rounded the corner to get out of sight, soldiers from the camp rushed over the hill to fight the humanoids. While the party wasn't actually seen, evidence of the unnatural way in which the guards were killed led to suspicions amoung the enemy, and with their Crodlu gone they had no choice but to find an alternate method to get their group back to Tyr. So they pulled an eleventh-or-higher level cleric out of their... tent, and had him cast a pair of wind walks on Nadar and his new followers, which meant that they'd be in Tyr by nightfall.
Brightstone relayed this information to the party through the mindlink, and carefully slithered away before anyone noticed he existed, to rejoin the rest of the party. Since catching up to Nadar was impossible now -- he was probably *already* in Try -- they insead took the Crodlu to the nearby town of Alterac, and sold them for lots of money.
The travel back to Tyr was not uneventful. They were first attacked by a pair of flailers, like giant land turtles, who hid by the side of the path like two huge rocks, then instantly animated to ambush the party. Brightstone blessed his Crodlu with nature's favor, and sent her to distract the flailer that was in the process of killing Saurian, and between the Crodlu and Santino, it was quickly taken down. The other Flailer didn't like that, though, and zapped Peppermint with some hideous mental spell that left her bleeding and dying -- but it too was soon dispatched (even without Peppermint), and while April and Brightstone tended to the wounded, Santino spent the time recovering the flailer's shells for sale to an armorsmith.
That wasn't the last excitement, though. On the last day before reaching the city, they came across another destroyed caravan -- but this one looked destroyed by a monster instead of by raiders, and the monster was, in fact, still present. The party discussed when to attack, but were still discussing strategy when the thing made the first move, dominating Santino!
Santino didn't stay dominated for long -- he made his save after getting hit by the hidous debilitating intelligence-damaging feathery tentacles of the large, dome-shaped creature (since it wasn't in his nature to stand there calmly while a monster sucked out his brain). Brightstone tried to send Peppermint into combat again, but she drew an attack of opportunity from the creature as she closed the range, and was hit by a tentacle and intelligence-drained into an instant coma. Crodlu don't really start with a lot of intelligence to begin with.
It didn't take long before hit point and intelligence damage took down Santino as well, so soon it was mostly mages against the large, spell-resistant critter. Brightstone got lucky, and managed to take out its last few hitpoints with a Produce Flame spell. There were more than a thousand ceramic worth of trade goods to steal from the caravan...
Of course, the caravaneers were still alive, for the most part, but in comas from int drain. Brightstone suggested giving them water, so that they'd survive being in a coma until they woke up the next day, and would sleep easier. With a druid in the party, water was free, so they went with that plan. They made sure not to actually wake any of the erstwhile caravan guards up until they were well away, having stolen everything of value, of course.
Back in Tyr, the city was in chaos -- a massive wave of attempted assassinations had swept through the city, and the council was holding an open meeting. The party missed the gate the night they came in, and after resting and memorizing spells, had only barely enough time to get to the meeting.
At the meeting, Thraxus -- Nadar's boss, and effectively the current head of house Vordon -- decried the ineffective city guard, insisting that Tyr was doomed if they relied on them and the council, especially when the army was out fighting the bugs. Out of the goodness of his heart, though, he'd bring House Vordon troops into the city to restore order... the crowd ate it up, and the council had no choice but to accept his proposal.
The party, of course, knew that he was behind the attacks, and feared that they were just a pretext to stage a coup. Their employer, when they finally found her, had the same suspicions, but Thraxus was so popular that any accusation without proof would be literal suicide -- and once again, the party had failed to bring back proof (although it's unclear what proof they could have obtained, as there was nothing illegal about operating a military training camp in the wilderness far outside of Tyr's jurisdiction). She had another lead for them to follow, though -- Thraxus had been seen frequently visiting the grounds of House Troika, which seemed to be one of his dummy-houses. Maybe if the party broke into that estate, they could find some sort of proof that would out Thraxus as a traitor?
last week | next week
