Game Sessions

The Brave Lumberjacks

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:03:01 -0800

Note: yes, I’m two behind, again.

The party spikes the door shut, and as per union rules prepare to sleep. After a few hours of ZZzzzzs Mistral notices a creature “flowing” in through the door. Mistral attacks it, and makes quite a bit of noise about it. As it flows in, Germaine smites it.

Germaine prays for guidance about the last portal -- falls asleep and has a vision!

You hear the majestic squeaky voice of foamy “my paladin, we have a problem”
You see a swarming mass of kobolds, derro and other creatures charging through the halls and tunnels of the very caves you have been crawling through. They are howling in pain as their bones crack and knit into new shapes, skin rippling and stretching into new forms. The creatures, now hideous half dragons, pour forth from the cave mouth and lay waste to the forests. Then towns, eating and destroying all they come into contact with until all the world lays bare.
Foamy again squeaks “I can not come to the world without letting the outer gods in. You must stop them. Stop them or there will be no more coconuts, no more toasters, and no more people”

You awake, filled with purpose and newfound strength.

The party messes with the “pictures” for a while, and eventually finds that one of them leads to a 10x10 room packed with a fair bit of goodies.

Germain claims that last portal was religious (Zappy says the other one is magical!)

The party is conflicted -- do we try to finish these guys off, or do we run back to the town to get more food/water/supplies? I assume “these guys” is “the rest of the adventure”. They eventually decide that since they are pretty much out of water and food that they ought to head back to town and resupply...but not quite yet. Soon maybe.

Moraine forces the door open, further mangling whatever it was that tried to interrupt their nap.

They go back to the garden, and Terri scouts around. She finds all the kobolds that attacked them (burnt), and Meepo. After careful examination they figure out that he had been killed before being burned.

Terri then leads everyone through the brambles, into the clearing with the building. They enter the building and find stairs leading down. They take them. When the get to the second landing they see a DRAGON, before they can react it hits them with a cone of cold. Well everyone but Moraine, she was guarding the rear. They start fighting the dragon, Terri summons a hippogriff. The dragon knocks Zappy out. Terri leaps over the body and engages the Dragon. Germaine fires arrows into it. Terri uses her healing on Zappy before he can bleed to death (he was at -7). Moraine’s great sword rips off one of the dragon’s wings and it goes down.

The party then flees the caves, camps in the forest, and then heads back into town.

The townsfolk spot the party heading in, and begin to pester them for news about the ogre and kobolds. They are excited to hear of the ogre’s death. They keep crowding around the party and attempting to bask in their reflected glory. The party starts pushing for their reward, and people are a bit less excited. Terri proposes not taking the reward in gold, but in supplies (dried meats, sun rods, healing things, stuff the folks of Hadler’s Gap can probably spare more easily then gold). That goes over well, and the townsfolk actually fork over somewhat more goods then the party could have bought for all their gold. Uncharacteristically Zappy isn’t trying to haggle, he seems haunted by his near death experience.

As Terri is haggling over supplies, a half-elf that Germain recognizes comes into The Dancing Dryad (the local tavern). Germain rushes over all enthusiastic to greet her, but the enthusiasm isn’t returned. The half-elf carries a sorrowful message, Germain’s father is deathly ill with the sweating sickness, he is not expected to live long. Germain feels she must return home as rapidly as possible and pray for her fathers health. Zappy suddenly loses all his nervousness and volunteers to escort Germain home “you know, to protect her”. Germian doesn’t feel she needs protection (“hey, I rescued him!”), but then decides not to press the point, and accept his company on the journey home.

Moraine persuades him to leave a few items with the party to help them “deal with the kobold issue”. Before Zappy goes he describes his dream to Moraine:

