Giant Happy Friendly Weasels of DEATH!
Nov. 12th, 2005 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothSo, we had a session of Lazar's Shadake game last night. We mostly worked on setting up defenses, then began investigating the (hopefully) deserted pirate ship, only to run into trouble with giant happy friendly weasels of death. And also, the ship's defenses.
Wayne was not feeling very well, even after all the healing -- the Daeg's claws had torn at his mind, and Perrel had used his small remaining supply of mental healing on himself, to help with the pain from the Cytherian poison he'd been dosed with. Before remembering that he had Cytherian poison antidote... ahwell, he hadn't had enough to really help Wayne anyway.
At any rate, Wayne was terrified that more pirates would show up, and frantic to build something to stop them before that could happen. His ideas evolved from a rope weapon, to a bunch of little rope traps, to a GIANT rope trap covering the whole ship, incorporating the ship's rigging and deflation system, that would entangle anyone that it didn't recognize. To get it done quickly, it had to be either very expensive or very heavy... his initial plan was to break up the floating tower's rock base and use the floatstone as a 'very heavy' component, but Balthazaar convinced him to instead use up a good percentage of their spool of gold wire as a 'very expensive' component.
And it was very expensive indeed! About $100,000. About two years' allowance, meaning that it would significantly cut into their resources in the future... but apparently, Balthazaar wanted them to be protected as well. And no one thought that Perrel or Jardin could mine enough rock in time to actually make the heavy version.
Most of the crew helped him with the mundane craft parts of the task -- laying out the rope in the appropriate pattern while he tied the special knots at each intersection with gold wire, which Chochang then painted so as not to be a glittery network of shiny gold to attract theives. Perrel and Jardin were the exceptions -- Jardin made himself a very VERY dangerous naginata (that was even more powerful than Perrel's very dangerous axe) and Perrel failed to make more healing potions, instead covering the ship in a strange yellow mist. "I think it's harmless, at least," he told the others, so they kept working on the rope trap.
After about an hour -- part of the reason the trap had had to be so heavy was that it was a rush job -- no additional pirates had yet attacked... and Perrel and Jardin noticed that the crowd of people who'd been slowly leaving, disappointed in the lack of salvage, were still just where they'd left them, still apparently leaving at a normal speed. And the sun hadn't moved during the whole hour. They eventually decided that it was probably an abberrent magical effect from Perrel's failed potion, which at least was convenient.
On the other hand, Wayne (who'd just been relaxing, figuring that any additional pirates on the ship would have attacked by then) was terrified of pirates again, since now they *could* still be lurking to attack.
So they got the cloth-covered will-o-wisp bottle, with the cloth firmly tied in place for safety, and prepared to board the pirate ship. Which, they now noticed, was glowing red.
W: "Um... I don't suppose you can see any magic traps on it, Perrel?" Having just spent an hour trapping their own ship, the thought that perhaps they weren't the only ones ever to conceive of such a thing had crossed his mind.
P: "The whole ship's glowing magic."
W: "So... who wants to go first? I guess it's your decision, since you're the leader now." Balthazaar had declared Perrel to be the leader for this island's excursion.
P: "You can go first, Wayne!"
Jardin and Perrel snickered as Wayne cautiously boarded the ship, testing the deck with his spiky-ball before landing. It was an ancient magical floating ship, suspended in the air by magic, with ordinary water-navy rigging as a result, and ordinary looking, apparently unloaded ballistae lining the sides. Three of which were moving on their own, he now noticed, to track Balthazaar, Jardin and Perrel. When the three joined him on the ship, the ballistae instead started tracking the motions of other people inside their ship, through the hull.
A few quick attempts showed that the ballistae could be re-aimed by hand, but would go back to tracking the crew as soon as you let go. Firing them at an unoccupied bit of island showed that they did not, in fact, need to be loaded to fire. Specifically, to shoot a blue beam that made its target burst into yellow fire, that seemed to dissolve things like acid. A few other quick attempts showed that neither Balthazaar's concentrated mosquito acid nor Jardin's strength could dislodge the weapons, which they really *really* wanted to take with them, or at least get to stop pointing at their ship.
Before trying anything more involved, they decided to finish searching the ship for pirates. So Wayne held the bottle of wisps ready while Perrel opened the nearest door... and out poured a dozen giant happy friendly weasels of death! Two of them snatched the will-o-wisps jar out of Wayne's hands and started fighting over it, while the others molested the party, pouncing on them and licking them unmercifully.
Wayne was able to convince his weasel to let him go momentarily, and fled for the kitchens, screaming for Rudy to get them a lot of weasel food quickly, as a matter of life and death! The weasel followed, but was entangled in the brand new rope trap.
