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Prefect Blart
2016-07-01, 03:25 PM
This D&D 3.5 game took place over the course of about 18 months, and was initially intended to be a 2-3 shot break from our last Shadowrun game that ended in a TPK. We started at level 10 and when we put the game on hiatus I had just hit level 23.



Coming from a Shadowrun background, our group tends toward secrets and intrigue, and attempts to avoid OOC knowledge being transferred between players as much as possible, so I've never seen the character sheets of the other PCs. I've tried to make some educated guesses of* classes and abilities, but some of it might be inaccurate.

No matter the game system we play, we always play by three major rules:

0: Anything the PCs do that is cheesy rules-wise is also fair game for the NPCs

1: Rules are rules, but Cool is better

Rule 0 tends to discourage some of the more abusive rules exploits. We've been gaming together for a long time now, and know that any gaming system falls apart if looked at too closely for exploits. We trust the other players to not try to break the game, but this reduces the temptation to do something that would break the game

Rule 1 both reinforces and counters Rule 0. The bar that something has to meet to be seen as cheesy by any of us in the group is higher if it allows for a cool concept. A rules exploit that is just a power grab is a no-no, but one that allows a PC, or an NPC to do something cool is OK, as long as it's not abused.

Game World: Home brew setting, I'll get into it as we go to new areas

House Rules:
No teleportation
Plane Shift Spell or abilities does not function, but concept is possible (summoning works normally, we find out why eventually)
Detect Alignment spells and abilities only work on extra-planar beings or items from those planes. They don't work on people, unless those people spend a lot of time on other planes.



I arrived in the Free City of Orleans, a large coastal port with the only decent harbor for a few hundred miles in either direction. The city is controlled by a coalition of wealthy merchants and other powerful citizens. Just about anything can be found here, as it’s a crossroads for trade between the interior of the continent to the east, and the island kingdoms of the south west.

I was on the run, trying to put some distance between me and the organization I had just betrayed, and I was looking for a ship to take me to the islands before they figured out what I had done. I didn't know how much time I had before they caught up with me, but knew I had better find the first ship out.

I was crossing the street when I heard someone call my name. I cursed inwardly, but stopped and turned. It was an old comrade of mine, we had worked together a long time ago, before I screwed up my life. I hadn't seen him for years, so I hoped our meeting was just chance.

Ringtoe and I chatted for a few moments as I tried to figure out how to break off the conversation. I felt guilty about that, he had saved my life after all, but I only had about a week before my former employers started looking for me.

My plans instantly changed when Ringtoe mentioned the job. I immediately agreed, somewhat to his surprise, and we both headed down to the docks to the small ship where our employer waited.

We met with Ringtoe's employer, a half-elf named Johnsone, who hired me on my old friend's recommendation, and I stepped on board to meet my new co-workers. The captain introduced herself as Enjee. She was a small, wiry human woman with gray hair. She had a belt on it with a few wands in holsters. She was barking orders to her crew, and a few minutes after we stepped on board we slipped away from the dock.

I introduced myself to the others and watched us pull away from the dock with a sense of relief.


We had been hired to check out reports of attacks on shipping in the gulf. Our employer was a member of the council, and we were not the first ship to leave port. Two navy vessels had left three days earlier, and we were being hired to support their search efforts. We were paid u in gems, and Enjee had a writ from the council proclaiming that we could keep half of the haul from any pirate ship we found.

My fellow privateers and I discussed our capabilities a bit as we left port. Our team consisted of

Enjee: Human Artificer. She's probably around middle aged, is short and wiry, but moves slowly due to a limp. She specializes in crafting constructs.


Ringtoe: Goliath meat shield, and ridiculously strong, with far better reflexes than someone that size should have. He has always liked to play dumb a lot. I suspect the dumb fighter shtick is an act but can't be sure. He was lightly armoured, with a spiked gauntlets and a very large unwieldy looking pole arm that he had thrown over one shoulder.

Orsanne: Human Spell caster. He had worked with Enjee before and his role was to counter enemy magicians and provide magical artillery support. I though it odd that of all of us, he was the only one not wearing the typical magical jewelry, weapons, clothing and other doodads. At the time I put it down to some sort of magical trick. He looked to be approaching middle age, but still seemed pretty fit.

Robere: Human? Divine spell caster. He has an odd look about him that makes me suspect he isn't entirely human, but no idea what else could be in his family tree. He was tall, muscular, with close cropped blonde hair and violet eyes. The proportion of his face looked just a bit off, but I could not describe how. He claims to not follow a specific diety, but was hired as our party healer. I made a note to get on his good side, never want to make the guy who can patch you up mad. He carried a small mace and a shield, and was dressed in chain mail. This seemed not wise for a sea voyage so I assumed he had some way to levitate if he fell overboard.

Shmikie (me): Your resident halfling telepath. I explained that I was a caster of sorts, and best suited taking out people one at a time.

We sailed for three days, and learned more about each other. Apparently Orsanne has the same odd sense of humor as Ringtoe, and they both tried to outdo each other with some truly atrocious puns. It was almost enough to make me mind control them to stop.

Robere was more outgoing, and seemed pretty easygoing, and got along well with everyone. Enjee was busy the whole time, so I saw little of her. Once we got outside of port she brought up some war constructs and spent hours making sure they were ready. There was a mixture of squat dog shaped machines, and a number of self-propelled, self-firing crossbows.

Enjee had apparently made a number of modifications to the ship, it was able to be crewed by four men at a time, with help from two of the smaller constructs, and was much faster than anything I had ever been on before. I knew we were smaller than your average navy ship, but we were a heck of a lot faster and more maneuverable.

