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Summary: Longblades 4/5 Continued February 2, 2184 The circlet is recharged. It takes a little longer to recharge than normal, since the weather is not very sunny. The stronger individuals continue to work at the door.
February 8, 2184 While Doyle and Gil are working at the door, it pops open. A wall of water rushes out. The treant was right; she did flood them out. As the water pours out, the door hits Doyle and Gil. Doyle hangs onto the lip of the secret door. Along with the water three wights and a shadowy something were trapped behind the door. Now they're free and looking for friends. One wight is still inside the antechamber and two get washed out into the open. We start the attack focusing on the one furthest out. Effred blasts one with the circlet. I decide to try to "turn" them instead of physically attacking them. As we attack, we find out both silver and magical weapons affect the wights. One of them grabs Doyle and doesn't let go. We eliminate two of the wights. The shadowy thing is a wraith. It makes a move to the antechamber, where we kill it. The bastard swords don't affect these undead. This doesn't bode well for their usefulness. The people with the truly magical weapons hit the wraith, so silver may or may not affect wraiths. The third wight is the last of the wights to be finished, but it converts Doyle before we can stop it. Doyle continues his pattern of going down during the fight, but struggling back into action before the end. Only this time he crossed over, so to speak. I'm finally able to "turn" him, so he cowered in the corner while Serlisse stabbed him with the magic spear. Gil and XXX Phyllis XXX both were hit by the undead, making them feel weaker and they seem to have forgotten some skills. Maybe with a little rest, they'll recover fully.
February 11, 2184 Gil feels a bit more like himself and everyone is healed. We explore the lair and find lots of treasure. The roof has cracks as if roots had grown in and let the water flow in. The spell books are destroyed, but eight scrolls survived.
February 14, 2184 We arrive back at the treant's grove. She tells us that the only hope of bringing life back to Doyle is to reincarnate him, but that the odds are that he will be unable to adventure with us and that it will take most of our money, if not all. We decide to continue back to Teft to turn in the borrowed weapons, get the magic items identified and prepare for the party interviews in which the rest of the party seems to be interested.
February 22, 2184 We arrive in Triad. We speak with the rangers and they give us the reward for the bandits we captured. They said they would take care of Doyle's body and ask that we leave his equipment on him. The only item we take with us is the silver dagger, since we seem to lack silver and magical weapons in our party.
February 26, 2184 When we get to Teft, we go visit Dunstill to give him back the swords and spear. We also arrange for identification of the treasure and begin the split. I'm not positive about quantity or distribution for all of the non-magical items we obtained. The money-like items we brought in are 938gp, 720pp, 15 gems worth 50gp each, 5 gems worth 1,000gp each, 4 jeweled Brotherhood belts worth 800 gp each, 6 sets of spellbook covers worth 200gp each and the two bastard swords with Continual Light cast on them, worth 125 gp each. The useful magic (as opposed to the bastard swords) was considerable. We recovered the following items: a Ring of Feather Falling; +1 Ring of Protection; +2 Ring of Protection; +1 dagger; Bracers (Armor Class 6, Armor Type 10); Bracers (AC 8, AT 8); +2 Cloak of Protection; Rod/Staff of Beneficent Polymorph (3 charges, usable by clerics and mages, it changes the target to an animal, which becomes more animal-like as time passes); Potion of Levitation; Three +1 darts; Three Hornets' Nest darts and eight scrolls. The scrolls were all magic-user scrolls: Magic Missile x2, Level 8; Magic Missile x2, Level 9; Sleep x3, Level 9; Lightning Bolt, Straight Through, Level 8; Teleport & Feather Fall, Level 9; Fireball, Level 9; Web & Stinking Cloud, Level 8; Hold Portal, Levitate & Wall of Ice, Level 9. We are keeping all of the 50gp gems and a couple of 1,000gp gems. We are also keeping assorted other valuables for our share. Dunstill is getting the other three 1,000gp gems. We give the belts and spellbook covers as salvage tax and if necessary to Dunstill to fill out his share. Dunstill claims both sets of bracers, the Ring of Feather Falling and the Level 8 Magic Missile scroll as his magic share. We give up the darts, potion and the second, third and fourth scrolls for taxes. That leaves us the Rings and Cloak of Protection, +1 dagger, the Rod (to be used to help the cat) and the last four scrolls for our efforts. That's eight potential spells for our mages, when they can learn them. I guess since we were following up on magic-users that most of the spoils would be more advantageous for them than the rest of the party, but that does help all of us in the long run. It's a pretty good haul, now we need to figure out our next steps.
