The Price of Eeevil
Dec. 5th, 2005 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothWe had a short session of Tom's game. It was short because he foolishly warned us of an upcoming ambush, and we teleported away from it.
Stuff happened before that, though.
Not all the books in the library were obviously evil, except to Rhiannon, who warned everyone not to touch them, and threatened to withhold her services from anyone who did (although only for the purposes of saving them from the books, not in general). Still, Samuel and Zanzibar insisted on checking at least one of the books, while they were there.
There were four books that weren't obviously evil, and 'The Book of Erotic Fantasy' didn't seem likely to be the useful one [ironically, it *was*, the GM told us afterwards, although it was likely to kill you before you could acquire its power -- if you made your ridiculously high will save, you could get the power to shapechange at will without being compelled to use it to engage in a fatal orgy]. The two foolish mage-types settled on 'The Encyclopedia of Life', and Samuel opened it while the rest of the party (save Zanzibar) hid in a rope trick.
A little later, they came out of the rope trick to check to see how badly the two had been slaughtered. Zanzibar was fine, and was leafing through the book, but Samuel was unconscious on the floor.
"What happened to him?" Rhiannon asked.
"He was catalogued," Zanzibar replied.
"What?"
"And filed."
"What are you talking about?"
"When he opened the book, he was catalogued and filed, in the book. See? Here's his soul, trapped in the pages, next to his life story. It says it'd take a resurrection or wish to get him out. Wow... a threesome on his wedding night?"
The book seemed safe to read once it had been opened, so Zanzibar spent some time searching the other life stories looking for any descriptions of where they might have buried lost treasures or something. Meanwhile, the rest of the party considered how to get him out. They'd found a bunch of scrolls in a pit in the corner of the room, but the one that Rhiannon risked opening was marked with a symbol of pain -- presumably, the others were also trapped.
But there was a handy antimagic zone nearby, so they backtracked to it to read the scrolls and at least see what they were. They were all very *dangerous* scrolls, but not actually evil. One was blank -- apparently not readable in antimagic. The last was a scroll of Wish. How convenient! Or at least, that's what they would have said, if Zanzibar was the one trapped in the book. Zanzibar could read low-level scrolls, but needed to roll a 22 on use magic device to read a scroll of wish.
The Angel refused to help them, but a divination Rhiannon cast told them that Zanzibar could free Samuel using the cube, so she let it free from the portable hole and let him study it. "Well, I could cast Clone... that'd bring him back in 2d4 months, if we killed his body. You know, we might want to make clones of all of us, just in --" "NO!!!"
"Ahh, here's a spell to give +10 on a single skill check. That, plus greater heroism, plus a charisma buff... I'd have to roll an 8. Or, oh wait -- here's a pattern that will just let me free him from the book, it's not a spell exactly..." Zanzibar used that, and Samuel was returned to his body, his pages in the book going blank.
After that fiasco, they left all the rest of the books, but *did* take the cube. Zanzibar refused to give it back, and it *had* to be kept in the portable hole, but it would only open the portable hole for Zanzibar or Samuel, so one of them had to carry it if they wanted the hole to be useful for anything else. They took the scrolls, since they were trapped and/or dangerous, and not actually cursed.
They explored the remaining tunnel before leaving, and managed to loot a pair of what looked like adventurer's corpses before running into a Coatl guardian. Zanzibar saw that the mysterious voice warning them to turn back was a guardian, and the party wasn't willing to fight a good creature just for the promise of additional loot, so they stripped the two ancient adventurers and prepared to leave.
While putting the book back, though, Rhiannon was warned by the angel that a horde of undead was nearby, planning to ambush them once they came out. After some discussion -- they probably could have taken out the necromancer in charge, if they used the cube to take control of his undead -- they decided to just teleport back to Wheloon instead of asking for trouble. A necromancer wasn't likely to be able to storm the storehouse to get the evil artifacts, no matter how many zombies and skeletons he brought with him.
last session | next session
Stuff happened before that, though.
Not all the books in the library were obviously evil, except to Rhiannon, who warned everyone not to touch them, and threatened to withhold her services from anyone who did (although only for the purposes of saving them from the books, not in general). Still, Samuel and Zanzibar insisted on checking at least one of the books, while they were there.
There were four books that weren't obviously evil, and 'The Book of Erotic Fantasy' didn't seem likely to be the useful one [ironically, it *was*, the GM told us afterwards, although it was likely to kill you before you could acquire its power -- if you made your ridiculously high will save, you could get the power to shapechange at will without being compelled to use it to engage in a fatal orgy]. The two foolish mage-types settled on 'The Encyclopedia of Life', and Samuel opened it while the rest of the party (save Zanzibar) hid in a rope trick.
A little later, they came out of the rope trick to check to see how badly the two had been slaughtered. Zanzibar was fine, and was leafing through the book, but Samuel was unconscious on the floor.
"What happened to him?" Rhiannon asked.
"He was catalogued," Zanzibar replied.
"What?"
"And filed."
"What are you talking about?"
"When he opened the book, he was catalogued and filed, in the book. See? Here's his soul, trapped in the pages, next to his life story. It says it'd take a resurrection or wish to get him out. Wow... a threesome on his wedding night?"
The book seemed safe to read once it had been opened, so Zanzibar spent some time searching the other life stories looking for any descriptions of where they might have buried lost treasures or something. Meanwhile, the rest of the party considered how to get him out. They'd found a bunch of scrolls in a pit in the corner of the room, but the one that Rhiannon risked opening was marked with a symbol of pain -- presumably, the others were also trapped.
But there was a handy antimagic zone nearby, so they backtracked to it to read the scrolls and at least see what they were. They were all very *dangerous* scrolls, but not actually evil. One was blank -- apparently not readable in antimagic. The last was a scroll of Wish. How convenient! Or at least, that's what they would have said, if Zanzibar was the one trapped in the book. Zanzibar could read low-level scrolls, but needed to roll a 22 on use magic device to read a scroll of wish.
The Angel refused to help them, but a divination Rhiannon cast told them that Zanzibar could free Samuel using the cube, so she let it free from the portable hole and let him study it. "Well, I could cast Clone... that'd bring him back in 2d4 months, if we killed his body. You know, we might want to make clones of all of us, just in --" "NO!!!"
"Ahh, here's a spell to give +10 on a single skill check. That, plus greater heroism, plus a charisma buff... I'd have to roll an 8. Or, oh wait -- here's a pattern that will just let me free him from the book, it's not a spell exactly..." Zanzibar used that, and Samuel was returned to his body, his pages in the book going blank.
After that fiasco, they left all the rest of the books, but *did* take the cube. Zanzibar refused to give it back, and it *had* to be kept in the portable hole, but it would only open the portable hole for Zanzibar or Samuel, so one of them had to carry it if they wanted the hole to be useful for anything else. They took the scrolls, since they were trapped and/or dangerous, and not actually cursed.
They explored the remaining tunnel before leaving, and managed to loot a pair of what looked like adventurer's corpses before running into a Coatl guardian. Zanzibar saw that the mysterious voice warning them to turn back was a guardian, and the party wasn't willing to fight a good creature just for the promise of additional loot, so they stripped the two ancient adventurers and prepared to leave.
While putting the book back, though, Rhiannon was warned by the angel that a horde of undead was nearby, planning to ambush them once they came out. After some discussion -- they probably could have taken out the necromancer in charge, if they used the cube to take control of his undead -- they decided to just teleport back to Wheloon instead of asking for trouble. A necromancer wasn't likely to be able to storm the storehouse to get the evil artifacts, no matter how many zombies and skeletons he brought with him.
last session | next session