On the afternoon of the third day we saw debris. We stopped and looked at it, and saw that it was remains of a ship. Robere cast a spell and jumped into the water, but found nothing of interest. Enjee said that the rest of the ship could be anywhere, and the depth here was too much for diving.

We kept going, and the next morning saw something on the horizon. As it got closer we saw it was a ship powered by oars, and it was traveling at a high rate of speed. Enjee attempted to maneuver to prevent them from boarding as Orsanne began to cast. I floated up higher to attempt to see what was going on and sharpened my senses to see a bit closer.

The front of the ship was enveloped with flame by Orsanne, and when the smoke cleared I saw that the ship was undamaged, and still closing at a high rate of speed. The top of the ship was odd, it was totally smooth, with no railing, and there was no one visible at all. It ran completely silent, not even the oars made a sound. The ship looked undamaged so Orsanne switched to acid, and then lightening as the rest of us got ready. None of Orsanne's attacks had any visible effect on the ship.

Enjee turned her ship to avoid the ram, but it still* hit with a glancing blow and went by us. As it went by Ringtoe leapt down onto the deck of the other ship. He screamed when he landed, but kept going and started slamming his fist into the deck, trying to break through. For anyone else that probably be impossible, but from what I remember from working with him last time, an angry Ringtoe was usually able to break through just about anything.* As the ship slowed I could see* objects floating behind it heading towards us, and then they were on us.

The skeletal creatures were vaguely humanoid, but moved like no undead I had ever seen, and had clawed hands and feet and elongated jaws with sharp teeth. They clambered up on deck with little effort, and great speed. As soon as they reached the deck they grabbed a crewman and then leapt back overboard. We lost two that way before the rest scrambled to safety,

I cursed as I realized we were facing undead. I really hate undead, Most of my gifts are useless against them. I concentrated and manifested an Astral Construct in place between Orsanne and the nearest creature as Robere and Enjee's constructs moved to attack them. I floated over to see if I could see what happened to Enjee's two crewman but nothing resurfaced,

They almost overwhelmed us, but Orsanne managed to get a shimmering wall of force up, which cut off most of them. Ringtoe saw what was happening and leapt back onto the deck, and started bull rushing the skeletons on his side of the wall into the water.

The problem was more just kept coming, and every time their skeletal claws hit, our people got slower and slower. The skeletons seemed immune to just about everything magical, so we shifted our tactics. Orsanne used walls to split them up, and delay them while the constructs and our two fighters chopped them up.I kept dumping more constructs into the fray, and eventually the last skeleton stopped moving.

As it did so, the oars on the enemy ship started up again, and it sped away. We tried to give chase, but the other ship gradually pulled away, which was probably a good thing, for we were in no shape to fight. Still, they took two of our people, so we continued to give chase, long after we lost sight of them.

Orsanne and I had little magic left, and just about everyone got wounded, except for me and one of the crewmen. Ringtoe and Robere took the worst of It, and after the fight they were both barely able to move at all. Robere began healing everyone as much as he could, and said that he could likely finish the jobs after he slept.

In the end we killed about 25 of the clawed skeletons. Everyone but the two lost crewmen survived the attack. Ringtoe said that he thought the enemy ship was made of fused bone, and just landing on it leached the life out of him. He said he was able to crack the bone though, and thought with a few more hits he could have broken through. Robere and Orsanne went below to sleep, while the rest of us stood watch. We hoped we would make it through the night,




This was our first fight, and in the end we did OK. We hadn't played these characters before, and it took us a while to dial in the best strategy to use with them. Enjee's player seemed to have spent most of her resources on her horde, and had little firepower on her own, so in the early sessions, she could do little other than keep her horde running, and I think she underestimated how fragile they were. Later that changed dramatically, but I'm getting ahead of myself…

Orsanne and Shmikie both had problems dealing with opponents with high spell resistance, something they both addressed by changing tactics mid-fight. Ringtoe was a beast. Against ground based opponents in close quarters he was pretty much unstoppable. Robert contributed heavily, both during and after the battle. All and all it was a fun first session.

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-01, 04:32 PM
Now this is a campaign journal I'm all too happy to subscribe to.
Thank you for creating it, and I'm looking forward to the next parts of this.
Congratulations, this looks successful!
Not to mention unique. Artificers? high seas? Now, I'm interested.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a better day!

Prefect Blart
2016-07-02, 06:53 PM
Thanks, we had a great time playing!

Prefect Blart
2016-07-02, 07:03 PM
Pirates, Shark Constructs and Bone Ships...

Once Orsanne and Robere woke up Ringtoe and I got our chance to sleep. It was shortly after midnight at that point and we made it through to the morning without incident. When we woke up Enjee slept.

We spent the next morning deciding what to do. While we talked Enjee turned the ship on a course towards the islands. We weren't sure where the ship had gone so we figured our best option was to head towards the Navy base that we had originally been traveling towards.

Robere continued healing people and was able to fuly heal everyone. He and Orsanne studied the remaining skeleton pieces from the creatures that had attacked us. They had no idea what creatures had been animated to create them, which troubled them greatly.

I spent the morning on deck, learning from the crew on how to operate the ship. We were down two men, and I wanted to make sure we had enough people capable of handling it in a pinch. I ended up in the crows nest, where I looked out for any signs of the bone ship.

The rest of the day and night passed without incident. I took first watch in the morning, and it was mostly uneventful until I noticed two sets of masts on the horizon. I shouted down from the crow's nest, and as we got closer described the flags they were flying.

They were large merchant ships, about twive the size of our boat, heading back towards Orleans. We shifted our heading to intercept them and let them know what was going on.

As we approached I noticed a number of figures crouched down at the rails of each merchant, and some tarps covering something on deck. I related the info telepathically to Ringtoe.