March 1-3, 2184 The interviews are scheduled for the first through the third. The ship is scheduled to leave April 1, 2184, which gives us time to train and make arrangements to take care of the cat. If we decide to not go on the trip, then we can do more personally for the cat, rather than merely make arrangements. -----------------------------------
If anyone is interested, I'm keeping my log on Word, so I can send the file and make corrections easily. If you're there, I'll see you Saturday.
===== Jay (top)
Summary: Future Plans Across the Water *** The Salvation Army *** *** We have saved a village. *** These are updated statistics at the end of this session. Character Race/Class Player Creator Level HP AC ----------------------------------------------------------------- Three corrections to the last summary. Effred is the engineer. Raybur is a dwarf. Anton is the boy that we found. Ger gets the Cloak. Gil gets the +2 ring. Phyllis gets the +1 ring and the +1 dagger. We have decided to create a three-person front, so we tried to balance out the benefits to the three front line fighters. Though Conrhia is our hardiest fighter, she uses missile weapons, so she will remain in the rear guard. Ben's full name is Ben Hobhollow, a Stout Halfling. *** We have saved a boy. *** February 26, 2184 We have several tasks to accomplish now that we are back in Teft. We decide to sign up for the adventure interview, so we can find out whether it meets our needs. We give our name as Gilean Bluestream's party, since we haven't agreed on anything else. We start to make plans with the druids to take care of the cat creature. They can "stun" the cat and we can transport him or they can if we decide to go on the voyage. The characters that were life-drained by the undead begin their studies to relearn their skills. While we have some extra time, we check around town to get a better feel for what stores and other locations are there. While doing that, we find that adventure notices are disappearing, but we know they'll start reappear around the 20th, after the newly formed parties head out to seek their "fortunes." The interviews are scheduled for the first through the third. The ship is scheduled to leave April 1, 2184, which gives us time to train and make arrangements to take care of the cat. If we decide to not go on the trip, then we can do more personally for the cat, rather than merely make arrangements. *** We have saved a cat. *** March 1, 2184 Today is the day for our interview with the Strong Corporation. Werner, a gnome, meets us and takes to our waiting area. The warehouse has been modified in "rooms" defined by stacked rates and curtains. The boxes appear to full of a number of "raw materials." While we wait we can hear various things. We can hear at least one group of hobgoblins talking. At least four times footsteps pass by the partition to our "room." Before too long, Werner leads us to the office. Werner introduces us to the assembled individuals, then stays by the door. As I look at the interviewing "panel," I see an older female and male. They could be a couple. Behind them are twin towers in banded mail with shields and swords. In the back of the room are a pair of males, who seem to be in their fifties. They appear to have been sharing a private joke. One of them is wearing something that looks like a jeweled barracuda. The female introduces herself as Myna, a one sixth owner in the Corporation. Myna is clearly in charge of the interviews, if not the whole operation. She reveals to us that the destination is a place that no one knows exists. She also says she will reveal only a very few details before we are hired and a few more before departure. We will be more fully briefed when we are aboard ship. Exploration and establishing a port are the mission's primary goals. The destination is a distant island not controlled by orcs or goblins. It is past the equator, so it will be a long trip, approximately one year each direction. Mountains are visible from the landing point. Training will be possible during the expedition, with no rental fees for the training. Half of the parties accepted will be adventuring parties to explore the ruins. The other half of the parties hired will be various support personnel. Our cut of the treasure we find will be one half as usual for sponsored missions. One quarter will go to salvage tax and one quarter belongs to the Corporation. We will be eligible for a one quarter of one percent share in the final port operations, if the corporation is successful in establishing the port. Myna assures us this could potentially mean vast amounts of wealth, similar to Port Elizabeth. (No members of our party know anything about Port Elizabeth.) A five thousand gold piece salary per party will be paid ahead of time. We will also be eligible for a five thousand gold piece loan that we must justify to the