terrycloth: (d20)
terrycloth ([personal profile] terrycloth) wrote2008-05-10 10:36 am

Try again!

Last night we had a session of the shadake game.

Kit woke up naked on the battlefield, surrounded by the minions of death, who were gathering the other dead people and giving him dirty looks because he had immunity. The party had all left to find the ghost inn -- it was the only reasonable landmark in the area, and Mira pointed out that they could get another round of Pale Ladies and go get more water from the fae city.

Kit (after dressing himself in torn rags from some of the dead bodies so as not to be completely naked) decided to head there too, since it was the only reasonable landmark in the area. On the way, he forested up spell components -- a little cage woven of twigs, use it to trap birds for their feathers and other bits, keep an eye out for appropriate seeds and herbs for other spells... he also ran across his new dog on the way, and enlarged it as a mount.

By the time he arrived the party had already left, but they'd had to pay for everything they bought with its weight in gems since they'd been completely overloaded, so the innkeeper was sympathetic and gave him (and his dog) a Pale Lady for free. So he didn't have to charm her and steal all the gems back, like he'd planned.

And, since the party was loaded down with treasure, he was able to catch up to them before they got to the fae city.

Getting more water wasn't a problem, and the priest of Starlight was nice enough to let Kit keep the gems that he couldn't carry anymore after loading up on water of balance (the ones he'd been carrying in his canteens), so Kit had some spending money, which he used on a new staff and an amulet of glamour to simulate wearing clothes (he actually bought replacement clothes later, but he wasn't going to buy mundane items from the fae).

The party woke up on a mountainside, near a bunch of wild goats and a cart stuck in a sinkhole. They were able to levitate it out of the pit, charm and enlarge a few goats, and head back to Service to see if they were still in time to save the city.

They weren't. The city was totally destroyed, with no stone left standing atop another, and everyone dead, including (it appeared) the entire invading army. The only survivors were a bunch of babies under the age of 1. 500 of them, since it had been a fairly large town.

Despite the risk of plague -- and it wasn't THAT much of a risk unless the plague somehow killed people by stabbing and beheading them -- the party went into the city to retrieve the babies. Bob in particular was not about to leave them behind, or at least was most vocal about it. He and Cho got to be their nursemaids (well, them and some more charmed goats) for a couple days until they were able to get them to a town with living people in it, who agreed to find homes for them somewhere in the surrounding area.

Mira: "Wouldn't it be funny if this is how the plague starts?"

Bob made a big show of donating most of his share of the dragon horde to the care of the children, and managed to convince the priest to stay as their guardian -- effectively ditching him, which was important since he wasn't *really* an undercover operative.

Then they resupplied (with at least basic clothes and food and stuff) and headed back to the mountain pass, which looked like a two-month journey to the next town, assuming they made good time on the roads.

On the way, they ran into a pack of poisonous carnivorous butterflies infesting a stretch of woods that the road switchbacked through several times. They weren't at all prepared the first time... Kit warned the party that the butterflies were dangerous to fight because they reflected magic, but Leen, Cho, and Bob insisted that their respective abilities weren't really magic, and wouldn't be reflected. Fortunately for them (and in Leen's case, for the *entire party*), they were right. Mira and Kit did use magic, but had some indirect abilities like summoning rock golems and creating walls.

So they won, and collected three live caged (and later, charmed) butterflies for their trouble, along with some magic-reflecting dust in a jar. One of the goats was killed, though -- the poison from the butterflies was really really fucking toxic. Also, he'd been touching the last butterfly when Cho zorched it. Since Kit couldn't cure poison anymore (the unicorn horn had been destroyed, along with the book of cantrips with the cure poison spell in it) fighting them would be really, really dangerous.

So Kit did a test with the live caged butterflies. Good news! They were afriad of fire! Bad news! So was the goat! The party had insisted he unhook the goat before doing that test, so the cart wasn't pulled off the cliff with it as it fled in a panic.

Kit noted that if he had an animated wooden statue of an animal that wasn't afraid of fire, they'd be fine... but the only thing he could think of that could pull a cart and wasn't afraid of fire was a nightmare, and it would have to be a pretty good carving to avoid just ending up as a horse. Cho and Bob cooperated, and ended up being inspired, making a *very* good nightmare statuette.

So Kit enlarged it, animated it, lit the whole wagon on fire, and they were able to pass through the second butterfly gauntlet unmolested.

last session | next session

...so it was a pretty good session, at least as far as the game was concerned. At one point I farted, though, and Kat *wouldn't fucking let it go*, for like five minutes. Then later on -- HOURS later on -- I mentioned that a previous character had had wind magic and she burst into laughter for like 30 seconds.

Yeah... stay classy, Kat.