The World's Most Awkward Tea Party
Feb. 1st, 2005 12:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothIt's a miracle it only ended with two deaths.
We had a session of Jeff's Darksun game tonight, in which after following a charmingly insane but friendly NPC, we ran into another battle about the same level of difficulty as the TPK a few months ago... this time, most of us ran away, except for Stacey, who hadn't been there for the TPK. "I can't believe you're running! What's WRONG with you people?" "Um... he's like level 18 to cast that spell... we're still 11-12. And he has five friends." "I can't beleive you people! Cowards!"
Yeah, she was the one that died, in the party.
After spending tons and tons of cash, the party -- minus Moghli, who had to take some time out for family reasons [or something, his player was absent] -- teleported back to the Gith outpost, and returned to the City of Calamity. Wandering their way along the bridges, still searching for the Gith, they heard a strange singing, and went to investigate.
The source of the singing was a crazy caveman bard, who was beating a pair of bones against the wall of a building as percussion. He was friendly, though, and readily started a conversation with the party... when oh no! Basilisks!
The party turned invisible and covered their eyes, and Saurian and Cairn summoned astral constructs to deal with the basilisks. The crazy bard was happy that they'd saved him, and led them back to his friends, who had a camp at the edge of the dome.
These friends also seemed friendly, and worshipped the earth, which Cairn appreciated, although it bothered April -- oh, did I mention that Lucas had raised April from the dead, springing for a true res so that he wouldn't be bound to his contract? Right. Saurian and Cypher didn't care either way, really.
Unfortunately, the party let slip that they were searching for the Gith because the Gith had taken some of their friends as slaves. Unfortunately, the crazy bard's friends let slip that they were allied with the Gith, who they saw as future willing slaves, even if they were now not technically worshipping Earth, as they were the descendants of the ancient Gith who'd built the City of Calamity, who their high priest, a half-elemental half-giant named Slate, insisted were the 'True Earth Spirits' made flesh.
There was more talking after that, and it was revealed that the others weren't as fanatical as Slate and a couple others -- mostly, they had nowhere else to go, and didn't see any reason *not* to be allied with the Gith. It wasn't as if the surface-dwellers didn't take slaves. Cairn and April recognized the specific spirit Slate was worshipping as an insane earth spirit who was shunned by most priests of Earth because he drove all his followers insane, though...
Cypher tried mind-raping the Gith's location out of a really stupid fighter-type among Slate's band, figuring that it was unlikely they'd get any information out of the group, since they were enemies. The party still wasn't expecting a *fight*...
Unfortunately for them, Slate had already decided to kill them all, and had mindlinked his people and spent a while casting various spells. He gave the signal, and they attacked!
Cypher was almost killed instantly by a thrown wooden dagger by Rhylen, a rogueish priest who'd seemed particularly disloyal... not disloyal enough not to kill the party, though. The dagger sprouted like a tree out of Cypher's chest... but he managed to resist its possible instant death effect, and instead was only horribly injured. Saurian reacted first, and cast inflict pain on the three of Slate's followers still seated at the table... then Cairn, recognizing just how powerful of a spell had been tossed at them, dimension-doored himself, Cypher, and April a few hundred feet away, to 'regroup'. He'd wanted to get Saurian, but she wasn't close enough.
He told Saurian to run and join them -- she had dimension door too. The enemies dimensional anchored her, though, so she couldn't d-door out... and instead of turning and running on foot, she decided to stand and fight, circling around the temple so that the enemies had to keep moving to get line of sight on her, and couldn't focus all their attacks.
As she wasn't running, Cypher (after healing himself and getting a greater vigor slapped on by April) and Cairn (who put up a greater concealing amorpha in the interest of being slightly less killable) d-doored *most* of the way back, staying just out of sight. Cairn started creating astral constructs to send in to help Saurian, hoping they could clear a path for her, or at least distract the enemies...
Meanwhile, Saurian was not doing so well. She'd taken out the really stupid fighter with a Death Urge spell (the fighter had a x3 crit weapon, and killed herself with it before the spell ran off), but hadn't been able to do much else to the enemies, and Slate had tremorsense which kept her from actually hiding. Still, she was staying *reasonably* well off, thanks to April's continuous healing through a Greater Status, until the enemies got serious, and used spike stones and a briar web to greivously wound and trap her...