Corporation. We know that we will have at least that much in training and spell book costs. We will be allowed ten thousand coin weight of cargo space in our party cabin. The cabins are fitted to accommodate ten individuals typically. Some groups will have more or less space per person, but all will be the same sizes. I have a random quote in my notes: "We will be able to purchase back magical items immediately." I am not sure what this means. I missed the context a bit, but I think it refers to how we can get more credit with the Corporation, if we overspend. We will turn in a magic item for credit and then can buy it back with treasure found. We may need to act as marines on board, if we are attacked at sea. If a major disaster occurs, Myna should be potentially able to return by herself, but they are preparing to be able to build a new ship to replace the first, if needed. If we must build a new boat, it would take no more than five years. Dirk is the well-dressed man. He is also a partner in the business. Canon Blunt is the fifth highest cleric of Osperem. He is one of the gentlemen in the rear of the room. Kirk will represent the Korian church, but is not a cleric. He is the other one in the back. Ben is Korian. (Upon further reflection, I am not sure who Ben is.) Nick and Knack are the "twins." All were human, half-elf, half-orc types. The expedition hopes to establish an Elvish, Half-Elvish, Human colony. One to three exploration parties and three adventuring parties may be taken along. Some of the ground rules were laid out. The parties may sell the locations of ruins to other parties. The groups must be able to work together. No eavesdropping is allowed. We may spend two years in site, more or less depending on conditions. No magical communications or transport will be allowed (other than Myna's "escape route"). They've invested 130,000 gp in the expedition. We will hear back a little after eight tomorrow. They ask us to tell about our history and any "conflicts" or references that they can check to see if we would be a liability or asset. We tell of our party's adventures (including those from before I joined) and our "association" with Dunstill. We also tell about how we emptied the Brotherhood of Callistro's "Teleport Point." At that juncture one of the panel notices that Ger's cloak is of just the right shade to be the product of the tome that the Brotherhood uses to make such items. I don't remember who that was. I offer to record the history of the expedition, which seems to please Myna. After the interview we check up on Kirk. He was the church's sage in Runk for New World, Oceanographic & Water Current knowledge. March 2, 2184 All of the groups that interviewed for the expedition gather to hear whether they are accepted and to accept or decline the mission. When we arrive, we notice a few special groups: two parties of hobgoblins, a mob of 18 "adventurers," and a cluster of 11 humans. Fifteen of the hobgoblins are clustered around a weird, splintered symbol on a banner. We recognize it as the Legbreakers' symbol. There are about 10 hobgoblins in the other group. Before I can note too many details, Dirk begins the roll call. (All spellings are guesses and I may have missed a group or two on the list.) Alvin & Company - Decline. We are all taken to an area set up with benches for all of the parties. We are asked to sit with out parties. The seven expedition leaders we saw before are up front again. Also up front are seven grizzled drinkers with a keg in the corner. One is wearing nice, naval boots and decorated swords. He probably was once handsome. Another is an ugly, scrawny, mean-looking guy. He's wearing surreally carved banded mail and broad sword. Three of the others appear to be about twenty years old. One is in studded leather with a scimitar, one wears studded leather with hand axes and the third has studded leather and short sword. Myna begins to introduce all of the assembled groups. We meet Captain Lorn and his crew, all reformed pirates. The Captain has now been a follower of Osperem for the last eight years. We also meet Navigator Ford. The Captain has ten crew, but there will be no marines with us, hence our on board duties. The Bruins are five mature individuals with a huge cave bear. The leader is a ranger who's coming out of retirement to see something new, since his wife died. (My notes say his name is "Clear," but I think that may be wrong. There are three very mature humans or half-elves. One is an old human in studded leather. One is in scaled leather. The third "oldest" is a female half-elf or a human who seems to be about ten years younger than the other two. She carries a long sword. Also in the party are an elven female and an "attractive" dwarf with eight million things on him. Of course attractive is very relative when it comes to dwarves. Lobalobaloba is a party of 6 humans. All