He told the others and they prepared themselves in case this was an ambush. I stretched my senses out until I could see and hear as if I was standing beside the man on the bridge of the first ship who appeared to be in charge

"get ready, fire on my signal" I heard him say.

"Ambush" I related to Ringtoe. "If we can get to within another 50' I'll try to take their captain." I relayed the positions to him of everyone I saw hiding on deck.

Enjee and the otherd started waving to them as if they didn't have a care in the world and we continued to sail closer.

Less than a minute later the captain of the first ship was under my control, and we got even closer while the enemy crew waited for their captain to tell them to attack.

Finally one of them couldn't wait any longer and jumped up with a bow.

Orsanne's spell went off just as he fired, and a wall of flames shot up from the other ship's deck. This caused a lot of confusion, with men running about on deck, trying to avoid the flames. I could see someone chanting on the bridge, trying to dispell the flames without success, so the wall continued to burn.

"Hard Left" I made the Captain shout to the helmsman, wanting him to steer his ship into the path of the second ship.

They didn't turn, I'm not sure what happened there, maybe I used the wrong terminology.

Meanwhile Robere and our constructs fired enchanted arrows onto the crew on the opposing ship's deck as Orsanne cast another spell, which set fire to their mast and sails.

The second ship started firing what looked like flaming boulders at us from twin catapults on deck. Enjee immediately changed course, heading directly towards them. I thought that was madness until I figured out she was showing a narrower profile to make us a tougher target.

As we sailed past the first ship, Orsanne continued to pound it with elemental energies while the rest of us focused on the second one.

A flaming projectile the size of a dwarf passed close enough to me that I could smell the burning tar, and I frantically looked for someone to take over on the ship to prevent them from firing more.

The first person I saw was holding two axes at the deck rail, screaming at the top of his lungs as he waited for the ships to get close enough to attempt to board us. Seconds later he had turned and was running back for the catapults, swinging his axes at the crew operating them. He went down quickly, but it distracted them enough that they didn't fire again until we were almost on top of them.

As we got to within 10 yards Ringtoe leapt up onto their deck and started clearing it out. There were bodies flying everywhere, which gave Robere enough space to climb up behind him. Before joining the fray I spent a few seconds looking around to make sure something else wasn't coming up on us, and sure enough there was a third ship approaching fast, an even larger 3 master ship. It was hard to see, and seemed to blend in with the waves, some sort of illusion magic. It would be on us in a few minutes.

I didnt even try contacting Ringtoe telepathically, he had flown into a terrifying rage and was flinging bodies right and left. I shouted down to Enjee and pointed, and she started barking orders to her crew as our ship turned yet again.

Orsanne continued to keep his attention on the first ship, firing orb after orb onto the bridge, while dodging the occasional fire being returned.

The third ship was too far for me to affect, so I started dumping Astral Constructs onto the deck of Ship 2 in support of Ringtoe and Robere while Enjee's flying crossbows raked the ships bridge.

We took a good bit of missile fire from them, which took out a flying crossbow, and I heard Enjee scream as it fell.

Orsanne was apparently finished with the first ship, as it was engulfed in flames and slowly sinking. The Ship 2 bridge exploded in a ball of fire from him while Ringtoe, Robere and my Constructs made their way to the catapults and destroyed them.

The deck of the second ship was empty, and the third had turned away to make a run for it.

The remaining crew on the second ship surrendered at that point, coming up from below their hands in the air.


We searched the ship and found the original merchant ship captain locked up below.

His ship had been captured by the pirates two weeks ago, and he was kept alive in the hopes of ransoming him back to his family. He had told them he was wealthy in an attempt to buy time.

He described how the pirates threw the rest of his crew overboard far from shore and sailed off leaving them floating in the water.

I had a little talk with the five captive pirates, and soon we were all the best of friends, something that I think unnerved Enjee abd Orsanne a bit.

We learned the following:
The third ship was the main one, the other two were crewed by newer recruits. They had disobeyed orders to attack us, they were supposed to just pretend to be merchants and attack us until the main ship arrived.

The main ship was better armed, and had a good bit of magical support. Their captain was known as Captain Neal, and had only recently come to the area. None of them had actually met Neal, or boarded the ship. They couldn't even agree what race Neal was. some thought human, one thought he was an elf.

They knew nothing of undead skeletons or ships made of bone.

I left them and discussed everything with my team. Enjee had not heard of this Captain Neal. We didn't know what, if any connection they had with the bone ship.

We decided to take the ship with us. Robere and I would travel aboard the pirate ship, crewing it with the captain we had freed and my five new friends.

Our progress was slow, we were dramatically under-crewed, but we were not about to leave something that valuable.

It was that evening around midnight that I felt it, someone was scrying us. I concentrated and got an image, an elven woman in a wood-paneled room about two miles away.

I ran to the deck and alerted the captain and Robere, who signaled to the other ship using a glowing copper piece he carried. Enjee brought the ship closer, and I relayed the information to Ringtoe once he was in range. We stopped both ships, and transfered Robere and I over. Before I left I reinforced my bond with my friends, and told them to keep going, we would catch up after we dealt with the pirates.

We had just got underway again when we saw the sky light up. We could hear shouts and see bolts of energy off in the distance about half a mile away, right where we were headed.

We kept going, and Orsanne buffed up Ringtoe as we strained to see what was going on.

The remaining pirate ship was under attack from the bone ship. Skeletons on the deck were dragging people into the water while a small group of pirates fought on.

We came in at full speed and Robere cast a spell on Ringtoe, who jumped onto the smooth deck of the bone ship and started slamming his fists into the deck. Whatever Robere and Orsanne had done to him seemed to be working, the deck no longer seemed to be affecting him.

