Impatience Killed the Kit
Jun. 8th, 2008 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothFriday night we had a session off the shadake game. Kit once again got to test his curse of immortality, this time after a mid-air collision with an invisible dragon.
It's a good thing he didn't actually stay dead -- try explaining *that* one to saint peter!
The party spent two weeks climbing down through the mountains, only to find the city at the end of the pass, where they'd planned to resupply, completely missing -- the buildings were all gone, down to the foundations, and from the tracks it looked like the inhabitants had all gotten up and left of their own accord, slightly after the buildings went missing. Kit wanted to stay and see if whatever magic had charmed themm all and forced them to disassemble their houses brick by brick would get them too, but he was overruled, so they picked some fruit from abandoned orchards to refill their cart, and moved on.
After a couple days, Kit got impatient, and offered to fly to a forest near Ankh Morpork and druid-teleport the party there. So he memorized a forest near where they were on the road, and activated his redirected-gravity spell to fly through the air at about 200 mph... until he suddenly ran into an invisible dragon, and was dead without any chance to do anything, since he never even knew he was in danger.
He woke up that midnight, with all his possessions, at least, although his staff was ruined -- splintered somewhat and covered in dragon's blood, since he'd been flying Thor-style with it stretched out before him (his redirected gravity spell used pointing the staff to direct the gravity) and it had managed to penetrate the dragon's hide at the same time as it was shoved lengthwise through his own body. Somewhat daunted, but unperturbed (the shock from disturbing things that happened to him regenerated as readily as the things he absorbed from other people when healing them) he finished the mission, somewhat later than exptected, and teleported the party of Taforian adventurers deep into the heart of Razia (although not to Ankh Morpork itself, since there weren't any forests near it -- they were near the city of Trepani, the next city over).
So they needed new papers. Mira already had Razian papers, so she went into the city to trade a good chunk of dragon treasure for new identities for Kit and Cho -- Kit as a duke of Razia, Cho as a Lt. Colonel in the army. Bob's body had legitimate papers already, and Leen and Mira were women and thus needed less excuse not to have been drafted. Kit had the glamour-stone, so looking like a noble was easy enough, but Mira spent a couple more jade (1 jade = 1000 gold) on horses and cart worthy of a noble.
Kit wanted to replace his broken fairy staff with one of similar quality made of a much stronger material. With Cho's help (Cho tossed him a jade, since Kit only had about 500 gold gotten in charity from the Zox priest, compared to the average 10000 or so 'all you can carry' for the rest of the party) he could afford an excellent steel staff, but he also wanted to enchant it to return to his hand on command so that he couldn't lose it, which would cost another jade.
But another option he'd been thinking of trying was to use the dragonblood-impregnated staff as the basis for some enchanted thing... which would have been far too expensive. But one of the mages he talked to about the properties of dragon's blood was interested in buying the staff if and only if Kit could get him the name of the dragon whose blood it was.
Kit came up with a plan to try to charm the dragon while in a situation where getting horribly murdered by the dragon when the spell failed wouldn't hurt so much, and (if it somehow worked) ask the dragon its name so that he could tell it to the mage. Then he had second thoughts... and decided that instead he'd charm the dragon to just give him the money directly from its horde, in return for the thaumaturgical link the blood represented, since a dragon would *probably* be less vengeful over that sort of blackmail than over whatever it was the other mage planned to do to it.
So he cast the spell, and the invisible dragon who'd been following him around turned visible.
Kit: "The spell didn't work, did it."
Dragon: "It shouldn't have, although I wouldn't know. It was interesting watching you decide what to do with my blood."
Kit: "So... can I have the money?"
Dragon: "My horde's inaccessible at the moment. How about I owe you a minor service?"
Kit: "Would that include casting an enchantment I need?"
Dragon: "I supposed it could, although it wouldn't be me casting the enchantment. I could get it done for you."
Kit: "Then we have a deal."
The dragon snatched the blood-covered staff out of his hands, and vanished. And the enchantment didn't get done for as long as they remained in the city, which meant that, perhaps, the spell *had* worked -- the second part of the suggestion was 'and then forget that I exist', which would last for a week with the version he'd cast.
That, or the dragon was ripping him off. But it wasn't like he could have stopped it from taking the staff.
Mira, meanwhile, was contacted by the 'Subversion', a mysterious group dedicated to stopping the useless, destructive war between Taforia and Razia. They offered her the use of a communication crystal that would be able to listen in on all the Razian communication crystals, in return for... well, for a long interview where they suggested she declare herself emporer of Taforia and end the war, but wouldn't actually give her a specific job or anything.
The interview was long, and she was supposed to be under an array of spells that would detect lies, magic, etc. Except for her antimagic field that she kept up through the whole thing. Just as she was about to leave, though, Leen got nervous about her being gone so long with the anti-life field up, and teleported to her to rescue her again. Setting off ALL KINDS of alarms, since Leen was the Taforian equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and Razia was at war with Taforia.
Mira managed to escape the guards, though, and the whole party fled the city in the new wagon, with Leen hidden inside since a very very bad drawing of her had been posted on the walls as a wanted poster.
last session | next session
In other news, I went back to the apartment manager this morning to ask about the fridge, and he said that he'd tried to look at it Wednesday but couldn't fix it because I'd left some spice jars and boxes of plastic forks on top, keeping him from moving it away from the wall. "I meant to leave a note, but I forgot." So I promised to move all that stuff off right away, and sure enough when I got back after keeping my mom and sister etc. company he'd left a note this time.
"You need a new fridge, might be in Tuesday."
So I still don't have a fridge, but there's tangible evidence (in the form of water tracked all over the kitchen floor, and the note) that this is something serious enough for them to actually try to take care of. A new fridge seems like overkill, but the old one was already very very old when I moved in 8 years ago...