are in their twenties. One is wearing no armor, but most are wearing light armor. All of them are fairly attractive. Lobalobaloba has helped the town of Loba. David is the one of the more attractive guys and their spokesperson. The Fleshrenders are the ten hobgoblins. They all wear chain mail with battle-axes, except for one in plate mail. They are engineers and a support/adventuring party. Bergen's party consists of eight dwarves. There are four elder members with good equipment and four in identical chain mail with spears. Bergen is a cleric of Dunatheon, god of miners, not Bathor. I am not familiar with these deities, so I may be incorrect in the spellings. They are prospectors and cartographers as well as adventurers. Our party is now a group of ten. We are mostly half-elves with two full elven members. There are also a couple of dwarves and a halfling as well. Myna mentions that we helped Spinning Maples out. The Class of 2184 is a mob of twelve newly minted adventuring types. They are entirely too vocal and green for my tastes. Anya is the leader from Koralgesh with a little experience. She trained under Morgan. Myna then announces that if any party cannot work with the others, now is the to time to say so and leave. She also indicates that two of the parties may have been in conflict in the past. Before the briefing starts, Werner walks around the room in a full circle, then walk straight up the middle to the back, sprinkling dust in the air the whole time. Myna and Werner exchange a look and then she starts. Myna tells us that the room is now secured against scrying. She also reminds us that we are bound to secrecy about all that we hear. The Strong Corp. has ties to Rebakar, Hodgeland and other western isles. In 2181, a hurricane wrecked several ships, but they found eight survivors. They were all given comfortable retirements. Myna opens a lead box and then begins the briefing. She says there are wild animals there on the island. She introduces Benjamin, a sailor on the ship that wrecked on the reef near the island. The sailors brought back three very interesting items. The first that we see is a cut emerald of unusual color. It is round, about 5 centimeters in diameter. She then shows us a fist sized chunk of grey rock. It is the hammer that the sailors used. It really is a four coin weight chunk of mithril. The sailors left another chunk on the beach. They think it was about fifteen coin weights. Next Myna removes a small headband, with a bit of crystal in it. She asks Benjamin to put it on. When he puts it on and concentrates, a view of the beach is projected onto the boxes placed for that purpose. They found all of these items in one week of explorations. The projector will be used to verify claims on resources (minerals and timber, etc.). It has a limited number of uses per week, so we must pay for the use of the item first and then we will be recompensed when the claim is verified by the images shown. The images we see from Benjamin are not very clear and the explanation that Myna gave wasn't very clear to me. (I was probably a bit too busy trying to take notes to pay close enough attention to her technical description.) It is clearly very draining for Benjamin and we are reassured again that he has been well paid for his efforts. Bergen asks about internal sales of locations. She has the right to all information gathered, but it will not be given to other parties. Each party can sell the rights to explore a verified claim to another party, so that the buyer can explore that region. It appears that this will be a bit of contest to see who can lay claim to the most areas, but Myna says that if a group claims more area than can be tended, cleared, etc., she will handle the situation. In other words, she has the right to insure that the mission is the highest priority, not laying claim to the most profitable areas to the hindrance of the mission. Each cabin will be "keyed" to the individuals who are approved by each party. Burglary will be severely punished. Only one member of each party will be eligible to withdraw funds from the Corporation to keep things manageable. I get nominated, since I am the experienced member with the shortest training time. Any supplies that we anticipate needing can be requested. Ships stores will purchase the items and we can buy them from the Corporation. I ask for a supply of logbooks, which I will "check out" and return as they are used. I also agree to cast a Know Time spell once a day for the Captain. The Corporation pays the Church of Labelas one thousand gold pieces for that service. [Out of Character note: I rolled a 20 on my CHR check, direct failure by 8, before modifications!] The Class of 2184 is very unruly and virtually runs for the door at the end of the briefing to grab their salary and go adventuring locally for about half the preparation time allotted to us.