Perrel fled for the pirate ship's rigging, but unfortuantely, weasels climbed almost as well as he did. He managed to outdistance them, but the rope he chose to cross to the other mast turned out to not actually be attached firmly... it was the rope you'd pull to open the cargo doors, and he ended up doing a graceful tarzan swing down into the now-open cargo bay, with half the weasels piling in after him. He darted through one door, but couldn't hold it closed against the weasels, then heard all the doors lock around him. He tried one of them anyway...
Jardin and Balthazaar basically held their position until Wayne returned with a barrel of meat. The meat distracted the weasels for long enough for Jardin to retrieve the jar, wrap it back up in its cloth (which was now too tattered to safely carry around, from all the weasel teeth), and put it somewhere safe. Wayne did a quick tour of the outside of the ship to look for Perrel, but couldn't find him; he did manage to lead most of the weasels into the cargo bay, where they were apparently trapped.
So, now without a will-o-wisp jar, with Perrel missing and Jardin occupied securing the wisps, Wayne and Balthazaar headed down into the depths of the pirate ship to find Perrel. Partly because he was rattled, partly because he was clumsy, and partly because he couldn't decide whether or not yelling for Perrel would be a good idea, Wayne was significantly less stealthy than might have been wise, and a an elderly pirate yelled back at him from inside one of the rooms off to the side.
An uncomfortable conversation followed, in which Wayne pretended (badly) not to be a recent victim of a pirate attack there to finish off any additional pirates, and the old woman pretended (badly) not to realize that he was really a recent victim of a pirate attack there to finish off any additional pirates. After acting all exasperated that they'd let loose the giant happy friendly weasels of death, and had even let them get into the cargo bay again, she locked herself back up into her room, and Wayne and Balthazaar continued on to search for Perrel, with Jardin now joining them.
And after passing through a door into a cross hallway, they found Perrel -- being zapped by electricity and paralyzed, apparently in the act of trying to open a door. One of the giant weasels was also in the hallway, along with a bunch of skeletons.
Wayne decided to pick up one of the skeletons to throw it at Perrel and dislodge him, but the skeleton awoke and animated as he approached! He picked it up anyway, and threw it at Perrel, disloding him from the trap. Perrel was fatigued by the extended shock from the trap, however, and not in any shape to fight.
And it looked like a fight, as the skeleton started screeching, "Intruders! Intruders!" Jardin smashed it to splinters with one swing of his naginata, but it was too late -- the giant happy friendly weasel of death in the hallway with them was no longer happy or friendly, its eyes glowing with sparky magic as it approached to defend the ship.
last week | next week
Wayne was not feeling very well, even after all the healing -- the Daeg's claws had torn at his mind, and Perrel had used his small remaining supply of mental healing on himself, to help with the pain from the Cytherian poison he'd been dosed with. Before remembering that he had Cytherian poison antidote... ahwell, he hadn't had enough to really help Wayne anyway.
At any rate, Wayne was terrified that more pirates would show up, and frantic to build something to stop them before that could happen. His ideas evolved from a rope weapon, to a bunch of little rope traps, to a GIANT rope trap covering the whole ship, incorporating the ship's rigging and deflation system, that would entangle anyone that it didn't recognize. To get it done quickly, it had to be either very expensive or very heavy... his initial plan was to break up the floating tower's rock base and use the floatstone as a 'very heavy' component, but Balthazaar convinced him to instead use up a good percentage of their spool of gold wire as a 'very expensive' component.
And it was very expensive indeed! About $100,000. About two years' allowance, meaning that it would significantly cut into their resources in the future... but apparently, Balthazaar wanted them to be protected as well. And no one thought that Perrel or Jardin could mine enough rock in time to actually make the heavy version.
Most of the crew helped him with the mundane craft parts of the task -- laying out the rope in the appropriate pattern while he tied the special knots at each intersection with gold wire, which Chochang then painted so as not to be a glittery network of shiny gold to attract theives. Perrel and Jardin were the exceptions -- Jardin made himself a very VERY dangerous naginata (that was even more powerful than Perrel's very dangerous axe) and Perrel failed to make more healing potions, instead covering the ship in a strange yellow mist. "I think it's harmless, at least," he told the others, so they kept working on the rope trap.
After about an hour -- part of the reason the trap had had to be so heavy was that it was a rush job -- no additional pirates had yet attacked... and Perrel and Jardin noticed that the crowd of people who'd been slowly leaving, disappointed in the lack of salvage, were still just where they'd left them, still apparently leaving at a normal speed. And the sun hadn't moved during the whole hour. They eventually decided that it was probably an abberrent magical effect from Perrel's failed potion, which at least was convenient.
On the other hand, Wayne (who'd just been relaxing, figuring that any additional pirates on the ship would have attacked by then) was terrified of pirates again, since now they *could* still be lurking to attack.
