Taking back what's ours...
Dec. 24th, 2005 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothWe had a session of Lazar's game last night. Twidget never showed up -- possibly because no message went out on the yahoo group like it was supposed to. Stupid yahoo. Or maybe he's visiting family or something, I don't know. Anyway, he was dead and/or captured and/or in disguise or something, so it didn't make much difference, although Lazar had to contrive a reason for him to still be with us after it was all over.
Murdock was giving out presents -- little anime figurines from animes he knew we watched. I got Kagome from Inu Yasha -- she came neatly bisected at the waist, as if she'd been cut in half. Playing around, I discovered that her skirt came off for some reason... and so did her hair. And her skirt could be put on the peg the hair was supposed to go on, and looked a lot like Dragonball Z hair -- and then the panties were like a swimsuit, and she was transformed into a creepy rendition of a typical DBZ character. Heehee.
Lazar had little fluffies made up for each of us -- I got a squirrel fluffie, Murdock got a zebra, etc. We used them as figurines in the big battle of the night, with generic fluffies as the pirates. Apparently, Lazar and Sandy have been playing a lot of Phantom Brave, because he was making Phantom Brave noises and motions whenever a pirate moved, or jumped up onto a ledge, or whatever...
Anyway...
There were some musings about ways that, at great expense and with quite a bit of effort, the party's magitech could be used to make general-purpose devices that could used more like spells the mages had done back in the day. Mostly, by Wayne, who was (perhaps fortunately) too lazy (and sleepy) to try to actually build such a thing. No, they instead stuck with what they had (wings and weapons and the silver paint for armor) and headed out to rescue the dragon and Ka'sa. And get back their ship.
They went to get the dragon first, since they half expected to have to flee with their ship into exile. The dragon had reportedly killed off most of the pirates who'd been occupying it, and the other pirates nearby were supposedly fighting a battle with yet another group of pirates over a ship that had been consumed in green flame a while earlier -- the scavengers were going to go out and scavenge during the confusion, and the party felt that this was an opportunity for them to do so as well, which was why they were acting now -- but as they'd discovered before, the pirates of the red ship never left their ship entirely unguarded, so there was a good chance they'd have to fight someone to get their ship back, while the dragon had crashed in a pair of abandoned ships which, they discovered, were also now on fire.
But they had weaver silk, and the ships weren't entirely consumed in flames yet. It was raining heavily, though, so Roshan and Wayne took cover underneath Chochang and Jardin respectively -- the silver paint was under peoples' clothing for the most part (and painted between two layers of weaver silk besides, to avoid icky paint fur) but the Cytherians had painted their wings which didn't usually have clothing over them, and were worried about it washing off.
Three of the skymantas were hanging around the wreckage (perhaps for warmth), and Wayne charmed one of them because he forgot that everyone had wings now, and they didn't really need it to get up and into the hole the dragon had left in the deck. They did need to recover them at *some* point, though...
At any rate, the dragon was, indeed, inside, and badly hurt but not dead. Perrel sent Wayne scavenging around for materials, and he found a bunch of bloodstained torture implements in one room, and a wide assortment of moldy food in another -- that was about it. But it was enough for Perrel to whip up a single dose of healing for the dragon, and bring him conscious.
By the time he was finished, the fire was getting close and, in particular, was blocking the exit... but these ships weren't especially resistant to axes and dragon-claws, so they just made a new exit in the side of the ship. Wayne invited the dragon to come along with them to 'play with' and 'hug' the pirates, and the dragon was excited at the prospect of meeting new friends.
Wayne also found a bit of the wreckage of the gold-wire-and-rope construct he'd built to defend their ship on the open space near the burning ships... unfortunately, some of the paint on the gold had been scratched off, and there was no sign of the bulk of it -- someone had probably seen the gold underneath and gathered it all up.
It didn't take long for them to get to their ship, because the island was small. The dragon immediately charged in, sending out happy telepathic messages, and pounced on three or four of the pirates, hugging them enthusiastically, with predictable (if messy) results. "They're not hugging back!" he complained. Some of the pirates fought back, and one of them (an axe-wielding blind juruki, just like Perrel only evil) actually managed to hurt the dragon, who left in a sulk, but not before he'd blasted said pirate with a mental scream of anguish and betrayal that knocked him out for a few seconds.