March 3, 2184 Now we get down to training and shopping for the adventure. Phyllis and Gilean have some self-studies, before they start official training. Effred starts his second set of roguish studies since he started adventuring. Geraniel and I, Sputnik, take our first courses in fighting and religion, respectively, since beginning our travels. Conrhia and Serlisse each undergo a second series of advanced courses for their professions. Raybur is able to study in each of his professions for the first time since he started. Our plans include spending time to get acclimated to water so that we don't panic if we fall overboard. If we are in armor, it may be a moot point regardless.
March 8, 2184 Gilean and Phyllis start their second sets of real training, since "graduation."
March 12, 2184 Raybur and I finish our plans of study. (2nd level Fighter and 2nd level Cleric.)
March 13, 2184 Serlisse finishes her training. (3rd level Druid.)
March 14, 2184 Geraniel completes his training. He does not have time to train in magic before we are scheduled to depart. (2nd level Fighter.)
March 15, 2184 We start our shopping today. We use one of the negotiators of the Strong Corporation, since we are now working for them, to help us find magic items for trade and purchase.
March 16, 2184 Conrhia finishes her studies. (3rd level Woodsman.)
March 19, 2184 Effred ends his stealth training. (3rd level Thief.)
March 20, 2184 Raybur finishes his second set of training this month. (2nd level Cleric.)
March 24, 2184 Phyllis completes her studies. (3rd level Fighter.)
March 28, 2184 Gilean ends his training. (3rd level Cavalier.)
(April 2, 2184) Plans are to set sail today for the future port.
These items are purchased throughout the rest of the month. We buy a tent, training kit for the mages, two writing desks and carpentry equipment. We also buy 12 Long First Flight arrows and 8 Short First Flight arrows. We also buy a gross each of long and short arrows. We also buy 500cn (1,000gp worth) of mage expendables to allow Effred and Ger each to train after arriving, or for one to train twice. We also purchase a large number of other "useful" items. We also purchase cards and darts for use on the trip. Zircon trades us Erase for Sleep. Ger also tries to trade Find Familiar for Mount, but both mages fail to learn them, but each is close enough to practically taste it. We buy a Potion of Extra Healing, one thousand gold pieces. We trade our Potion of Cure Disease and about 150gp for a Potion of Invisibility, which Ger will continue to carry. We also buy a large number of other items. We spend almost all of our party's own money, including the salary. We also spend 4902gp of the possible loan. We may need to turn in some magic items that we purchased in order to get more credit with the Corporation. **** We didn't save any money, though. **** Thus end this section of the log of The Salvation Army.
My thoughts on the next step(s): First, the next game is scheduled for January 27, 2001 AD. I will be playing bridge in Southern Pines. I didn't realize that I would miss about five sessions of bridge to play one session of Telvar. If I am going to make my goal of Life Master by the end of 2001, I can't afford that many missed sessions until I can see how things go this year. Second, when we were looking at training, I don't know that we considered whether it would work for Ger to go back to his master and train for third level MU instead of second fighter, then train for second fighter after arriving on the island. We chose the right length of time (by 0.05 player rating) for him to train, so we ought to look into that and maybe have him do that instead. Third, I don't think we quite fully discussed the situation with the cat. Since the druids think it will be very easy for them to take care of the cat, would it be possible for some of us who are finishing training "early" to help them and be back in plenty of time for the sailing? If so, I might be interested in doing that. If not, I would like to speak with Myna and the Corporation and see what I can do with respect to starting my duties as recorder for the expedition. I also don't think we negotiated my compensation for that job. The 1kgp was said to be for the casting of Know Time (not implicitly both tasks). Fourth, all players need to think of anything we need. If Katherine can send out a list of our purchases, we can all review it. We spent all but 90 or so gold and we are virtually at our weight limit for cargo. We can trade around what we actually purchase, since we were virtually sitting around and making a list of purchases to be made, before we made them. The only items that were time dependent were the magic items. We tried out the new name of Sylvan Light, but two players didn't like that. While Edwin, Katherine, Mark and I ate dinner we bounced about 75 names around (mostly titles of books on E&K's shelves). We thought The Salvation Army fits reasonably well. Any thoughts? ttyl ===== Summary 7/8: Arrival at the Island and First Explorations This is the adventure log of Sputnik, Cleric of Labelas Enoreth. CharacterRace & ClassLevelHPACPlayerCreator April 2, 2184 Plans are now to set sail for the future port. [Session 6 end.] My log for this period was damaged during the attack on the ship. [I missed Session 7.] February 20, 2185 We saw a "ghost ship" and fled from it. [This is the only date I have from Session 7.]