It's a good thing he didn't actually stay dead -- try explaining *that* one to saint peter!
The party spent two weeks climbing down through the mountains, only to find the city at the end of the pass, where they'd planned to resupply, completely missing -- the buildings were all gone, down to the foundations, and from the tracks it looked like the inhabitants had all gotten up and left of their own accord, slightly after the buildings went missing. Kit wanted to stay and see if whatever magic had charmed themm all and forced them to disassemble their houses brick by brick would get them too, but he was overruled, so they picked some fruit from abandoned orchards to refill their cart, and moved on.
After a couple days, Kit got impatient, and offered to fly to a forest near Ankh Morpork and druid-teleport the party there. So he memorized a forest near where they were on the road, and activated his redirected-gravity spell to fly through the air at about 200 mph... until he suddenly ran into an invisible dragon, and was dead without any chance to do anything, since he never even knew he was in danger.
He woke up that midnight, with all his possessions, at least, although his staff was ruined -- splintered somewhat and covered in dragon's blood, since he'd been flying Thor-style with it stretched out before him (his redirected gravity spell used pointing the staff to direct the gravity) and it had managed to penetrate the dragon's hide at the same time as it was shoved lengthwise through his own body. Somewhat daunted, but unperturbed (the shock from disturbing things that happened to him regenerated as readily as the things he absorbed from other people when healing them) he finished the mission, somewhat later than exptected, and teleported the party of Taforian adventurers deep into the heart of Razia (although not to Ankh Morpork itself, since there weren't any forests near it -- they were near the city of Trepani, the next city over).
So they needed new papers. Mira already had Razian papers, so she went into the city to trade a good chunk of dragon treasure for new identities for Kit and Cho -- Kit as a duke of Razia, Cho as a Lt. Colonel in the army. Bob's body had legitimate papers already, and Leen and Mira were women and thus needed less excuse not to have been drafted. Kit had the glamour-stone, so looking like a noble was easy enough, but Mira spent a couple more jade (1 jade = 1000 gold) on horses and cart worthy of a noble.
Kit wanted to replace his broken fairy staff with one of similar quality made of a much stronger material. With Cho's help (Cho tossed him a jade, since Kit only had about 500 gold gotten in charity from the Zox priest, compared to the average 10000 or so 'all you can carry' for the rest of the party) he could afford an excellent steel staff, but he also wanted to enchant it to return to his hand on command so that he couldn't lose it, which would cost another jade.
But another option he'd been thinking of trying was to use the dragonblood-impregnated staff as the basis for some enchanted thing... which would have been far too expensive. But one of the mages he talked to about the properties of dragon's blood was interested in buying the staff if and only if Kit could get him the name of the dragon whose blood it was.
Kit came up with a plan to try to charm the dragon while in a situation where getting horribly murdered by the dragon when the spell failed wouldn't hurt so much, and (if it somehow worked) ask the dragon its name so that he could tell it to the mage. Then he had second thoughts... and decided that instead he'd charm the dragon to just give him the money directly from its horde, in return for the thaumaturgical link the blood represented, since a dragon would *probably* be less vengeful over that sort of blackmail than over whatever it was the other mage planned to do to it.
So he cast the spell, and the invisible dragon who'd been following him around turned visible.
Kit: "The spell didn't work, did it."
Dragon: "It shouldn't have, although I wouldn't know. It was interesting watching you decide what to do with my blood."
Kit: "So... can I have the money?"
Dragon: "My horde's inaccessible at the moment. How about I owe you a minor service?"
Kit: "Would that include casting an enchantment I need?"
Dragon: "I supposed it could, although it wouldn't be me casting the enchantment. I could get it done for you."
Kit: "Then we have a deal."
The dragon snatched the blood-covered staff out of his hands, and vanished. And the enchantment didn't get done for as long as they remained in the city, which meant that, perhaps, the spell *had* worked -- the second part of the suggestion was 'and then forget that I exist', which would last for a week with the version he'd cast.
That, or the dragon was ripping him off. But it wasn't like he could have stopped it from taking the staff.
Mira, meanwhile, was contacted by the 'Subversion', a mysterious group dedicated to stopping the useless, destructive war between Taforia and Razia. They offered her the use of a communication crystal that would be able to listen in on all the Razian communication crystals, in return for... well, for a long interview where they suggested she declare herself emporer of Taforia and end the war, but wouldn't actually give her a specific job or anything.
The interview was long, and she was supposed to be under an array of spells that would detect lies, magic, etc. Except for her antimagic field that she kept up through the whole thing. Just as she was about to leave, though, Leen got nervous about her being gone so long with the anti-life field up, and teleported to her to rescue her again. Setting off ALL KINDS of alarms, since Leen was the Taforian equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and Razia was at war with Taforia.
Mira managed to escape the guards, though, and the whole party fled the city in the new wagon, with Leen hidden inside since a very very bad drawing of her had been posted on the walls as a wanted poster.
last session | next session
In other news, I went back to the apartment manager this morning to ask about the fridge, and he said that he'd tried to look at it Wednesday but couldn't fix it because I'd left some spice jars and boxes of plastic forks on top, keeping him from moving it away from the wall. "I meant to leave a note, but I forgot." So I promised to move all that stuff off right away, and sure enough when I got back after keeping my mom and sister etc. company he'd left a note this time.
"You need a new fridge, might be in Tuesday."
So I still don't have a fridge, but there's tangible evidence (in the form of water tracked all over the kitchen floor, and the note) that this is something serious enough for them to actually try to take care of. A new fridge seems like overkill, but the old one was already very very old when I moved in 8 years ago...