Meanwhile, the party had charged and engaged the rest of the pirates. Unfortunately, the three visible on deck were only a small portion of the pirates actually on the ship, and they found themselves outnumbered, if not outclassed.
Jardin squared off against a female Cytherian with broze claws and tail-spikes, and they went back and forth for a very long time before he finally managed to take her down -- the whole battle, more or less. Roshan and Wayne attacked a dwarf with a very fast skeletal gauntlet and a freakish pain-inflicting whip, but the dwarf was more than a match for both of them together -- and a rapier-wielding pirate took Wayne by surprise and skewered him.
Wayne decided that running away was the better part of valor, only to run into even MORE pirates below -- so he fled into the cargo bay (they'd already seen the pirates in the cargo bay pop out to fight the dragon and Perrel) smashing the jar he'd trapped the second wil-o-wisp behind him in the corridor, figuring perhaps that the rapier-wielder would chase him.
But he wasn't actually chased, as one of Chochang's bolas (she was standing back and using ranged weapons, with Balthazaar) entangled the rapier-pirate before he could do anything else. The pirate sent his robotic parrot after Chochang in revenge, and she was badly pecked before grabbing hold of it -- but holding onto it took both of them out of the fight.
Luckily for Roshan, who'd taken a lot of sanity damage from the whip, Perrel finally finished off the pirate he'd been fighting who'd been tossing paralytic darts at him, and came in to help with the dwarf. This was especially lucky, as a giant pirate popped out of the canopy and would have been fighting Roshan by herself too -- but instead he ended up fighting Perrel, who managed to take out both of them.
Roshan still ran away, though -- her sanity was *really* low, and the dragon's periodic mental screams and Chochang throwing explosive bolas into combat blasting friend and foe alike had not been helping.
In fact, after Balthazaar shot down the rapier pirate as he tried to run away, the only pirates left were the four all clustered around Wayne, who'd been hypnotized by the wisp he released right along with them, until it flew into his pocket, setting all of them free. Luckily for Wayne, the dangerous pirate of the bunch (the axe-wielding juruki, who'd regained consciousness just in time to be hypnotized by the wisp) was more interested in making sure the wisp stayed trapped than in finishing off the badly wounded cytherian, and Wayne was able to run away, straight up into the canopy.
The pirate activated fiery wings and followed, though, but Wayne was able to close his eyes and set the wisp free, and it rehypnotized all four of the pirates and led them merrily off towards the edge of the island.
So the battle was over. Most of the downed pirates were still alive (except for the ones that the dragon hugged) but there was no sign of Ka'sa. The ship had been pretty well looted, too, but most of the heavy and apparently useless mirrors were still in place (save two) and so were most of the food processors -- so they had the bare minimum they needed to continue their mission.
The pirates were tied up and stripped, and the party was especially interested in their clothing, which was as good protection as their paint, only not temporary. They even had a Cytherian set! Before they could send the ship into exile, though, the axe-wielding pirate came back, having not died from jumping off the edge (thanks to his wings) and having eventually escaped from the wisp's grasp. He offered to parlay.
The party was suspicious, but figured they had little to lose by granting it. What the pirate wanted was Wayne's anti-will-o-wisp cloak, since the island was now plagued with them. Wayne wasn't willing to give it up, but offered to make a new one for the pirate... except that he needed to catch another wisp first, and who knew how long that would take? The pirate was a better wisp hunter, and promised he could catch one quickly if he could only *borrow* the cloak... they kept the pirate's weapons as collateral, and let him take it for that purpose.
Somewhat to their surprise, he came back, just after they'd finished doing jury-rigged 'repairs' to the ship (hooking the anchors to the impeller ring in lieu of actual rigging), cushioning the fragile mirrors by tying them up near the top of the canopy, and sliding it off the edge.
"Where's your ship?"
"We sent it into exile, where we plan to join it after we get back the rest of our crew. We figure we'll find a way off this island one way or another, and it'll be a lot easier if we don't have to keep worrying about being attacked."
The pirate thought they were daft, but was willing to go make the trades they'd need to get their crew back in return for the cloak Wayne would make him. They released the weaker pirates to him to use as trade goods (the ones that, even if it was just a trick to get his friends released, they were confident they'd be able to take in combat) and arranged to meet him at noon (about three hours from then) at the burnt out ships where they'd found the dragon -- an easy to spot landmark that no one else would have any reason to go near.
