So much for the seer...
Sep. 27th, 2005 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had another session of Patrick's game. The paladin was back, and not entirely satisfied with all the choices we'd made, but we pressed on regardless.
So the party set off on their mission, to contact the seer regarding the goblin king Pasknuk Grundish's upcoming invasion of the human lands as he tried to contact the witch queen of the salt marsh. Their gnomish servant tried to convince them to bring along a wagon full of trade goods, but they insisted that they were in a hurry, and that would slow them down to much. Their plan was to ride quickly across the plains, avoiding any of the humanoids they'd been warned infested the area.
After several days, they were nearing the tower, riding through waist-high grass, when Mariss's dog started growling at a section of grass up ahead. Thus warned, Rrann was able to spot four depressions in the grass, as of someone hiding in it, and pointed out the exact spot to Mariss, who cast an entangle -- and the party rode past at high speed, as their would-be assailants struggled with the now-tangling grass.
Unfortuantely, two could play at that game -- one of the lurkers was an orcish shaman, who entangled the party right back. Another was a wizard, who started casting magic missiles at Mariss. The other two were an ogre and a troll, who not-quite-so-easily broke free, the ogre chucking boulders while the troll closed to melee.
Rrann's pony was tangled, but Rrann himself was nearly immune to such feeble magics, being a dwarf, and stood on its back shooting arrows at the troll and the druid, without much effect, until the troll got uncomfortably close, at which point he jumped off his horse to run for it, and was entangled just inside the troll's reach.
Fortunately, for him, Seldon (who'd been entangled and ripped off the back of his horse, which had carried Vryce out of the area of effect) had a spell which could affect trolls -- color spray! For several rounds, the troll was stunned, while Rrann struggled to break free.
Meanwhile, Mariss had escaped the entangle and kept trying to summon allies to aid her -- and eventually succeeded in summoning an eagle, despite the fairly steady stream of magic missiles heading her way. The eagle, after an ineffective attempt to attack the orcish druid, switched to help Vryce against the ogre, which he'd squared off against, longspear to greatclub. Just in time, too -- Vryce was smashed to the ground unconscious and bleeding, but the eagle, with a little help from Mariss, was able to finish it off.
Back by the troll, Rrann drew his shield to defend himself against the troll's blows, then finally managed to break free of the entangling grass... and stepped inside the troll's reach to counterattack with his axe -- he was trained specifically against giants (and trolls) and had a decent shot at taking it down, with the elven chain he was wearing and everything. And if he ran, Seldon would be in real trouble...
But Seldon, who was out of color sprays, had a different solution to being entangled by a field of dry, brown grass -- he doused himself in lamp oil and lit himself on fire. Everyone fled from the fire -- but the troll, Seldon, and Rrann's pony were entangled (in Seldon's case, repeatedly) and set on fire. The troll was barely hurt by it (they don't burn well), the pony was burned to a crisp, and Seldon *barely* managed to escape the wildfire, horribly burned, after using scrolls of jump and expeditious retreat, and losing many scrolls of other sorts to the flames, to say nothing of his clothing.
The party only had two horses left (Rrann's had been burned up, and Mariss's had been stolen by the orcish druid, who'd escaped her entangle eventually), but they doubled up and tied the gnome to Mariss's dog, and fled before what was now a towering wall of flames, chasing them across the grass.
They took refuge in an oasis-like pond they came across, trying to cut a firebreak and planning to retreat into the water if that didn't work -- but an obviously magically-created thunderstorm put out the fire before it reached them.
They decided to camp there anyway. At night, which Vryce was on watch, he heard the sounds of someone bathing in the nearby stream, and of course went to investigate without waking anyone. There in the pond was a beautiful nymph, who failed to blind him with her beauty, and later (after he refused her advances) failed to kill or stun him. THEN he went to wake the party, warning them not to open their eyes. The nymph followed, and (ignoring the ugly dwarf and the rather put-out druidess) tried to convince Vryce or Seldon to stay with her. "Just for the night! I can ensure that you get an audience with my sister, the seer."