Wee Jas (the Goddess of Magic, and of corse death) towers over you. She stretches her hands apart and between them you see the halls and tunnels of the very cave you are in. You see far more kobolds then you ever thought could fit in this complex! A few other creatures are in their midst. They are charging through the halls and out into the rough natural tunnels. As they run they are howling in pain as their bones crack and knit into new shapes, their skin rippling and deforming into new shapes. The creatures, now rough mockeries of dragons, pour out of the cave mouth and burn their way through the forests. When they reach villages & towns they tear them apart eating and burning the inhabitants and smashing the buildings. When they reach the sea they begin to boil it. By the time Wee Jas lets her arms fall there the world is only a great ball of ash, the mockeries have been twisted into more unspeakable shapes, and turned on each other.
Wee Jas again waves her hands in the air, this time it fills with glyphs you might understand if you were one of those stick in the mud wizards. “The fabric of reality (she points at a spiky glyph) is already weak” She points at a glyph of herself “If I come to the world”, she points somewhere else “it will weaken further and” she points at a twisted smoking glyph that is painful for you to even look at “the outer gods themselves will be able to step in, not just” She gestures to a glyph that you are pretty sure means ‘mortal human’ and says “Tsathzar Rho, their chosen”. She stops gesturing and her unsettling glare is directed stright at you. You nearly miss her next words. “You must kill Tsathzar Rho, or your world will lay as stark and barren as the eighth world”

You wake with a start. You can feel your spells replenished despite lack of sleep.

Then he all but flees the tavern.

Terri and Moraine sit at the tavern, still the center of attention, trying to calm the town’s mayor. Not long after that an actual Lizardman (accompanied by a Paladin of Herionious) stroll into the Dancing Dryad. The babble of conversation (pretty much all about the party, the ogres, and the unexpected toughness of the kobolds) dies out. Terri asks the mayor if the Lizardman is a regular at the town, or if he is “trouble”. The mayor stammers quite a bit. Pretty much everyone in the tavern is looking from the Lizardman to Terri & Moraine, then back to the Lizardman. The Paladin who came in with the Lizardman gives a moving speech about judging evil and good by it’s acts, not the skin it wears. That plus her personal assurance that the Lizardman is most assuredly not evil seems to quell most of the fear and aggression amongst the townsfolk.

The Paladin and Lizardman order some food at the bar. The Lizardman seriously over pays (a whole gold coin!), the bar man piles a plate high with the worst cuts of meat and the Lizardman goes off to a corner to chow down on it (which apparently involves a lot of rubbing it al over his face and such, expertly mimed by the player).

Moraine and Terri converse with the Paladin (who they find out is named Zoe). They explain a little about the situation with the caves to her, and how half the party left to “pursue personal projects”. They discuss The Lizardman (who is named Krux) a fair bit. Zoe assures them he is not evil, and is a most excellent fighter (who even killed a hydra), the party demands proof. Krux produces a hydra tooth. Terri and Moraine arn’t sure that is proof (anyone can buy a tooth!), but figure that is really the best they can expect anyway. Terri muses "I've had to rethink my attitude towards non-hominids, early in this adventure I met someone I expected to be evil...but he wasn't evil at all, only moderately stupid". Krux wants to know “if he will get paid”. Moraine and Terri note there has been a fair bit of treasure in the caves so far, and that it be split evenly four ways by means of payment. The bargain is struck. Krux overpays for even more meat.

Zoe visits the local temple, and finds it not to her taste. Krux thinks about fishing in the local river. Folks buy overnight accommodation. Both Terri and Moraine have disturbing dreams (which they share with each other, Zoe and Krux shortly after they wake):

You are dreaming of the forest, and Obad-Hai appears in a glade, Alma is at his side. He says “look”, and gestures...
...you see a swarming mass of kobolds, derro and other creatures charging through the halls and tunnels of the very caves you have been crawling through. They are howling in pain as their bones crack and knit into new shapes, skin rippling and stretching into new forms. The creatures, now hideous half dragons, pour forth from the cave mouth and lay waste to the forests. Then spill forth and topple mountains and befoul the very waters and oceans of the world before turning them to steam.
He speaks again “I can not come to the world without letting the outer gods in, yet if no one stops them all we hold dear will be gone”. Alma then speaks “I know you have little use for the gods, but believe him -- you are all that can stop outer gods and their reign of fire”
You wake, still smelling the smoke and ash.

(a clever segue from Terri to Moraine belongs here, so please imagine I wrote one, chuckle and move on)

You are in a pitched battle, your great sword cleaving foe after foe. Behind your opponents is Erythnul (the god of slaughter). He appears to be enjoying your struggle. After the last foe goes down, as you are about to confrunt Erythnul himself he gestures with his hands and...
...you see a swarming mass of kobolds, derro and other creatures charging through the halls and tunnels of the very caves you have been crawling through. They are howling in pain as their bones crack and knit into new shapes, skin rippling and stretching into new forms. The creatures, now hideous half dragons, pour forth from the cave mouth and lay waste to the forests. Then towns, eating and destroying all they come into contact with until all the world lays bare.
He speaks “I can not come to the world without letting the outer gods in, yet if no one stops them there will be nothing left for my followers to slaughter. You must stop them in my name. Do this and I promise your sword will never want for blood, your arms will never grow slack and week from lack of the fight.”