To make a somewhat boring chapter of the story short [as the GM did, glossing over the rest] they were able to make the trade -- the pirate was honorable -- and recover their crew, exile themselves, make slightly less temporary repairs to their ship (which had hit harder than they expected and had been in worse shape than their quick appraisal had revealed), and give Maat the signal to let them leave the island. They took the three pirates the wisp had led off the edge on as new crew -- they were the weak pirates, and Maat would probably kill them if they left them behind. The dangerous pirates, they left on the surface, unharmed but tied up and without gear, to escape if they were able.
The ship had to sail on the surface for a long time before the canopy recovered enough lift to get them off the ground, and they didn't have any supplies like food or water anymore, so they had to process floatvine or fish. But still, it was good to be away from ALL THE DAMN PIRATES.
And Ka'sa -- who they'd figured had been killed by the fall and being crushed beneath the dragon after all -- was apparently, instead, trapped in one of the capture-vines Wayne had planted around the canopy a week ago, which had somehow (Perrel knew how, as he'd done it) grown to full size in that week. They'd seen a pirate captured in it during the fight, but didn't have the supplies (aka livestock) to free him, and figured he'd eventually get digested or escape or whatever and didn't much care. Finding out it was Ka'sa... or, well, hadn't Ka'sa been a hildrago (winged mouse)? Wasn't this, isntead, a Glazend? (metallic butterfly) Yes, it was. But it claimed to be Ka'sa, and it wasn't like they hadn't taken on three other pirates.
However, their journey soon took a darker turn, as one of the 'new crew' (aka pirates) was found murdered... and skinned... with Roshan's knife embedded in his skull. They were reminded of the other murders that had followed them ever since the centaur isle, but was this really the same? No *bones* had been taken, and Roshan had been acting weird (again) ever since the battle, where she'd been so rattled... maybe it *wasn't* an obvious frame-up job.
last week | next week
So, yeah, a lot of the night was a big battle against the pirates, using the new combat system. Hard to say if it proved it worked (it obviously worked, and had the intended effect where melee damage worked up to one decisive hit, while 'ranged' damage plinked away only mildly effectually) or proved it was too annoying (Jardin was very annoyed by taking the whole combat to beat up one stinking pirate) or too deadly (Wayne was almost killed when a lucky roll by a pirate hit him immediately, since melee damage that gets through is doubled). Hmm.
Murdock was giving out presents -- little anime figurines from animes he knew we watched. I got Kagome from Inu Yasha -- she came neatly bisected at the waist, as if she'd been cut in half. Playing around, I discovered that her skirt came off for some reason... and so did her hair. And her skirt could be put on the peg the hair was supposed to go on, and looked a lot like Dragonball Z hair -- and then the panties were like a swimsuit, and she was transformed into a creepy rendition of a typical DBZ character. Heehee.
Lazar had little fluffies made up for each of us -- I got a squirrel fluffie, Murdock got a zebra, etc. We used them as figurines in the big battle of the night, with generic fluffies as the pirates. Apparently, Lazar and Sandy have been playing a lot of Phantom Brave, because he was making Phantom Brave noises and motions whenever a pirate moved, or jumped up onto a ledge, or whatever...
Anyway...
There were some musings about ways that, at great expense and with quite a bit of effort, the party's magitech could be used to make general-purpose devices that could used more like spells the mages had done back in the day. Mostly, by Wayne, who was (perhaps fortunately) too lazy (and sleepy) to try to actually build such a thing. No, they instead stuck with what they had (wings and weapons and the silver paint for armor) and headed out to rescue the dragon and Ka'sa. And get back their ship.
They went to get the dragon first, since they half expected to have to flee with their ship into exile. The dragon had reportedly killed off most of the pirates who'd been occupying it, and the other pirates nearby were supposedly fighting a battle with yet another group of pirates over a ship that had been consumed in green flame a while earlier -- the scavengers were going to go out and scavenge during the confusion, and the party felt that this was an opportunity for them to do so as well, which was why they were acting now -- but as they'd discovered before, the pirates of the red ship never left their ship entirely unguarded, so there was a good chance they'd have to fight someone to get their ship back, while the dragon had crashed in a pair of abandoned ships which, they discovered, were also now on fire.