So they got the cloth-covered will-o-wisp bottle, with the cloth firmly tied in place for safety, and prepared to board the pirate ship. Which, they now noticed, was glowing red.
W: "Um... I don't suppose you can see any magic traps on it, Perrel?" Having just spent an hour trapping their own ship, the thought that perhaps they weren't the only ones ever to conceive of such a thing had crossed his mind.
P: "The whole ship's glowing magic."
W: "So... who wants to go first? I guess it's your decision, since you're the leader now." Balthazaar had declared Perrel to be the leader for this island's excursion.
P: "You can go first, Wayne!"
Jardin and Perrel snickered as Wayne cautiously boarded the ship, testing the deck with his spiky-ball before landing. It was an ancient magical floating ship, suspended in the air by magic, with ordinary water-navy rigging as a result, and ordinary looking, apparently unloaded ballistae lining the sides. Three of which were moving on their own, he now noticed, to track Balthazaar, Jardin and Perrel. When the three joined him on the ship, the ballistae instead started tracking the motions of other people inside their ship, through the hull.
A few quick attempts showed that the ballistae could be re-aimed by hand, but would go back to tracking the crew as soon as you let go. Firing them at an unoccupied bit of island showed that they did not, in fact, need to be loaded to fire. Specifically, to shoot a blue beam that made its target burst into yellow fire, that seemed to dissolve things like acid. A few other quick attempts showed that neither Balthazaar's concentrated mosquito acid nor Jardin's strength could dislodge the weapons, which they really *really* wanted to take with them, or at least get to stop pointing at their ship.
Before trying anything more involved, they decided to finish searching the ship for pirates. So Wayne held the bottle of wisps ready while Perrel opened the nearest door... and out poured a dozen giant happy friendly weasels of death! Two of them snatched the will-o-wisps jar out of Wayne's hands and started fighting over it, while the others molested the party, pouncing on them and licking them unmercifully.
Wayne was able to convince his weasel to let him go momentarily, and fled for the kitchens, screaming for Rudy to get them a lot of weasel food quickly, as a matter of life and death! The weasel followed, but was entangled in the brand new rope trap.
Perrel fled for the pirate ship's rigging, but unfortuantely, weasels climbed almost as well as he did. He managed to outdistance them, but the rope he chose to cross to the other mast turned out to not actually be attached firmly... it was the rope you'd pull to open the cargo doors, and he ended up doing a graceful tarzan swing down into the now-open cargo bay, with half the weasels piling in after him. He darted through one door, but couldn't hold it closed against the weasels, then heard all the doors lock around him. He tried one of them anyway...
Jardin and Balthazaar basically held their position until Wayne returned with a barrel of meat. The meat distracted the weasels for long enough for Jardin to retrieve the jar, wrap it back up in its cloth (which was now too tattered to safely carry around, from all the weasel teeth), and put it somewhere safe. Wayne did a quick tour of the outside of the ship to look for Perrel, but couldn't find him; he did manage to lead most of the weasels into the cargo bay, where they were apparently trapped.
So, now without a will-o-wisp jar, with Perrel missing and Jardin occupied securing the wisps, Wayne and Balthazaar headed down into the depths of the pirate ship to find Perrel. Partly because he was rattled, partly because he was clumsy, and partly because he couldn't decide whether or not yelling for Perrel would be a good idea, Wayne was significantly less stealthy than might have been wise, and a an elderly pirate yelled back at him from inside one of the rooms off to the side.
An uncomfortable conversation followed, in which Wayne pretended (badly) not to be a recent victim of a pirate attack there to finish off any additional pirates, and the old woman pretended (badly) not to realize that he was really a recent victim of a pirate attack there to finish off any additional pirates. After acting all exasperated that they'd let loose the giant happy friendly weasels of death, and had even let them get into the cargo bay again, she locked herself back up into her room, and Wayne and Balthazaar continued on to search for Perrel, with Jardin now joining them.
And after passing through a door into a cross hallway, they found Perrel -- being zapped by electricity and paralyzed, apparently in the act of trying to open a door. One of the giant weasels was also in the hallway, along with a bunch of skeletons.
Wayne decided to pick up one of the skeletons to throw it at Perrel and dislodge him, but the skeleton awoke and animated as he approached! He picked it up anyway, and threw it at Perrel, disloding him from the trap. Perrel was fatigued by the extended shock from the trap, however, and not in any shape to fight.
And it looked like a fight, as the skeleton started screeching, "Intruders! Intruders!" Jardin smashed it to splinters with one swing of his naginata, but it was too late -- the giant happy friendly weasel of death in the hallway with them was no longer happy or friendly, its eyes glowing with sparky magic as it approached to defend the ship.
last week | next week