I looked for the woman who had scried me and saw her fall on the deck. An instant later she was in the water, drug under by a skeleton.

Three skeletons leapt over our railing and our Constructs moved to engage them. The skeletons ignored them, apparently more interested in us. Orsanne threw up a wall of Stone, which slowed them down long enough that Robere and the constructs were able to engage with them and we were able to hold them off.

I started summoning smaller constructs as I was running out of power, and we held on.

With a shout of triumph Ringtoe cracked a hole in the deck and began to try to widen it. As soon as that happened the ship shuddered and it shook itself, flinging Ringtoe into the water.

All of the skeletons on both ships turned at this and jumped overboard. I saw Ringtoe in the water with a horde of skeletons heading his way. They started slashing him and I knew he could not hold out long.

I concentrated and pushed myself beyond my limits, and forced the biggest baddest Astral Construct I had ever made. Blood was pouring from my ears and nose as I told it what to do, gripping the rail as I was about to collapse.

It looked like an enormous shark and swam towards Ringtoe.

"Grab on" I screamed.

He stuck out one big arm and grappled it as it went by, as did two of the skeletons.

He looked barely conscious as they approached the ship. The skeletons were still attacking him, but he could not retaliate or he would let go and fall back into the water.

It leapt on the deck and he landed hard as he rolled clear. He was breathing hard when he got to his feet and looked like he was about done. Robere stepped in with a timely healing spell, which rejuvinated him a bit.The skeletons behind him all swarmed up on deck and we continued to fight.

I remember little of the rest. I was exhausted, and knew I had nothing left, but I managed to pull out a Dorje and spam Astral Constructs to keep the skeletons occupied. We fought them off, and I vaguely remember the bone ship submerging as the last skeletons slipped off the deck with our dead.

When I awoke I discovered that all the remaining crewman has been pulled overboard. Robere was unconscious, but not taken, we found him in the hold. He had been missed by the skeletons in the confusion.



Another tough fight. Playing a Psion is fun, but it's easy to burn through power points fast. In the end I burned through much of my physical stats to get PPs to save Ringtoe, that body fuel feat is dangerous...

I think Shmikie's abilities with Charm and Dominate made everyone a little nervous. :amused:

Enjee was able to contribute more this time. I think she added bane to her constructs natural weapons with infusions, which made them a bit more potent.

A fully buffed up Ringtoe was a sight to behold, he chewed through opponents as fast as they could get to him, at least until his rage ran out. In the water though he was toast, he couldn't swing his Guisarme, and almost died in a few rounds.

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-02, 07:03 PM
I'm glad you did! Honestly, you sharing it like this means that we all enjoy one bit of work.
Every time I see a journal like this,
It makes me want to find some online RPG and join in.
Why waste space? I enjoy using the margins like this. It's fun.
I'm looking forward to the next posts, by the way. On that subject,
I'd just like to confirm that there are, in fact, going to be more?
I'd rather ask than assume.
Messages like this, although usually spread out.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a better day!
P.S. This post, I'm revealing that I leave hidden messages in every single post I make.
And I've made a lot of posts.
*EDIT: Wow, I posted just as you did. Time to read the second chapter, thank you for posting it!

GnomishPride
2016-07-03, 02:51 PM
I'm loving it! Keep up the good work.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-05, 07:14 PM
Session 3 part 1

OOC:
The son of Enjee's player joined us the session, do we have a new character. He had recently moved back to town to go to grad school, and we were glad to add him to the group.


We waited until morning to search the pirate ship. It was still afloat, but was slowly settling in the water and looked like it would sink soon. Water was entering the ship through numerous small holes where skeletons had apparently tried to claw their way in. We immediately got nervous and checked out our hull for signs of damage. There were marks but no deep gouges, either our hull was made from tougher wood or they hadn't had time.

I was still weak from pushing myself too hard and knew it would be days before I was back to normal, so I left the ship search to the others.

They searched it and found no survivors or bodies anywhere. They did find a chest in the Captains cabin full of scrolls, wands and potions. Enjee took that to sort through and identify while the rest continued searching. The cargo hold was beginning to fill with water, which left little time for choosing what to take.They picked 6 large locked chests and put them on an invisible platform that Orsanne created, and he floated them back to the ship one by one.

They also took some sealed pots full of liquid, two large bales of expensive looking cloth, and two crates labeled "books".

After about an hour we left the slowly sinking ship and headed back to meet up with the other ship we had captured. I was expecting us to have problems sailing, but Enjee's constructs were able to replace all the missing human crew without missing a beat.

We caught up with the other ship by mid morning, and Ringtoe and I transfered back over to it, *and we continued our journey to the islands. I was glad I had thought to push harder when I charmed them last time, it lasted longer that way and I needed the extra time, it would have worn off otherwise.

I continued to talk with the pirates as we sailed. The trick to doing magic like mine is to get most of the way there without using any magic at all. I was a pretty good talker, and by the time we neared landfall I think most of them would have been comfortable around me even without a push on my end.

Three of them weren't that bad, they made some mistakes and fell into a bad situation, and did things they weren't proud of. The other two were a different story, they liked preying on people. They reminder me of my former employers.

The voyage went slowly since we didn't have enough crew to operate the captured ship properly. Since I had some time I decided to rearrange my mind a bit. Burning my life force a few days ago had scared me, and I didn't want to be tempted to do that again, so I did a little mental surgery and closed off that ability and opened up a different pathway. By the time we reached port I had shoved a little of my consciousness into a small piece of crystal. I was pleased as I watched it hover around the room.

The morning we made landfall I talked to my captured pirates one last time, and suggested that they might want to leave before anyone figured out they were pirates and hung them. They were lowering the ship's small boat two minutes later and rowed towards the shore a few miles away from our port. I have them 15 minutes then had my new psicrystal follow them discretely to see where they went.