But they had weaver silk, and the ships weren't entirely consumed in flames yet. It was raining heavily, though, so Roshan and Wayne took cover underneath Chochang and Jardin respectively -- the silver paint was under peoples' clothing for the most part (and painted between two layers of weaver silk besides, to avoid icky paint fur) but the Cytherians had painted their wings which didn't usually have clothing over them, and were worried about it washing off.
Three of the skymantas were hanging around the wreckage (perhaps for warmth), and Wayne charmed one of them because he forgot that everyone had wings now, and they didn't really need it to get up and into the hole the dragon had left in the deck. They did need to recover them at *some* point, though...
At any rate, the dragon was, indeed, inside, and badly hurt but not dead. Perrel sent Wayne scavenging around for materials, and he found a bunch of bloodstained torture implements in one room, and a wide assortment of moldy food in another -- that was about it. But it was enough for Perrel to whip up a single dose of healing for the dragon, and bring him conscious.
By the time he was finished, the fire was getting close and, in particular, was blocking the exit... but these ships weren't especially resistant to axes and dragon-claws, so they just made a new exit in the side of the ship. Wayne invited the dragon to come along with them to 'play with' and 'hug' the pirates, and the dragon was excited at the prospect of meeting new friends.
Wayne also found a bit of the wreckage of the gold-wire-and-rope construct he'd built to defend their ship on the open space near the burning ships... unfortunately, some of the paint on the gold had been scratched off, and there was no sign of the bulk of it -- someone had probably seen the gold underneath and gathered it all up.
It didn't take long for them to get to their ship, because the island was small. The dragon immediately charged in, sending out happy telepathic messages, and pounced on three or four of the pirates, hugging them enthusiastically, with predictable (if messy) results. "They're not hugging back!" he complained. Some of the pirates fought back, and one of them (an axe-wielding blind juruki, just like Perrel only evil) actually managed to hurt the dragon, who left in a sulk, but not before he'd blasted said pirate with a mental scream of anguish and betrayal that knocked him out for a few seconds.
Meanwhile, the party had charged and engaged the rest of the pirates. Unfortunately, the three visible on deck were only a small portion of the pirates actually on the ship, and they found themselves outnumbered, if not outclassed.
Jardin squared off against a female Cytherian with broze claws and tail-spikes, and they went back and forth for a very long time before he finally managed to take her down -- the whole battle, more or less. Roshan and Wayne attacked a dwarf with a very fast skeletal gauntlet and a freakish pain-inflicting whip, but the dwarf was more than a match for both of them together -- and a rapier-wielding pirate took Wayne by surprise and skewered him.
Wayne decided that running away was the better part of valor, only to run into even MORE pirates below -- so he fled into the cargo bay (they'd already seen the pirates in the cargo bay pop out to fight the dragon and Perrel) smashing the jar he'd trapped the second wil-o-wisp behind him in the corridor, figuring perhaps that the rapier-wielder would chase him.
But he wasn't actually chased, as one of Chochang's bolas (she was standing back and using ranged weapons, with Balthazaar) entangled the rapier-pirate before he could do anything else. The pirate sent his robotic parrot after Chochang in revenge, and she was badly pecked before grabbing hold of it -- but holding onto it took both of them out of the fight.
Luckily for Roshan, who'd taken a lot of sanity damage from the whip, Perrel finally finished off the pirate he'd been fighting who'd been tossing paralytic darts at him, and came in to help with the dwarf. This was especially lucky, as a giant pirate popped out of the canopy and would have been fighting Roshan by herself too -- but instead he ended up fighting Perrel, who managed to take out both of them.
Roshan still ran away, though -- her sanity was *really* low, and the dragon's periodic mental screams and Chochang throwing explosive bolas into combat blasting friend and foe alike had not been helping.
In fact, after Balthazaar shot down the rapier pirate as he tried to run away, the only pirates left were the four all clustered around Wayne, who'd been hypnotized by the wisp he released right along with them, until it flew into his pocket, setting all of them free. Luckily for Wayne, the dangerous pirate of the bunch (the axe-wielding juruki, who'd regained consciousness just in time to be hypnotized by the wisp) was more interested in making sure the wisp stayed trapped than in finishing off the badly wounded cytherian, and Wayne was able to run away, straight up into the canopy.
The pirate activated fiery wings and followed, though, but Wayne was able to close his eyes and set the wisp free, and it rehypnotized all four of the pirates and led them merrily off towards the edge of the island.