You wake stifling a scream. Your great sword is not in your scabbard where you left it, but in your hand.
With a bit of a dramatic and early wake up, the party goes and gets breakfast and then moves out. They get to the caves in the early afternoon and Moraine expertly leads them through the twisty tunnels. When they get down to some unexplored bits they decide to take a look.

They find a set of rotted docks and a nearly blocked tunnel. Moraine and Mistral go into the tunnel. Part way through a ghoul attacks them, howling in it’s rage and hunger...it snaps and claws at Mistral, but can’t quite make contact with him. Mistral and Moraine retreat from the tunnel as fast as they can, the ghoul bitting and clawing at Mistral as they back out, and finally bursting out in the clearing scrambling for Mistral still snapping and clawing, and still failing to land a bite. The entire party falls on the ghoul, Moraine, Krux and Zoe all hit it, and it goes down under damage from the accumulated wounds -- all without managing to land a single bite, or even a little claw scrape on anything.

The party heads back into the tunnel, finding a room full of graves. Graves that look to have been recently dug up. Oh, and a ghoul who seems to be chatting to itself and holding a skull and licking it. The party attacks it, and eventually fells it, but before it goes down it manages to bite Moraine and paralyze her. After the ghoul is downed, the party is about to explore the room, but a ghast enters the room, and the party (less Moraine) struggles a bit and slays it. Before they can even breathe Mistral spots three skeletons approach form the south. Mistral is surrounded! Terri summons three more wolves to help him, and Krux and Zoe start running to aid him. The skeletons prove to be very tough to (re)kill. The wolves hit them again and again, but fail to do much damage to the hard bones. As the summoned wolves fade away Moraine’s mussels unfreeze and she rushes down and helps finish off the skeletons.

After they are finally done clearing the place of undead they search around, and find some gems and a longsword (with an elaborate scabbard) hidden behind a boulder.

The party heads back to “charted terrain”, and eventually down to where they killed the dragon. They push on into the unknown. They find a very large room, with moist damp humid and warm air. It is full of palm like trees that each have a man sized pod growing from it. Oh, and they move slightly. When the party looks closer they can see shapes within. They slice one open and thick white liquid pours out, and a half dragon-half kobold writhes helpless on the ground. They slay it. They debate on how to best kill all the pods. Moriane decides they are spending too much time thinking about killing them, and decides just to hack, slice, stab, and just generally “slay the hard way” every pod. The rest of the party joins in, and they eventually kill 222 tree-pod-things. All hail the lumberjacks!

They then try to burn the trees, but it doesn't seem to work, so they leave the room & head east then north.

They come to a room with “a distinct odor - rotting flesh and feces. The floor is in fact covered with "waste matter". There is a clearly several day dead derro on the floor, and a gaunt live, and apparently more crazed then normal derro is gibbering and squawking at the dead derro. Oh, and there is a good deal of shattered wood, maybe previously a table and chairs.”

The derro started shouting that the party had killed it’s friend, and started shooting (poisoned) crossbow bolts at them. Zoe attempted to talk it down, but that didn’t appear to do anything useful. There is a pitched battle, which consists of the derro dodging and moving a lot, and only occasionally taking a hit. Shortly before the derro goes down Terri hears noises to the south.

After they kill the derro they head south and find a room with walls made out of skin and other organs (lungs, still beating hearts, and such). The room also has two candle holders that seem to be made of kobold whose bones have been liquified and then reshaped. It is clearly still alive. There is also an alter made of derro and kobold that has been reformed and stitched together. It is also still living. They rush towards the party begging for death (literally as in “please kill me!”). A single “mostly normal” kobold is also in the room. “Mostly” means pure white scales, skin and eyes. Oh, and it has a second face which seems to be whispering.