The port of Horner is a small town on the North Eastern most island of the chain. Orleans uses it to house a few ships of their Navy, and we hoped to find the ships that had been sent before us. Enjee transfered a few of her sailor constructs to the second ship and we limped into the harbor and anchored both ships. We could not help noticing that there were no Navy ships present, and Enjee remarked that the port was less crowded than she was used to seeing. There were still a few thousand people living in town and the surrounding countryside, so it wasn't exactly deserted.

The major Orleans trading houses all had outposts here. Enjee and Robere went to meet with our employer's rep, while Ringtoe and Orsanne stayed on our ship to guard it.

I took a walk into town, telling them I was going to discretely check on our five pirate friends. My crystal met me in town, and I walked over towards where the five pirates had gone to shore. I slipped my ring on, and instead of a halfling, there was now a young human boy. In short order I found them, two were drinking in a pub while the other three were heading to the docks, talking about looking for honest work.

I left them and made my way out of town and walked a few miles until I was in farm country. I was careful and used my crystal to scout ahead to help me find a good spot. Eventually I found what I was looking for, a small farm with no nearby neighbors.

I hid my "insurance policy " in the middle of a stacked stone fence. It would not be visible unless someone decided to take the wall apart. I hoped I wouldn't need to use it but was enough of a realist to suspect that it was likely.

I made my way back into town and back to the ship. The rest of the team was all there. They had opened all of the crates and chests and had inventoried everything while I was gone. The liquid filled pots contained an expensive wine, and the chests had been filled with silver, gold and semiprecious gems. We ended up turning almost all of it over to Enjee's trading house, keeping the magical goods and a few of the books.

Enjee, Orsanne and Robere went back to the trading house with the contents of the captured ship's hold and returned with a note entitling us to payment at her house's bank in Orleans. The amount was for less than I expected from the value of the ship snd thr comtents of the chests, but then I noticed the small bag Robere was carrying. He opened the bag and spread out its contents, and we all split the money evenly. It was more than I had seen in one place in a long time.

We sat down and had a nice lunch and talked about what to do next. According to Enjee's contact, the Navy ships were all out on patrol, and we're expected back in a few days. We decided to wait for their return while we restocked the ship and get ready to go back out.

Enjee spent the next three days working on her ship, and managed to finish a new construct she had been working on. This one was pretty cool, a dedicated repair construct that could repair and enhance the other constructs efficiently. I was impressed.

Robere, Ringtoe and I explored the town a bit, purchasing supplies and asking about the latest rumors. No one said anything about skeletons or Bone Submarines, but pirates were the topic of the day as a number of ships had disappeared recently. Word had gotten around that we had taken out multiple pirate ships and the Townies bought us a lot of free drinks. I has a hard time resisting the urge to just drink and forget everything but I managed.

I found a few magic shops and picked up two Dorjes and three power stones. There wasn't much of a selection, so I took what I could get.

Our three days came and passed and the Navy vessels did not arrive. We discussed it on the thurd day and decided to go out and search for them in the morning.

On our last night in port I went back to see what the Pirates I freed were up to. I watched in disguise and listened in from across the bar as the two I was worried about discussed their plans for the future. They discussed a number of options, all unsavery and likely to lead to mayhem and unpleasant deathes for the locals. They finally settled on looking for someone to mug, so I obliged them. When they came out of the bar, I was there, but what they saw was a drunken elven merchant relieving himself in the alley across the street. They tried to sneak up on me as I staggered deeper into the alley.

I came out of the alley alone a few minutes later looking like an elderly dwarven man. I was confident that the local police would think the two men stabbed each other to death. After all, that's what actually happened....

I was almost back to the ship and feeling pleased with myself when I felt the effects of anther attempt to scry me.

I concentrated and saw a man staring into a crystal ball. He was dressed in black and gray and I recognized him immediately. He nodded at me and smiled and held up a sign that said *See you soon* and the connection dropped.

I should have been afraid, but I had bern expecting it. The scrying attempt had come from the general area of Boone, the city I had fled. They must now know what I did, and were not only coming for me, they didn't care that I knew it.

Not much I could do about it now. I had already surrounded myself with powerful people and was going to be on a ship in the middle of the ocean starting tomorrow, so hopefully that would be enough, abd I should be able to see anyone coming at me.

If not, I had my backup plan hidden at the farm, but I wouldn't know if it worked until I needed it. Worrying wouldn't help, so I put it out of my mind and continued back to the ship.

On the morning we were preparing to leave we saw an outrigger canoe approaching. It had four rowers, and one passenger. When it got closer I saw that they were all Shifters. The four rowers had the look of experienced warriors, but the woman riding with them was obviously in charge.

They brought the canoe alongside and the woman looked up expectantly as we all stared at her. Her skin looked almost like leather from years of exposure to the sun, and she had to be at least 70 years old.

"You search for the Bone Turtle?" she asked.

I nodded, and she gestured towards Robere to throw down a rope, which he did immediately. I don't think she used magic, she just had an aura about her, you just did what she said. I nodded approvingly, she knew how to use her voice and body language to get what she wanted. I told Robere later that she reminded me of my grandma.

Her warriors just sat in the canoe as she climbed up the rope. I revised my estimate of her age down a number of decades as I watched her easily pull herself up onto the deck with no little amount of grace and dexterity.

As soon as she stepped on deck her warriors turned the canoe and left, and we watched as she walked to the center of the deck and sat down on the planks facing the morning sun.

Enjee approached her and looked at her for a moment. She looked irritated, but she eventually sat down facing her on the deck. The Shifter woman was taller than Enjee, but even thinner, she looked like she was one step away from starvation.