"Well, if it's just for the night," Vryce said. Apparently, he'd already been the boy-toy of a dryad once, before his adventuring career, and was well willing to face the peril. Somewhat to their surprise, the nymph did return him in the morning, only slightly the worse for wear -- parts of his hair had turned white, as if from age. But he cared not, for the night had been quite... perilous.
The next day they reached the seer's tower around noon, and were welcomed inside and fed bowls of oatmeal. The seer had been expecting them, but didn't know what they were planning to ask. They asked her many things -- about Pashnuk (he wanted an item the witch queen had, the 3rd piece of the plenary malachite, which gave a commander great skill in battle), about the witch queen (a former high priestess of Tyr, who'd fallen from grace and now possessed the demonic powers of a warlock), about the plenary malachite (it would be an advantage for the forces of good to reunite it and break the curse of the earthbound, as the silvermist crater would open soon, unleashing a tide of flying evil things), and about other things that she didn't have an answer for, as they were not world-altering events.
"Where can I find a large enough cache of gold to affect the worldwide economy?"
"I... don't see that happening."
She told them she could identify the special powers of their part of the plenary malachite for them, but only if they'd leave it with her overnight, while they went up to the vicarship of Diancet near Ciaren to fight off the zombies or whatever. Most of the party (except for Seldon) was willing to take her word that she'd give it back. Because, among other things, she'd lived in that tower for ages, so they'd know where to find her unless she was willing to uproot her entire life to steal the artifact.
Up at the vicarship, they were told that the undead had killed a few villagers at the start, but lately people had been able to avoid any further deaths by boarding themselves up in their houses at night -- but this was no way to live, and they wanted someone to stop the nightly raids. The undead described sounded like zombies, skeletons, and ghouls, so the plan was to stand out in the middle of town and attack the undead when they shambled in.
It more or less went as planned. There were a *lot* of undead, but they were individually weak, and never really managed to threaten the party. After a long but not terribly terrifying fight, the dozen or so skeletons or zombies and single ghoul were dispatched, and the party started tracking them back to whereever they'd come from.
They'd come from a small hut -- one the priest had recommended they check out during daylight. But this would work. Inside was the zombie master, a sentient ghast who tried to zap them with negative energy, but was zapped mostly to death by the paladin laying on hands, and finished off by ranged attacks.
On him they found a half dozen small black evil stones, and in his house was an evil book describing how to trap the souls of people you sacrificed into small black evil stones, which could be used to shoot negative energy at people or raise undead... at the cost of utterly destroying the soul of the person you sacrificed, of course. Setting them free without destroying them was a matter of smashing the stones without doing any special ritual, which was good because Vryce had already done that.
Vryce also wanted to burn the book, but the rest of the party convinced him that knowledge itself was not evil. He agreed to let them bring it back to the priest of Diancet to decide on what to do with it -- and the priest recommended they give it to the bardic college in the city they'd been sent from. Bards wouldn't be able to use the rituals, and they're where people would go for information if the knowledge was somehow required.
Before heading back, they needed to stop at the seer to retrieve their piece of the malachite -- but her tower was on fire! They rushed in to find her gone, but a trail of blood leading off into the grass... and Seldon managed to find the malachite hidden in a pot of oatmeal, while Vryce found a note telling them that she'd known this was going to happen, and it was necessary and 'served a greater cause'. And oh, by the way, their piece of the malachite had no special powers, but was sentient.
Tracking the blood led them to her body -- she'd been horribly mutilated and tortured to death, as part of a ritual to see the future, and her eyes had been taken. They carefully reparied her as well as they could manage, and wrapped her body up to take back to her sister, the nymph.
The nymph wore a robe to spare the party any saving throws this time, and cried over her sister's body before attempting to raise her from the dead -- but the seer refused to return. The nymph asked them who had committed the horrible act, but all they could show her was a scrap of cloth, which she identified as the symbol of an elvish noble house. In gratitude for bringing her her sister's body, she Geased the party with finding her murderer and exacting justice, then teleported them to Slytheen (or whatever that city was called) so that they could start investigating right away.
last session | next session
Stacey stopped by for a few minutes around the time of the zombie battle -- she can't come Mondays because she has class, apparently. Maybe next semester she'll have Monday nights free...