Everyone charges in, and is intercepted by the alter (Krux), candleholder (Moraine) and other candleholder (Zoe). (ok, ok Terri wasn’t intercepted, but she wasn’t running that fast, and Mistral is guarding her). Krux starts bashing the alter as it begs him for death (and stays in his way). Moraine slices the candle holder in two (lengthways! let’s hear it for critical hits doing double damage...when normal damage was more then enough to kill it!). Krux manages to (seriously) slay the altar and get to the kobold, but can’t attack it (yet). She (the kobold) starts mumbling and gesturing, so Krux gets a swing (oops!), but misses. Then the kobold finishes and Krux freezes in place. The kobold runs toward Zoe & Terri, but Moraine intercepts and is met by some sort of sonic bust that hurts half the party. The kobold dodges and weaves, Zoe attempts to intercept but the candleholder is in the way (again) still begging for sweet sweet death. Moraine dispatches this one as well (but with somewhat less fair then the last one).

Run away! Run away!

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 13:10:36 -0800

Note: I’m caught up, but I intend to stay that way. Unfortunately I didn’t take great notes, so details may be a bit light.

The party peaks into the room and sees:

what appears to be sunlight streams from rocks in the ceiling. The path is surrounded by thick growths of brown and black dead brambly plants (with long thorny vines) "sprouting" from grey gritty ash like soil. The long thorny vines & branches reach over half way to the 20+ foot high ceiling. A narrow, cobble stone path winds through the garden area. This path provides the only clear route through the brambles.

Loki and Mistral scout the path a bit. The rest of the party comes in and they examine the brambles more closely (they seem to be concerned with how quickly “a bit of fire” might get totally out of control). They determine that pushing through the brambles could be a little slow and painful (except for Terri who knows the knack of moving with nature) They travel down the path and keep checking in the brambles to the south. They hear some brambles snapping just as they get to the end of the path:

After the snapping brambles the party has a minor wave of panic. They are thinking of taking off. They are attempting to spot to the north, the south, the east, and even the west. Then cross bow bolts start flying into the party. The frikin’ kobolds are above them. The (12?) little bastards are light enough to stand on the brambles. For some reason they seem to have bunny like ears and very long arms (and bigger feet) then normal. Oh, and crossbows. That they use. A lot. The party starts taking a fair bit of damage, and they retreat in disarray (they may think of it as falling back in a strategic pattern, but the animals are stuck at the door with no en-thumbed party members to open it, Terri is so far behind everyone that she takes the bulk of the crossbow bolts, they also call out for Meepo multiple times). Before things go totally sour the bulk of the party pauses (about ⅔ of the way to the door) to let Terri catch up. The kobolds run slower the the party after all...

...unfortunately the kobolds can take a straighter path and they catch up and start firing down again, mostly at Zappy, but they do spread the love around a bit (Germaine gets pounded pretty hard too, and a few more bolts to Terri). Terri entangles the kobolds (see blue circle), but they keep shooting. The party falls back (not haphazardly this time). Zappy burning hand’s the kobolds (or mostly the brambles -- see the red circle). Moraine grabs him up and carries him as he collapses from some more kobold bolts.

The party gets out of the room all alive (some just barely), and spikes the door shut. They heal up as best they can, then sleep (union rules), and heal some more. The party discusses (argues) about what to do, Do the kobolds all burn? Who knows, they decide to head back to a room they skipped earlier. They don’t want to go back to the brambles because they are pretty beat up, so they go back to a room they decided was too hard earlier. Filed under “things that make you go Hmmmmm”.

They backtrack a lot and end up in the room Meepo said had “kobold wizards”. They hear talking in draconic, something about two kobolds being sent to “the wind”. They see a group of 4 kobolds that seem to be the leaders (or wizards?), and a bunch of what might be footmen (or wizards?). There are a bunch of heavy curtains with picture frames behind ‘em (Meepo said something about them, but nobody can quite remember what). Terry goes in and summons three wolves to attack the leaders/wizards. Zappy and Loki head to the two koblds that seem to be “with the wind”, and Moraine heads to another group. Germaine fires arrows into the leaders.

Zappy kills one of the kobolds, and singes the other. The kobold ignores him (and Loki) and sprints for the curtain, throws it aside and Loki, Zappy, and the kobold are flung across the room.

Moraine’s kobold flips aside it’s curtain and fire comes out. A 10 foot wide, 40 foot long gout of fire. It isn’t good for Moraine. She kills one of the kobolds anyway, despite her burns.

Terri, Mistral, and Germaine and the summoned wolves (while they last) battle (and kill) the leaders. Moraine keeps fighting the kobold with the fire picture, and gets burned two more times before she kills it.