Her shoulder length gray hair was braided with small stones, twigs and pieces of bone, and she was wearing multiple necklaces and bracelets that appeared to be made of leather, with more pieces of stone, wood and bone laced into them. Her clothing consisted of a thin wrap of some silky material died green, brown and yellow, and she had bracelets on her ankles too. Her feet were bare and her intricately carved staff lay across her lap.

"My sons are telling me you search for that undead abomination."

Enjee nodded. "We do. What do you know about it?"

"It took my sister's husband and two of my nephews. It needs to be destroyed, and the spirits have told me that I cannot do it alone."

"And your are..?" Enjee asked.

She said a word that I didn't recognize that sounded like Ursula. Evidently Enjee didn't either, but Orsanne did.

"The closest translation I can give you is She who walks in the light of the Moon " he said.

Ursula looked at him with approval and replied in Common. "That is close" she said, "but it would be more accurate to say She who listens to the Moonlight"


I got bored and walked away, figuring they would work it all out, and in a few minutes they did. We pulled anchor and headed out to sea.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-05, 07:36 PM
Session 3 part 2


We sailed back out to sea to look for the navy ships. Orsanne and I both flew out ahead and above the ship as we sailed south to allow us to cover more area. We stayed within about 2 miles of each the ship and each other, but were able to see much farther out than anyone on board ship.

We passed a number of small unihabited islands, and I saw nothing unusual. After about 6 hours I was wishing I had a hat of some sort to help ward off sunburn. I was jolted out if my thoughts when I heard shouting, and looked back towards the ship and saw them waving at me I headed back and landed on the deck.

Orsanne was hovering over a tiny island, it was only about half a mile across, and appeard to be uninhabited. We approached by ship and I took to the air to check out what he had found. There was a boat beached on the island, but no one sign of who had left it there.

The only thing we found on the island was a small dog, who crawled out of a small hole nearby. It looked dehydrated, so I gave it some water, which it greatly appreciated.

The boat looked large enough to carry 12 men, and there were oarlocks for four pairs of oars. We only found 2 oars nearby. There were signs of a struggle near where we found the oars, and some gear still in the boat. Jugs of water, a few good quality knives, and a book. The dog stuck by me as we rowed back to the boat with everything we had found.

Enjee recognized the dog as belonging to the crew of the Intrepid. I found a spot in the shade and fed it something to eat and some more water, and it quickly recovered.

Ursula crouched down beside it and yipped at it a few times. The dog responded the same way, and they conversed for a while.

"They were attacked a few days ago by the bone ship. I'm not sure how many days, she doesn't really understand time." Ursula reported.

"A crewman put her in a room inside the ship when the attack begin, along with a few other humans and closed the door. After the skeletons left the people inside opened the door and put her in the boat, and they all came here. The skeletons showed up soon after and took the people away."

"How did she know the skeletons left" Ringtoe asked.

Ursula asked the dog and then responded "She doesn't understand the question, she just knows..."

Enjee added "The navy ships have small rooms that are warded from scrying, that's probably where they were."

I found that piece of information very interesting but said nothing.

Enjee looked at the book. "They took the ship's log with them. The last entry is from three days ago. They met up with the navy ship Resolve, and agreed to patrol for a few days and then meet tomorrow about 30 miles southeast of here at Murrel's Island. The earlier entries don't have anything interesting other than a sighting of debris five days ago, they saw no ships or anything else."

We decided to attempt to rendesvous with the Resolve and sailed on. We reached the island the next morning.

Orsanne and I took turns flying around the ship and the island while Ursala and Robere went ashore to speak with the headman of the small village there.

By the afternoon no one had arrived, so Enjee took the ship out about 5 miles in the general direction that the Resolve would be coming to wait for it. Orsanne and Robere went with her while Ringtoe and I stayed on the island with Ursula.

About two hours later we heard shouting and saw the last thing I wanted to see, that damn bone ship rising up from the water, heading towards shore, its oars pumping steadily. I immediately shot up into the air to gain some distance and manifested my screamer at one of the approaching skeletons. My screamer is a concentrated burst made entirely of sound. It doesn't do that much damage, but makes a heck of a lot of noise.

I wasn't worried about whether or not it would affect the thing, I was just trying to alert the others and hoped that it could be heard on the ship. Much to my surprise it actually damaged the skeleton, and one of its arms shattered. It looked up at me and then kept going, and I was thankful these things couldn't fly.

Ursula and Ringtoe ran towards the shore and immediately made my day. Ringtoe got in between Ursula and the dozen or so skeletons that were approaching and got ready to occupy as many of them as he could. Ursula managed to get off two spells before the first wave of undead hit. She gestured with her staff towards the water and I watched as a vortex appeared. The ship floundered and the water level in the whole area dropped by at least 20 feet. It bottomed out into the mud, with skeletons still popping out of a few holes that had previosly been below the water line.

I blasted another skeleton while she cast her second spell, and Ringtoe quaffed a potion.Ursula's second spell turned the mud under the ship to rock, cementing it in place.

The first wave of skeletons reached Ringtoe and he stepped forward to greet them with his Guisarme. I didn't get a good look due to trying to concentrate on manifesting another power, but when I managed to glance over I saw three of them down on the ground, two of them in pieces, the third struggling to get up. Two more went right by him and attacked Ursula.

The few shifters I have met before tended to have quick tempers, but she fought with a calm that was almost unnerving. I don't think the undead noticed, but it kind of freaked me out. She sidestepped one, but couldn't avoid the second one, which drew blood with one set of its claws. She calmly started chanting again, and an enormous Elemental appeared next to her and back-handed one of them into the now ankle deep water.