So the party set off on their mission, to contact the seer regarding the goblin king Pasknuk Grundish's upcoming invasion of the human lands as he tried to contact the witch queen of the salt marsh. Their gnomish servant tried to convince them to bring along a wagon full of trade goods, but they insisted that they were in a hurry, and that would slow them down to much. Their plan was to ride quickly across the plains, avoiding any of the humanoids they'd been warned infested the area.
After several days, they were nearing the tower, riding through waist-high grass, when Mariss's dog started growling at a section of grass up ahead. Thus warned, Rrann was able to spot four depressions in the grass, as of someone hiding in it, and pointed out the exact spot to Mariss, who cast an entangle -- and the party rode past at high speed, as their would-be assailants struggled with the now-tangling grass.
Unfortuantely, two could play at that game -- one of the lurkers was an orcish shaman, who entangled the party right back. Another was a wizard, who started casting magic missiles at Mariss. The other two were an ogre and a troll, who not-quite-so-easily broke free, the ogre chucking boulders while the troll closed to melee.
Rrann's pony was tangled, but Rrann himself was nearly immune to such feeble magics, being a dwarf, and stood on its back shooting arrows at the troll and the druid, without much effect, until the troll got uncomfortably close, at which point he jumped off his horse to run for it, and was entangled just inside the troll's reach.
Fortunately, for him, Seldon (who'd been entangled and ripped off the back of his horse, which had carried Vryce out of the area of effect) had a spell which could affect trolls -- color spray! For several rounds, the troll was stunned, while Rrann struggled to break free.
Meanwhile, Mariss had escaped the entangle and kept trying to summon allies to aid her -- and eventually succeeded in summoning an eagle, despite the fairly steady stream of magic missiles heading her way. The eagle, after an ineffective attempt to attack the orcish druid, switched to help Vryce against the ogre, which he'd squared off against, longspear to greatclub. Just in time, too -- Vryce was smashed to the ground unconscious and bleeding, but the eagle, with a little help from Mariss, was able to finish it off.
Back by the troll, Rrann drew his shield to defend himself against the troll's blows, then finally managed to break free of the entangling grass... and stepped inside the troll's reach to counterattack with his axe -- he was trained specifically against giants (and trolls) and had a decent shot at taking it down, with the elven chain he was wearing and everything. And if he ran, Seldon would be in real trouble...
But Seldon, who was out of color sprays, had a different solution to being entangled by a field of dry, brown grass -- he doused himself in lamp oil and lit himself on fire. Everyone fled from the fire -- but the troll, Seldon, and Rrann's pony were entangled (in Seldon's case, repeatedly) and set on fire. The troll was barely hurt by it (they don't burn well), the pony was burned to a crisp, and Seldon *barely* managed to escape the wildfire, horribly burned, after using scrolls of jump and expeditious retreat, and losing many scrolls of other sorts to the flames, to say nothing of his clothing.
The party only had two horses left (Rrann's had been burned up, and Mariss's had been stolen by the orcish druid, who'd escaped her entangle eventually), but they doubled up and tied the gnome to Mariss's dog, and fled before what was now a towering wall of flames, chasing them across the grass.
They took refuge in an oasis-like pond they came across, trying to cut a firebreak and planning to retreat into the water if that didn't work -- but an obviously magically-created thunderstorm put out the fire before it reached them.
They decided to camp there anyway. At night, which Vryce was on watch, he heard the sounds of someone bathing in the nearby stream, and of course went to investigate without waking anyone. There in the pond was a beautiful nymph, who failed to blind him with her beauty, and later (after he refused her advances) failed to kill or stun him. THEN he went to wake the party, warning them not to open their eyes. The nymph followed, and (ignoring the ugly dwarf and the rather put-out druidess) tried to convince Vryce or Seldon to stay with her. "Just for the night! I can ensure that you get an audience with my sister, the seer."