I know Zappy and Loki did some more things, but for the life of me I can’t remember what. If any of the party wants to fill me in I’ll edit it in. :-)

After they finish off all the kobolds they check two of the pictures, but get no noticeable effect. They try to figure out why (not activated by the kobolds? nobody in front of them? maybe they only work for the kobolds?) They check another and Moraine gets buried in dirt (Germaine helps her out). That seems to rule out most of the theories. They decide to figure it out next week since it is way after midnight. (see top picture for the final carnage for this room -- lots of dead kobolds!)

Four summaries in one (AKA “all caught up”)

Wed, 5 Dec 2007 18:32:37 -0800

Note: This is two, or three, or four sessions in one. I’m skimping on detail in order to catch up by the next session. (also, this loses a lot in the RSS feed, so if you are looking there click through to the real thing, eh?)

After the dastardly sneak attack the party decides to leave the huge chamber and it’s frescos behind and head down the hall. The bulk of the party remains at the door, Loki is sent down to investigate. As Loki is investigating Zappy has a vision:

You see Erko in front of you - no a taller thinner man who looks like Erko? You realize he was talking to you: "Next time, we kill him dead. Ok? Not unconscious-and-drag-to-the-prison dead. Not buried underground dead. Not stuck in a burning temple dead. Not fall-off-a-cliff-into-the-sea dead. Not silver-sword-through-the-chest dead. I want to see his head separated from his body and his body coated in molten silver then locked in an airtight lead safe. Only then, I'll be happy to say once and for all that my brother, Erko Darkeyes, is no more. And even so, I won't be sure."

The vision leaves him laughing barely able to communicate. As he struggles to get it across Loki finds what appears to be a Library with kobolds in it. As the party and Zappy discuss the vision, the kobolds start to head towards the party (apparently Zappy’s laughter is hard to miss). Loki flees the kobolds, the party hussles down to join him (he does a very cat like spin “I had ‘em all!” when they catch up). Zappy’s burning hands fry two of the kobolds, and singes a third. Then a fire beetle appears out of nowhere and attacks Zappy! Moraine grabs it and hurls it at the 4th kobold (and kills or KO’s both, it is unclear during the battle, and irrelevant later). Half the party seems fixated on capturing the last kobold standing (despite the maybe unconscious one they could patch up if they don’t dawdle...and the source of the fire beetle!).

Loki discovers a Kobold Wizard, or Sorcerer, or just one dressed as badly as the Kobold Pimp from before. Loki flees for the second time in one combat. Zappy and Moraine both try to kill the Kobold Wizard/Pimp/Sorcerer (Moraine by throwing the beetle again). Terri summons a small viper that does manage to bite the Wizard/Pimp/Sorcerer. The last kobold footman escapes, Mistral tries to tackle it, Terri attempts to knock it over (but trips on it). The Kobold Wizard/Pimp/Sorcerer uses his own burning hands to catch both Zappy and Moraine in a cone of flame. Moraine stops messing around with thrown insects and just hacks the Wizard/Pimp/Sorcerer’s arm off with her great sword. Meanwhile Loki kills the last footman (no more retreating for Loki in this combat, no sir!).

Terri gets a vision:

You hear a familiar voice: "They are not your friends, they will betray you", it sounds like Alma's voice!

Moraine gets one as well:

You hear a sound behind you, like a bear's growl! You spin and see Markus for a brief moment before a bear's paw strikes him to the ground. Before you can react Markus & the bear seem to melt into the floor.

Mistral also gets a vision (a rat ran out of the shadows, ran up his leg and merged into his body).

Germaine sees an unusually large kobold in black plate mail walking between Terri and Zappy. She swings and kills it in one blow before warning everyone else. Nobody sees it. She loots the body, but nobody else sees the loot either.

Moraine hears Terri and Germain talking about “outer gods” and “sacrifice”. Zappy thinks the sacrifice might be the kobolds, Terri thinks the visions might be the actions of the shadows, and the 8th world might be where the shadows are.

The party heads back to the “natural” section of cave with Loki scouting out front. They hear lots of whispers on the way out (“help!”, “it is too late to help” “why have you come to die?” “I was once a man like you” “what are you doing!” “you shouldn’t have come”). Eventually they all make it out to the natural section of cave and the whispers die away.