I couldn't help but notice that there were a heck of a lot of skeletons that were ignoring us and heading towards the village. I would have liked to stop that from happening, but I was busy enough just trying to prevent the ones near us from overwhelming Ringtoe and Ursula. I was about to blast another skeleton when I noticed something different crawling out of the beached ship. It looked human, and was surrounded by skeletons facing outward protectively. He looked like he might be in charge so I gave him a mental push.

That got his attention. He shook it off, and slung a beam of energy back at me. The bolt caught me and I felt like my insides were trying to rearrange themselves on the outside of my body, but I gritted my teeth and fought through the pain.

His skeleton bodyguards raced across the ground towards me as one. I figured I was out of reach so I ignored them and tried again, but this time I targeted his body. The green beam of light hit his arm, and he slipped and fell into the muck trying to dodge it. At that instant I saw what his skeleton bodyguards were doing. A number of them had piled themselves up underneath me and the one on top of the heap had thrown another one up high enough to grapple me.

I slammed another screamer into it while it tried to claw it's way up to my face.

By the time I finished with it the enemy caster was gone. He must have dispelled Ursula's second spell because the bone ship was back to sitting on mud.

Ringtoe, Ursula and I gradually finished off the skeletons, and then approached the ship.

What we had originally taken as oars turned out to be flippers. Ringtoe began smashing them. They were too short to reach the ground so the creature/ship was stuck. The thing struggled in vain as its flippers were destroyed and eventually just stopped moving all together.

We each picked an opening and rushed inside to find a big empty space. I could see the original creature's ribs, with other bones fused in between to make walls and a floor.

There was a door up front that looked like it was intended to be watertight. It was open and we went inside to another room with blank walls. There was nothing in it but a table, chair and a cot.

Before I could tell him to be careful Ringtoe used his Guisarme to slide everything on the table into his pack, and we rushed back outside to find the enemy Necromancer.

I flew up to get a better view, hoping I wasn't just making myself a target. I saw movement in the center of the village and shot in to see what was going on. Ringtoe and Ursula followed on foot.

About 10 skeletons were dragging villagers into a pile in the center where the Necromancer was chanting. As I approached he started to glow this sickly green color and the bodies of the villagers began to shimmer, and then they disappeared. The caster slumped over as his body glowed brighter.

Acting on instinct I stopped and backed up just as he exploded. There was nothing left of him at all, and all the vegetation within 30' had died. Nothing non-living was effected, the buildings were fine, ithanks had just sucker the life out of anything in range. I was glad I had not gotten any closer.

The skeletons went berserk as soon as he exploded, and immediately started attacking each other. A few of them saw Ringtoe and the three of us were hard pressed to take them out, they were much tougher than they were before.

We searched the village and after about ten minutes Orsanne, Enjee and Robere arrived. They had tangled with about 20 more skeletons that were between them and us, along with two larger flying skeletons that ambushed Orsanne and almost killed him.

We did find two items that the caster had been wearing. An amulet with strange writing on it and a ring with an amber colored gem were laying where he had bern when he exploded. We studied them carefully, then Enjee had a construct pick them up and carry them back to the ship.

We lit a funeral pyre for the few remaining dead villagers and then went back to check out the bone creature.

By the time we got there it had disintegrated, with only a few larger bone pieces left.*

Toxic Shaman
2016-07-06, 05:21 PM
liking this so far. I love your description of psychic reformation. It made be realize how screwed up your average psion must be to be rewire his brain.

Love the power descriptions and that your character doesn't know everything that is going on in the story.

More please :)

Prefect Blart
2016-07-06, 06:42 PM
Thanks, I've been having fun writing it as if he's telling someone the story of his life, and he doesn't know all the answers.

Harmelyo
2016-07-07, 05:30 AM
I am also really enjoying the style and the overall intrigue. Thank you.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-07, 06:47 AM
I watched the funeral pyre burn and felt proud that we had destroyed this undead menace, ashamed that we weren't able to save the village, and worried that this wasn't over yet. Ursula said a few words over the fire in her own language. I had no idea what she said, but it lifted my spirits a bit anyway. Orsanne offered to translate for me, but I asked him not too, what I imagined she was saying was enough for me.

"This ain't over, is it" Ringtoe asked me.

"Nope, that guy destroyed himself doing something with those dead villagers" I replied.

"I think he may have teleported them" Orsanne added. "From what I have read, it may be theoretically possible to move objects and maybe even people from one place to another without traveling the distance in between. It would take an enormous amount of energy, but it may be possible."

"How do you learn to do that if you explode when you use it" I responded. "No one would ever do it twice."

Orsanne nodded. "Yes, you would have to be very important to you to give your life to do it. Whatever it meant to move those people, it was worth his life to do so."

"Ain't that encouraging.." Ringtoe responded dryly.

After the pyre burned itself out we went back to the ship and inventoried everything that we had found. Orsanne, Enjee and Ursula all inspected each item carefully without touching them.

Ursula hissed when she viewed the amulet. Orsanne looked closer and winced, and I could feel the aura it was putting out from a distance, it was very bad news. None of us recognized the writing on the back of it, or even the language.

We all decided that the best course of action was to destroy it, and Enjee assured us she could manage it. Ursula and Orsanne agreed, but insisted of being present when she did so to make sure that nothing went wrong.

I felt drawn to the ring with the amber colored gem. It did not appear magical, so when Orsanne asked for it, that was fine with me. Orsanne had taken none of the items we had accumulated so far so it was fair that he got first pick this time.

The rest of the items were from what Ringtoe picked up from the table inside the bone beast. There were a dozen scrolls, none of them written in any language that any of us understood, a compass with a flip up sighting device, three wands, and a small metal rod.