...and then Slate summoned his god. Sort of. What the spell actually did was let him animate his temple as a collosal animated object, which proceeded to trample all over Saurian as she lay pinned in the briar web.
By that point, Cairn's astral constructs were beating up on Slate's wizardess, who'd called in another friend to help. Cairn was still trying to stay out of sight, not wanting to be anchored or disintegrated, though, and Cypher's mental attacks were of little use against the strong-willed (insanely strong willed, so to speak) enemies. Slate decided to force the issue by dropping an acid storm on Cairn, and Cypher, and both constucts, and Saurian... who was then finished off by the temple.
With Saurian's death, the dimensional anchor no longer applied, so Cypher d-doored to her body and immediately teleported out. One of the enemies shot a dimension anchor at Cairn, but his concealing amorpha kept the ray from hitting him, and he was able to d-door to April, who also teleported out. They'd escaped.
In Tyr, they found enough cash among Saurian's possessions to have her raised from the dead, and they plotted their next assault -- when the animated building had stood up, the crag-and-stairwell they saw underneath was obviously what the stupid fighter had been thinking of when Cypher mind-raped her. The Gith were under Slate's camp.
Cypher led the party in a metaconcert to correspond with the theify type in Slate's band who'd seemed unreliable, and they managed to buy his loyalty for 8,000 ceramic -- he wanted to get out of the worshipping-crazy-gods business and back to grand theft, but knew he couldn't escape Slate on his own. For their money, he promised to not only help them kill Slate, but that he'd poison Slate's other minions so that they'd be helpless, easy prey. Although that wouldn't work on Slate, who was half elemental, or the fighter, who'd been raised as a 'thinking zombie'.
Still, facing down against just Slate on his own, the party was confident that... well, they were confident that it wasn't *completely* suicidal. Even if they didn't have a good answer to the disintegrates that Slate seemed to be able to throw around at will.
last session | next session
We had a session of Jeff's Darksun game tonight, in which after following a charmingly insane but friendly NPC, we ran into another battle about the same level of difficulty as the TPK a few months ago... this time, most of us ran away, except for Stacey, who hadn't been there for the TPK. "I can't believe you're running! What's WRONG with you people?" "Um... he's like level 18 to cast that spell... we're still 11-12. And he has five friends." "I can't beleive you people! Cowards!"
Yeah, she was the one that died, in the party.
After spending tons and tons of cash, the party -- minus Moghli, who had to take some time out for family reasons [or something, his player was absent] -- teleported back to the Gith outpost, and returned to the City of Calamity. Wandering their way along the bridges, still searching for the Gith, they heard a strange singing, and went to investigate.
The source of the singing was a crazy caveman bard, who was beating a pair of bones against the wall of a building as percussion. He was friendly, though, and readily started a conversation with the party... when oh no! Basilisks!
The party turned invisible and covered their eyes, and Saurian and Cairn summoned astral constructs to deal with the basilisks. The crazy bard was happy that they'd saved him, and led them back to his friends, who had a camp at the edge of the dome.
These friends also seemed friendly, and worshipped the earth, which Cairn appreciated, although it bothered April -- oh, did I mention that Lucas had raised April from the dead, springing for a true res so that he wouldn't be bound to his contract? Right. Saurian and Cypher didn't care either way, really.
Unfortunately, the party let slip that they were searching for the Gith because the Gith had taken some of their friends as slaves. Unfortunately, the crazy bard's friends let slip that they were allied with the Gith, who they saw as future willing slaves, even if they were now not technically worshipping Earth, as they were the descendants of the ancient Gith who'd built the City of Calamity, who their high priest, a half-elemental half-giant named Slate, insisted were the 'True Earth Spirits' made flesh.