Of course not all is well, during their (union required) rest three of the shambling flesh mounds attack:

There is much falling back and flanking and such. Moraine kills one. Then Mistral kills one, and Moraine gets the last one.

The party heads back up (and starts hearing the whispers again “you can not help me” for example):

They go north from the big chamber with the frescos and west. The open the door and see a big room that looks like it is a torture chamber, and 12 kobolds in it. Zappy drops one with his crossbow (at first!). Some of the kobolds throw javelins at the party, others run out with swords drawn. Zappy catches four in a cone of fire, but all four stay standing (but singed). Moraine shatters one into multiple bits with her greatsword. Terry thwacks one directly in the head with her sling (and we get to use the critical hit deck for the first time ever!). Loki pounces one one, or tries (he misses). Germain kills one with her short bow (hey! short bows don’t kill kobolds, arrows do!). Zappy kills four & crisps one with another cone of fire. Moraine runs into the room. A kobold charges Zappy and stabs him, but Loki pounces it to death. Eventually there is only one live kobold left. Moraine grapples the kobold, but it struggles loose and stabs Moraine in the head (and by “stabs” I mean “nicks in the ear”). Zappy gets the rack ready. Mistral keeps trying to join the grapple. The kobold manages to slip away. Germain leaps in and tries to tackle it, but it slips from her grasp as well. Moriane grabs for it and misses! Finally Mistral grabs it’s hamstring (terrier!). Moraine, Germain and Terri finally tie up the kobold.

The party argues about what to do with the kobold. Germain insists “ask questions calmly and take it from there”, Terri backs her. Moraine wants to torture it. Zappy thinks they should let the kobold stew, then feed it and give it water then ask, They eventually go with that (assuming “let it stew” is “let it listen to us argue”). Germaine gives the kobold water, Moraine gives it food. Zappy starts pumping it for info (like “what is your name?” “Meepo”, and “what are the derro?”, “where did you all come from?” “why do you hate the derro?” “who or what is balefire”, “who is your leader” and so on). Meepo is easily confused, but generally helpful.

They convince Meepo that the party will kill the derro if the kobolds help them (where “help” is “not attack the party”). Meepo agrees to lead them to more kobolds. Zappy says Meepo can pet his cat if he convinces his friends to come out without weapons drawn.

They follow Meepo through the halls:

As they follow Germain hears the whispers say “it is time to feed”. When Meepo goes through the door the party catches a glimpse of tall (20+ feet?) dead plants (both thorny and with vines), as well as sunlight somehow filling the chamber.

The door shuts, and Meepo doesn’t return. The party waits 20 minutes.

This cross promo brought to you by the Wicked Fantasy Factory

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:30:59 -0800

Note: There are still three sessions of this game in rough note form waiting for blog entries. “Coming Soon”, ok?

One of the players is ill, another is taking care of her. Leaving us a bit short to go for the normal game. So we start a new game (not that we are D&D addicts or anything). The blog for that game has it’s own RSS feed, so I’m not planning on cross posting session notices. So unless folks want cross posts this’ll be the last you hear about “the other game” in this blog.

Enjoy.

Session Eleven & Twelve -- double header!

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:21:31 -0700

Note: I’m not so almost caught up. I use to only have two more to do (this two), but now I have three more (after this one). Ah well.

After nappy is done napping, they head back out and down the hall...and run smack dab into 12 kobolds (half of which have crossbows). Zappy’s cat attempts a pounce, but gets whaled on by 3 kobolds, and drops unconscious. A huge fight ensues, Zappy hits the kobolds with burning hands trying to make a path to his cat. Terri summons wolves and hawks to flank and attack the kobolds. Moraine slices one of the kobolds nearly in two. By the time the last kobold goes down Terri is entirely out of spells and Zappy has just one left.

As per union rules they make camp.

After a few hours sleep two of those unpleasant shambling mounds of flesh set upon the the party:

Germaine and Moraine scramble to wake up Terri and Zappy. The whole party works together dodging and maneuvering to get the 2 critters close together and covered in oil. Zappy hits them with his last burning hands. They don’t burn. Not. One. Little. Bit. The party starts the 5 stages of grief. Denial, Anger, then they hop straight to Zappy yelling “How was I suppose to know they don’t burn” followed by Moraine’s “maybe we should have tested last time!” Moraine whacks one of the critters, hard. It doesn’t go down but it is staggering. Everyone else mobs up on the other (and flanking it). Moraine slices hers into three huge chunks. Terri finished off the other one (she isn’t quite as showy about it though).