So the battle was over. Most of the downed pirates were still alive (except for the ones that the dragon hugged) but there was no sign of Ka'sa. The ship had been pretty well looted, too, but most of the heavy and apparently useless mirrors were still in place (save two) and so were most of the food processors -- so they had the bare minimum they needed to continue their mission.
The pirates were tied up and stripped, and the party was especially interested in their clothing, which was as good protection as their paint, only not temporary. They even had a Cytherian set! Before they could send the ship into exile, though, the axe-wielding pirate came back, having not died from jumping off the edge (thanks to his wings) and having eventually escaped from the wisp's grasp. He offered to parlay.
The party was suspicious, but figured they had little to lose by granting it. What the pirate wanted was Wayne's anti-will-o-wisp cloak, since the island was now plagued with them. Wayne wasn't willing to give it up, but offered to make a new one for the pirate... except that he needed to catch another wisp first, and who knew how long that would take? The pirate was a better wisp hunter, and promised he could catch one quickly if he could only *borrow* the cloak... they kept the pirate's weapons as collateral, and let him take it for that purpose.
Somewhat to their surprise, he came back, just after they'd finished doing jury-rigged 'repairs' to the ship (hooking the anchors to the impeller ring in lieu of actual rigging), cushioning the fragile mirrors by tying them up near the top of the canopy, and sliding it off the edge.
"Where's your ship?"
"We sent it into exile, where we plan to join it after we get back the rest of our crew. We figure we'll find a way off this island one way or another, and it'll be a lot easier if we don't have to keep worrying about being attacked."
The pirate thought they were daft, but was willing to go make the trades they'd need to get their crew back in return for the cloak Wayne would make him. They released the weaker pirates to him to use as trade goods (the ones that, even if it was just a trick to get his friends released, they were confident they'd be able to take in combat) and arranged to meet him at noon (about three hours from then) at the burnt out ships where they'd found the dragon -- an easy to spot landmark that no one else would have any reason to go near.
To make a somewhat boring chapter of the story short [as the GM did, glossing over the rest] they were able to make the trade -- the pirate was honorable -- and recover their crew, exile themselves, make slightly less temporary repairs to their ship (which had hit harder than they expected and had been in worse shape than their quick appraisal had revealed), and give Maat the signal to let them leave the island. They took the three pirates the wisp had led off the edge on as new crew -- they were the weak pirates, and Maat would probably kill them if they left them behind. The dangerous pirates, they left on the surface, unharmed but tied up and without gear, to escape if they were able.
The ship had to sail on the surface for a long time before the canopy recovered enough lift to get them off the ground, and they didn't have any supplies like food or water anymore, so they had to process floatvine or fish. But still, it was good to be away from ALL THE DAMN PIRATES.
And Ka'sa -- who they'd figured had been killed by the fall and being crushed beneath the dragon after all -- was apparently, instead, trapped in one of the capture-vines Wayne had planted around the canopy a week ago, which had somehow (Perrel knew how, as he'd done it) grown to full size in that week. They'd seen a pirate captured in it during the fight, but didn't have the supplies (aka livestock) to free him, and figured he'd eventually get digested or escape or whatever and didn't much care. Finding out it was Ka'sa... or, well, hadn't Ka'sa been a hildrago (winged mouse)? Wasn't this, isntead, a Glazend? (metallic butterfly) Yes, it was. But it claimed to be Ka'sa, and it wasn't like they hadn't taken on three other pirates.
However, their journey soon took a darker turn, as one of the 'new crew' (aka pirates) was found murdered... and skinned... with Roshan's knife embedded in his skull. They were reminded of the other murders that had followed them ever since the centaur isle, but was this really the same? No *bones* had been taken, and Roshan had been acting weird (again) ever since the battle, where she'd been so rattled... maybe it *wasn't* an obvious frame-up job.
last week | next week
So, yeah, a lot of the night was a big battle against the pirates, using the new combat system. Hard to say if it proved it worked (it obviously worked, and had the intended effect where melee damage worked up to one decisive hit, while 'ranged' damage plinked away only mildly effectually) or proved it was too annoying (Jardin was very annoyed by taking the whole combat to beat up one stinking pirate) or too deadly (Wayne was almost killed when a lucky roll by a pirate hit him immediately, since melee damage that gets through is doubled). Hmm.