March 23, 2185 We arrive in Strangle Weed Bay. One of the most helpful features of the bay is the strangle weed. It should help discourage further attacks from the Sea Devils. The Captain hands out rewards for defeating the Sea Devils. Blund, the priest of Osperem, has healed the hobgoblins. They lost one member and others were wounded in the attack. We can see the jungle and some ruins from the bay. The sailors' palisade is also visible. Lobalobaloba has won the lottery to be the first landing party. My vision of an insane, mad dash for the shore to grab the remaining mithril "hammer" will not materialize. March 24, 2185 At about one hour and a half after midnight, a huge explosion and flash awakens everyone. We can hear cries of "Fire!" before we can get our feet on the floor. I begin to pray for a Create Water spell, just in case it could be helpful. Surlease also begins praying for spells. By the time members of our party step on deck, the crew is fighting a big blaze and the Captain has raised his sword, calling a wind into the sails. Blund also casts a wind spell soon thereafter. With these two sources of wind, we start moving toward shore. We are told that a lightning bolt hit the ship and that we should help put out the fire. While everyone scrambles to puts out the fire, the leaders discover that someone tampered with the anti-lightning "spider." Members of the crew that examine the supports holding our outriggers discover that one of them has been weakened with a saw and a piece of metal was inserted. The metal is acting like a spring to force the halves of the beam apart. Phyllis and Scree, Bergen's second-in-command, work on removing the "spring" so they can patch the strut. Kirk begins to wave a couple of big sticks around and appears to steer the ship with them. We are heading toward the dry-docks that the sailors used. About seven minutes have elapsed since the lightning strike. We start moving supplies on deck so that we can offload them faster. Maybe some will float and we can recover them, if needed. Of course, the strangle weed will probably get us if we try to swim for shore. Everyone is told to make a head count of their own party. All but The Class are able to account for everybody. The Class is in chaos, but they start looking for each other. The next thing we see is another lightning bolt striking the same location on the ship. This ruins all of the repairs to this point and kills one of the crewmen. Phyllis is also hurt by the strike. Before long we hear a loud "CRACK." We are told it is the keel giving way. The deck is tilting down toward the broken strut and the pontoon is also tilting (almost as if something were pushing down on the ship at that point). Finally The Class discovers that Calvin is missing. Calvin was the one who killed the "rat-were." The Captain continues to bring the ship in, while crewmembers try to keep the ship from separating. The ship crashes into the dry-dock, stopping with about one third of the ship in the dock. Ford throws something silvery in the air and a minute or two later he reaches up and catches something. He then tells us that Calvin is on shore. No one other than Myna can cross the water to get to him, so she starts running on the water. Before long a lightning bolt strikes near her. We are told not to worry because she is immune to them. Gil has been searching the ship to find anything else that has been sabotaged. He finds a scroll under the landing craft. The leaders check it carefully for traps and then they read the note inside. When some of us start moving supplies down to the shore, footprints are found. It is four feet long and vaguely avian. Someone identifies it as a possible roc print. It is two days old. Ford again throws the silvery thing again. After catching it he says, "Myna is chasing something, but I can't see what she's after." Someone in our group asks him what he's been throwing. He only says, "It's my scout." We hear some growling from on the ship. When we turn to look, it is Mama, the bear. She looks like she just woke up and is not too happy, but she is under control. We continue to work for a few minutes, then the leaders make some announcements. The core of the "spider" was sabotaged and replaced with a phony, but Myna has a replacement, so once the "spider" is repaired, we will use the ship as a base of operations. Kirk tells us that there are very large dangerous beasts out there, so we will need to be careful. Myna and the Captain offer rewards for killing Calvin. Calvin is really a druid known as The Hive. His note says that the druids do not want the large-scale colonization, since it will destroy nature. The leaders say