They make camp again, this time they get enough sleep to move on.

The natural cave system they have been in for so long gives way to a man (or inhuman) made corridor. One made of a very dark stone. When the party enters they notice their shadows acting very strangely, not exactly following what they are doing, sometimes doing totally different things. They hear whisperings. They back out of the corridor. They are totally spooked by something (I think the shadow thing). Germain attempts to pray for guidance, and ends up hearing funeral bells and having her stomach turn over in knots.

There it a lot of discussion, I remember some of it:
germain: we should just go in, taking too long
terri: no way, we could end up fighting ourselves
zappy: it's an evil temple?
terri: are we seeing the past & future in shadows?
zappy: foamy is a deity that is arguably not evil
zappy: if we go in there we don't sleep in there

Finally they summon an ape and send it down the corridor, it doesn't come to any obvious harm so they start down it.

They find a huge room with frescos, search it for a bit, and then most of the party heads east leaving Zappy studying the frescos & Moraine guarding him:

Two more of those fleshy things show up and come for Zappy

He hits them with a ray of frost hoping that’ll work better then the fire did (it doesn’t appear to). Moraine kills one in a single huge blow. Before the other one can do any real damage the rest of the party rushes back and the other critter is very nearly killed right away, and then manages to hang on and claw at the party for a long long time before it finally goes down.

Session Ten -- nappy?

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:23:31 -0700

Note: I’m two sessions behind. So this is a little sketchier then normal. I’m trying to catch up, but no promises. (oh, and it hasn’t been proof read yet, sorry)

The party sends the cat & wolf south, when they find a fork they head down the western side a bit, then come back up and do the eastern side, discovering a room. A room with a rat. A room with a sleeping rat.

The party tries to creep forward, but much banging armor wakes the rat which starts making noise, but seems to be chained to the floor. The party decides the rat is making entirely too much noise and sends it pointy death.

The cat and wolf are sent about to scout the room, finding the southern bit ends in a tapestry:

The tapestry is hung from a metal bar that goes across just below the cieling, the cat is sent up to scout. It sees more tapestries, a bed, and something that looks a little like a dwarf:

It somehow spots the cat, and fires a crossbow bolt at it (missing). The party charges in, Terri summons a viper almost next to the crazed dwarf with orders to crawl up it’s armor and bite. Zappy summons a giant centipede almost directly in front of the dwarf. Many arrows are fired at the dwarf, but they all miss. The viper sinks it’s little poison fangs into the dwarfs groin. The centipede flails impressively, but uselessly. More arrows (both two and from the dwarf), and the summoned critters fang/flail again. As they poof back to the greener pastures they came from Zappy flames the dwarf, which pisses it off a great deal.

The party hears the clanking of chain mail and shouts in draconic to it’s north, the dwarf fires at Zappy, Zappy flames it back & it goes down. The cat pounces on the fallen dwarf and wrests it’s arm off, the wolf manages to charge in and start worrying at the other arm (terrier!).

Zappy immediately curls up where he is and starts sleeping. The rest of the party vows to rename him from “Zappy” to “Nappy: the narcoleptic sorcerer”

The we break for the night.

Session Nine -- river dunk

Wed, 3 Oct 2007 22:00:25 -0700

Note: I’m three sessions behind. So this is a little sketchier then normal. I’m trying to catch up, but no promises. (oh, and it hasn’t been proof read yet, sorry)

The party heads towards water sounds, and finds not only the underground river (again!), but a decrepit dock with giant mushrooms tethered to it.

Elona announces he has a lot of repenting to get on with - the party objects. Elona starts repenting by returning ~100GP stolen from the party - they are stunned, and pause the objections. Elona heads out of the caves to start repenting.

The remaining party members clean off wolf pee, and then mess about getting themselves into the mushroom boats.

They cut loose from the docks and start heading downstream.

Zappy notices “something” shimmering ahead. He doesn’t mention it and almost everyone ends up in the “something”, which turns out to be (a giant) web...and the mushrooms drift on with only Terri and Loki (Zappy’s cat).

A giant spider comes down, takes a hunk out of Mistral, gets pounced on by Loki, an eye stabbed out by Moraine, bitten by a wolf, and then flees.