There was more talking after that, and it was revealed that the others weren't as fanatical as Slate and a couple others -- mostly, they had nowhere else to go, and didn't see any reason *not* to be allied with the Gith. It wasn't as if the surface-dwellers didn't take slaves. Cairn and April recognized the specific spirit Slate was worshipping as an insane earth spirit who was shunned by most priests of Earth because he drove all his followers insane, though...
Cypher tried mind-raping the Gith's location out of a really stupid fighter-type among Slate's band, figuring that it was unlikely they'd get any information out of the group, since they were enemies. The party still wasn't expecting a *fight*...
Unfortunately for them, Slate had already decided to kill them all, and had mindlinked his people and spent a while casting various spells. He gave the signal, and they attacked!
Cypher was almost killed instantly by a thrown wooden dagger by Rhylen, a rogueish priest who'd seemed particularly disloyal... not disloyal enough not to kill the party, though. The dagger sprouted like a tree out of Cypher's chest... but he managed to resist its possible instant death effect, and instead was only horribly injured. Saurian reacted first, and cast inflict pain on the three of Slate's followers still seated at the table... then Cairn, recognizing just how powerful of a spell had been tossed at them, dimension-doored himself, Cypher, and April a few hundred feet away, to 'regroup'. He'd wanted to get Saurian, but she wasn't close enough.
He told Saurian to run and join them -- she had dimension door too. The enemies dimensional anchored her, though, so she couldn't d-door out... and instead of turning and running on foot, she decided to stand and fight, circling around the temple so that the enemies had to keep moving to get line of sight on her, and couldn't focus all their attacks.
As she wasn't running, Cypher (after healing himself and getting a greater vigor slapped on by April) and Cairn (who put up a greater concealing amorpha in the interest of being slightly less killable) d-doored *most* of the way back, staying just out of sight. Cairn started creating astral constructs to send in to help Saurian, hoping they could clear a path for her, or at least distract the enemies...
Meanwhile, Saurian was not doing so well. She'd taken out the really stupid fighter with a Death Urge spell (the fighter had a x3 crit weapon, and killed herself with it before the spell ran off), but hadn't been able to do much else to the enemies, and Slate had tremorsense which kept her from actually hiding. Still, she was staying *reasonably* well off, thanks to April's continuous healing through a Greater Status, until the enemies got serious, and used spike stones and a briar web to greivously wound and trap her...
...and then Slate summoned his god. Sort of. What the spell actually did was let him animate his temple as a collosal animated object, which proceeded to trample all over Saurian as she lay pinned in the briar web.
By that point, Cairn's astral constructs were beating up on Slate's wizardess, who'd called in another friend to help. Cairn was still trying to stay out of sight, not wanting to be anchored or disintegrated, though, and Cypher's mental attacks were of little use against the strong-willed (insanely strong willed, so to speak) enemies. Slate decided to force the issue by dropping an acid storm on Cairn, and Cypher, and both constucts, and Saurian... who was then finished off by the temple.
With Saurian's death, the dimensional anchor no longer applied, so Cypher d-doored to her body and immediately teleported out. One of the enemies shot a dimension anchor at Cairn, but his concealing amorpha kept the ray from hitting him, and he was able to d-door to April, who also teleported out. They'd escaped.
In Tyr, they found enough cash among Saurian's possessions to have her raised from the dead, and they plotted their next assault -- when the animated building had stood up, the crag-and-stairwell they saw underneath was obviously what the stupid fighter had been thinking of when Cypher mind-raped her. The Gith were under Slate's camp.
Cypher led the party in a metaconcert to correspond with the theify type in Slate's band who'd seemed unreliable, and they managed to buy his loyalty for 8,000 ceramic -- he wanted to get out of the worshipping-crazy-gods business and back to grand theft, but knew he couldn't escape Slate on his own. For their money, he promised to not only help them kill Slate, but that he'd poison Slate's other minions so that they'd be helpless, easy prey. Although that wouldn't work on Slate, who was half elemental, or the fighter, who'd been raised as a 'thinking zombie'.
Still, facing down against just Slate on his own, the party was confident that... well, they were confident that it wasn't *completely* suicidal. Even if they didn't have a good answer to the disintegrates that Slate seemed to be able to throw around at will.
last session | next session