that the individual druids on the expedition will need to be questioned further to determine complicity. The next step will be to try to pull the ship further into the dock. We are told to gather our "shoveling" equipment and to be ready to move the snow. We grab shovels and shields. When we are ready, Ford casts a snowstorm. We move as much as we can up under the ship. Ford then casts a second spell and turns the back end of the ship into an ice block. It starts to float higher and we are told to pull as hard as we can. We manage to move it about 20 feet further into the dock. The spare sails and some supplies have been sabotaged. We are also told that evidently the sailors actually had a pet lizard and it was a small or baby dinosaur. We have found a Lost World of dinosaurs. No major decisions about what to do have been made yet, except to eliminate The Hive, before he can do any more damage. The next step will be to repair the ship, then decide about whether to colonize. The examination of the palisade indicates that sentient life may be present, since all of the tools and other gear that the sailors left have been gathered but the palisade was not destroyed. It is unlikely that the Sea Devils took the items since they would have had to travel overland to reach the palisade. Our party quickly comes up with a plan of action to eliminate The Hive. Our plan doesn't have a high probability of success, but right now it is the only plan with any possibility of success. There are several steps to our plan. None are guaranteed to work. We are paying one of Calvin's friends to use the thought projector to give us a clear image of Calvin. We have also rented Calvin's hammock from The Class, so that we can try a druidic scrying spell, I think it is called something like Reflecting Pool. The hammock and the projection will help our chances of success. Serlisse is ready to cast the spell, but she will get only one chance to find The Hive. If she fails, Prue, Lobalobaloba's druid can also try. If we can view The Hive's current location, Myna will use our Teleport scroll to take Clear, one of the best fighters, with her to fight The Hive. The rest will be up to Myna and Clear to deal with The Hive. Myna agrees, but she will only give us two thirds of the reward, since we will not be doing the fighting. We also loan Myna the Korian circlet so she has an extra punch. Since we are using the thought projector, everyone is watching as we set up a location for the projection near a tidal pool. Prue and Serlisse both watch the projection, then Serlisse casts the spell. Nothing happens. Everyone is disappointed, but for different reasons. Most of the crowd was watching the projection, which ended. We had hoped that Serlisse would be successful so that we could find The Hive faster and would not need to give Prue a cut of the reward. Since Prue does not have the spell in memory, she must do a spell shift. In the meantime we continue to fortify the ship and hope that The Hive stays near the ground so that the Teleport will work safely for both Myna and Clear. When she is ready, she casts the spell. It works. We can see a reptilian creature curled up at the foot of a tree. Myna then casts Teleport from the scroll. The spell works and we can see Clear and Myna in the Reflecting Pool. The Hive is awake and the battle begins. Clear draws his buzzing sword, Myna drops our scroll and The Hive starts changing to human form. Myna draws her weapons, blasts with the circlet and casts a Magic Missile spell. Clear swings a number of time, casts a Faerie Fire and jumps on The Hive. The Hive disappears, then glows, then changes to a sea gull. Clear jumps The Hive as he changes to the gull. The Hive then changes to a big cat and runs off, which is when Myna hit him with the wand's effect. About that time the Reflecting Pool ends. While we wait to be attacked or see Myna or Clear again, we explore the camp area randomly and debate what we should do. Our choices are to assume they succeeded or failed and react appropriately. We keep debating and debating, while accomplishing nothing. Mercifully, Myna and Clear bring in The Hive's body several hours later. The expedition's leaders cast Speak with Dead on him and find out that he did not have any regeneration items on him. We are not informed of any other information gained from the spell. He was carrying four magic items: a cloak, bracers, scimitar and a ring. We can wait to find out what the "treasure" and reward are or we can spend those four days exploring. We decide that we want to get moving instead of wasting time. Even though it is not as much of a race as it might have been, it still is a race.