Terri brings the mushrooms back, people (and pets) get back on.

They find the huge cavern and start hugging the side. Mistral sees a cave, the cat climbs up and scouts. The cat finds a kobold sniper cave. The party plots.

The cat pounces and kills many kobolds (well, not all at once). Mistral does a Nathomin imitation (with a bit of help from Moraine).

The party slays more kobolds, the last few try to escape, two manage to make it to the water, but Terri summons a porpoise which kills ‘em both.

Once again Terri’s pearl glowed & Zappy asked to carry it for a while.

The party props one of the dead kobold up on mushroom chair, they even rig the arm up to wave.

The party starts resting (union rules), and is set on by two shambling piles of flesh:

They seem to self heal when shot by arrows and such, but Loki pounces onto one & it dies. Germaine smites one with the force of good, but it manages to stay up. Mistral finishes it off.

Flat Tire

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:48:56 -0700

No play session. Transportation difficulties.

Let’s hope for October working out a bit better for all involved.

Session Eight -- couch potatoes

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 23:51:26 -0700

Yes, the party didn't actually move from the room this whole session.

Germaine read the scroll, reactions from the party:
Terri thinks balefire is a bad bad weapon, similar to greek fire
Moraine thinks balefire is the kobold pimp
Zappy thinks the dragon in the message is Tiemat (or Beamat? Some dragon god or other).

The party discussed how to get rid of the blade shards, zappy suggests pulverizing them and dumping them in the river. Terri objects because it might poison a village downstream. Eventually Moraine repeats her previous performance of jogging out of the room and picking up a stinky beetle corpse. Germaine shoves the shards in it, and they burry it in the corner of the room.

Zappy peals off his wolf urine soaked cloak before napping. Terri sleeps in hers (quipping "this isn't the first time I've slept in pee soaked clothes, you should have seen the time Mistral had diorrhea!") Germaine moves across the room from the "stinky pee" people. I guess stinky beetle corpse smells better.

After a bit of sleep 2 centipedes wander in. Someone (sorry, I forgot who†) wonders if one of them is the same centipede from earlier. How would I know? Er, I mean “what is your bonus for Knowledge (Big Ass Bugs)?” “You don’t have it listed? Then you can’t tell. It was probably important to the plot though, pity you didn’t put any ranks in it”

Where was I? Oh yeah, so these two centipedes come into a bar. Er, a cavern. Germain (who was on watch) puts an arrow in it’s flank & yells for everyone to wake up and kill some bugs. Mistral goes for the wounded centipede and snaps it’s neck (terrier!). The second centipede battles it out with Mistral for a while, at least until Moraine wakes up enough to put an arrow in it’s eye socket.

Everyone gets back to sleepy time (except Mistral and Germaine who are on watch...plus Moraine this time).

After a few more hours of shut eye four dire rats race in, actually managing to get a surprise attack in past all the watchers! Go (giant) stealth rats! However after the first round of good luck, the tide turns and the dire rats are decimated as Zappy offs two, and Mistral gets the other two (and for further proof of Mistral’s terrier heritage, not only did he kill half of the dire rats, but the summoned wolf (go natures ally!) decided actually biting the rats wasn’t fun and proceeded to only snap at them.

Finally the party has rested enough, and they burn all kinds of magic on healing...and almost get back to full (including Germain’s newly acquired ability to “lay hands on”, which I’ll not sully with innuendo, as out of character as that is for me).

Yes, the party actually never left the room for a whole play session.

Administrivia: Last game session was a bit short as a player wasn’t feeling well and we encouraged her to get some rest rather then play out a game while potentially ill and make herself (maybe) sicker. That player is still ill (if you want to send her get well wishes, there is a comments section; if you want to send her money I’ll forward it on for only a modest fee), and we have another down with a similar illness (again, comments & money). A third player is also ill, but she’s foolishly pushing through it. So yet again, comments and cash please. With so many ill we will not be having a play session this Wednesday. We are also moving play sessions to Thursday since it is a better day for several people (including me!), and no worse for anyone else!

Or maybe not, Germaine’s player can’t do Thursdays for a while. So if you cleared off Thursday I’m sorry...and if you filled up Wednesday I’m more sorry. I had thought we checked with everyone before we started the day change, but apparently not. Can everyone please let me know what days do work for them?

† Germaine, that’s who