"Well, if it's just for the night," Vryce said. Apparently, he'd already been the boy-toy of a dryad once, before his adventuring career, and was well willing to face the peril. Somewhat to their surprise, the nymph did return him in the morning, only slightly the worse for wear -- parts of his hair had turned white, as if from age. But he cared not, for the night had been quite... perilous.
The next day they reached the seer's tower around noon, and were welcomed inside and fed bowls of oatmeal. The seer had been expecting them, but didn't know what they were planning to ask. They asked her many things -- about Pashnuk (he wanted an item the witch queen had, the 3rd piece of the plenary malachite, which gave a commander great skill in battle), about the witch queen (a former high priestess of Tyr, who'd fallen from grace and now possessed the demonic powers of a warlock), about the plenary malachite (it would be an advantage for the forces of good to reunite it and break the curse of the earthbound, as the silvermist crater would open soon, unleashing a tide of flying evil things), and about other things that she didn't have an answer for, as they were not world-altering events.
"Where can I find a large enough cache of gold to affect the worldwide economy?"
"I... don't see that happening."
She told them she could identify the special powers of their part of the plenary malachite for them, but only if they'd leave it with her overnight, while they went up to the vicarship of Diancet near Ciaren to fight off the zombies or whatever. Most of the party (except for Seldon) was willing to take her word that she'd give it back. Because, among other things, she'd lived in that tower for ages, so they'd know where to find her unless she was willing to uproot her entire life to steal the artifact.
Up at the vicarship, they were told that the undead had killed a few villagers at the start, but lately people had been able to avoid any further deaths by boarding themselves up in their houses at night -- but this was no way to live, and they wanted someone to stop the nightly raids. The undead described sounded like zombies, skeletons, and ghouls, so the plan was to stand out in the middle of town and attack the undead when they shambled in.
It more or less went as planned. There were a *lot* of undead, but they were individually weak, and never really managed to threaten the party. After a long but not terribly terrifying fight, the dozen or so skeletons or zombies and single ghoul were dispatched, and the party started tracking them back to whereever they'd come from.
They'd come from a small hut -- one the priest had recommended they check out during daylight. But this would work. Inside was the zombie master, a sentient ghast who tried to zap them with negative energy, but was zapped mostly to death by the paladin laying on hands, and finished off by ranged attacks.
On him they found a half dozen small black evil stones, and in his house was an evil book describing how to trap the souls of people you sacrificed into small black evil stones, which could be used to shoot negative energy at people or raise undead... at the cost of utterly destroying the soul of the person you sacrificed, of course. Setting them free without destroying them was a matter of smashing the stones without doing any special ritual, which was good because Vryce had already done that.
Vryce also wanted to burn the book, but the rest of the party convinced him that knowledge itself was not evil. He agreed to let them bring it back to the priest of Diancet to decide on what to do with it -- and the priest recommended they give it to the bardic college in the city they'd been sent from. Bards wouldn't be able to use the rituals, and they're where people would go for information if the knowledge was somehow required.
Before heading back, they needed to stop at the seer to retrieve their piece of the malachite -- but her tower was on fire! They rushed in to find her gone, but a trail of blood leading off into the grass... and Seldon managed to find the malachite hidden in a pot of oatmeal, while Vryce found a note telling them that she'd known this was going to happen, and it was necessary and 'served a greater cause'. And oh, by the way, their piece of the malachite had no special powers, but was sentient.
Tracking the blood led them to her body -- she'd been horribly mutilated and tortured to death, as part of a ritual to see the future, and her eyes had been taken. They carefully reparied her as well as they could manage, and wrapped her body up to take back to her sister, the nymph.
The nymph wore a robe to spare the party any saving throws this time, and cried over her sister's body before attempting to raise her from the dead -- but the seer refused to return. The nymph asked them who had committed the horrible act, but all they could show her was a scrap of cloth, which she identified as the symbol of an elvish noble house. In gratitude for bringing her her sister's body, she Geased the party with finding her murderer and exacting justice, then teleported them to Slytheen (or whatever that city was called) so that they could start investigating right away.
last session | next session
Stacey stopped by for a few minutes around the time of the zombie battle -- she can't come Mondays because she has class, apparently. Maybe next semester she'll have Monday nights free...