March 25, 2185 We decide to head toward the river along the coast, then inland. We leave one hour before dawn. We follow the sea wall uneventfully. When we reach the river, we find a couple of points of interest. The river is bounded by a levee and we find the ruins of a blockhouse at the intersection of the sea wall and the levee. We also find dwarven tracks around the remains of the blockhouse, so we figure that Bergen's party has checked it out, so we move on up river. Before too long we find the bridge that Myna told us that they crossed. It is about twenty feet wide and two hundred feet from shore to shore, with a support pillar every fifty feet or so. We find some writings on the bridge in a goblinoid language that none of us recognize. Serlisse and I copy down some of the markings so that we can see if anyone in camp recognizes them. We move further upriver and spot six bipedal creatures. The twenty-foot tall dinosaurs are light green with brown speckles and webbed feet. When they spot us, they run away. They probably smelled Ben. Serlisse fastidiously examines the fertilizer left by the dinosaurs to try to determine whether they are herbivores or timid carnivores. Some of the reeds they had eaten were still undigested. The Reed Eaters are probably no threat to anyone. They had been grazing in the river. This is the farthest point down river without a levee on this bank. It is about three hours after dawn, when we approach a clearing. We have discovered a huge carnivore sunning himself. Serlisse casts Speak with Animals while he decides whether to eat us or greet us. He is about forty feet long. Serlisse Speaks with him for a couple of minutes, but since we are not like him, he decides to attack us. Before he attacks us, he mentions that we are crunchy and have pointy things, almost as if he has eaten elvenoids before. Deathzilla first bites Gil. Giving him a TRIPLE wound and knocks him out of combat. Gil gets the Potion of Extra Healing and guzzles the whole thing. While Serlisse was talking, the rest of us were quietly digging out oil and torches and aiming our bow shots. We manage to hit him with three arrows and a couple of flasks of oil. Raybur's Light spell misses Deathzilla. We hit him again with more oil and a few more arrows. He then decides I look tasty. Labelas protects me even though I get bitten into unconsciousness. I suffer no wounds. I must not taste very good, because Deathzilla runs away after spitting me out. Raybur casts a couple of Cure Light Wounds on me and I am able to continue, though weakly. We start to explore the building we spotted from the ship. It looks vaguely temple-like. It has a pair of columns and a doorway. It is built into the face of the hill. I cast Detect Magic. The whole structure is weakly magical. We cannot find any traps, so we head in. The stone of the building is coated in soot. There is a main hallway, with steps along the way. We find a pair of rooms off of the main corridor, almost like oversized alcoves. In one of them we find three orcish skeletons. The equipment is worthless, but we do find three rusty spear points. At the end of the hall, there is a large chamber. It is lit by a reddish glow. A large chasm runs from one side of the room to the other. It looks like Deathzilla has been sleeping right in front of the chasm, which is the source of the glow. That may explain why he did not seem to be too afraid of all the fire we were throwing at him. The back wall of the chamber is the only surface we have seen without soot. That wall is also covered in more of the goblinoid writing. I make a point to copy down as much of the text as I can, so that Ger can use Comprehend Languages when we get a chance. The rest of the party thinks that cowardice is better part of valor, so we run back to the palisade, where we find a full-blown gatehouse where we left a palisade. We are so thunderstruck by the gatehouse that we make a bit of fools of ourselves coming through the portcullises. [End of Session 8.] Jay Post-Script: Deciding on a Name. And the Winner Is..... In the grand American tradition of calling the winner before the And so BLADES became the name of the party.... (top) |
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