Robere picked up the compass and flipped up the sight and started rotating it. The dial continued to track north, but when he rotated it so the sight was tracking to the North-East the sight started to emit pulse of light faintly. When he rotated it slightly the glow stopped.

We all looked at it, and wondered what the heck it was tracking. We decided to follow it and see. The direction would take us past the port of Horner, so we planned on stopping there too, so we could report all that we knew to our employer's representative so they could warn other ships to avoid the area.

We finished identifying the stuff we found. I couldn't use any of it, Ursula refused to touch any of it and Orsanne refused to use magic items, so Robere ended up with the rod and Enjee took the scrolls and wands.

The journey back to Horner was rather pleasant. I played with the dog on deck then laid in a hammock in the shade with our new dog Boo watching Enjee's crossbow constructs practicing massed firing drills into a few targets Enjee placed on deck. They were much more accurate than they used to be, and now that Enjee had her repair construct Bob online to buff them they were even more effective.

An aside: I always named Enjee's constructs. Enjee never bothered, but it helped me keep track of them. Bob was her new repair construct, Larry, Curly Moe and Shemp were her flying crossbows, and Pinky and Brain were her dog shaped defenders.

Larry, Curly, Moe and Shemp started firing arrows, and then Bob did something, and their outlines got fuzzy, and they started firing much faster. Enjee looked smug so I asked her about it. She said something about her construct enabling Haste, Displacement and Mage Armor on all of them. It was pretty impressive.

Robere went to his cabin and came back with a bow. I had never seen him shoot before, he had always used a mace and shield, but he was even better as an archer than as a melee fighter. His arrows hit the bullseye every time and he fired fast. Enjee came over and looked at his bow.

"Not bad, but I can get you a better one. I have a project finishing up soon. I'll work on something for you." They went off to her workshop talking about pull force and draw length. Ringtoe went with them, he was always interested in weapon crafting.

I noticed Ursula watching me and the dog together. She yipped something at Boo, and he yipped back. She laughed, but wouldn't tell me what they said. She spent the rest of the journey facing the sun with her eyes closed.

I didn't see much of Orsanne, he spent the rest of the trip back in his cabin. I think he still had a number of books to get through from the captured pirate ship.

We periodically checked the compass, and it became obvious that what we were tracking was not in Horner, but we would have to pass within a few miles of the port.

We pulled back in the harbor and Enjee, Robere and Ursula went ashore. Enjee checked in with our employer, while Robere did a few errands and Ursula met with one of her extended family who lived in town.

I was a bit worried about who might be looking for me in Horner, so I stayed aboard ship and never showed my face on deck. Enough time had passed since the last time I had been scried upon for someone to get there.

Half a day later we were back out to sea. We took periodic measurements with the compass and determined that whatever we were following did not appear to be moving. We did notice that the frequency of the pulsing light increased as we got closer.

We traveled for almost a week without seeing anything. There were no land masses nearby so this part of the ocean typically did not see much travel. The 8th afternoon out Robere was on watch and spotted something ahead.

Enjee came out on deck and started swearing. "Damn, Thruges…We're far from land, so there must be a Aspratron nearby"

Picture a mosquito the size of a mouse, and then picture thousands of them heading toward you. It was not a pretty sight. I had no idea what an Aspratron was.

Orsanne immediately took to the air, a strategy I I thought madness with a swarm approaching, but it turned out he had the right idea. Apparently an Aspratron is a 200' long rubbery tentacled blob that drains psionic and magical energy with its aura.

A 2' wide tentactle snaked over the side and lashed out towards one of our masts. Ringtoe and Ursula came out on deck, and he and Robere attacked the tentacle. Ursula and I both tried magic but found we could ot get a spell off.

A burst of energy above us reminded me of the approaching swarm, and then they were upon us. The first few seconds were awful.

The ship groaned and rolled sideways almost 40 degrees as the blob tried to pull itself on board, while hundreds of Thuges swarmed all over us. I had manifesting again, and could not get anything off, so I rolled on the deck, trying to get them all off me.

Ringtoe hacked away at the closest tentactle. He was enraged and ignoring the Thuges all together. Another burst of energy erupted nearby. Orsanne had flown away from the ship far enough that he was outside the blob's aura, and had put up some sort of energy shield surrounding his body that was deterring the Thuges.

Ringtoe managed to slice through a tentacle, and the ship rolled back almost level. I picked up a chair and was swinging it, smacking Thuges right and left. Enjee was organizing her constructs. Pinky and Brain were attacking another tentacle while all four flying crossbows fired at it.

Suddenly a strong breeze washed over the deck, blowing all of the Thuges away from us, it was too strong for them to fly in. Orsanne was concentrating on it, and while he couldn't destroy them with the wind, it kept them off us.

The next few minutes were touch and go, but we managed to destroy enough tentacles that the Aspratron lost interest and left us. Orsanne dropped the wind, and with one large fireball, most of them died, and the remaining ones fled.

Ursula and I found that our magical abilities had been drained completely and only came back gradually over the next few days.



We continued on, and a few days later noticed that the compass was indicating we were getting closer. Three days later we could see smoke up ahead far in the distance. I levitated higher to get a better view, and saw a large rocky island about 20 miles away with smoke coming out of crevasses in the earth.

Everyone but Enjee went ashore. She was worried about the ship, and planned on spending the time we were gone crafting something to help with long distance communication as we wore concerned about being out of touch with each other. I was able to communicate with her telepathically over that distance, but it only worked when I wanted to talk to her, she had no way to initiate communications herself.

We launched from the ship at a distance of approximately 10 miles from shore to make it less likely that anyone on the island would notice us, and as soon as we left, she backed the ship out another 5 miles to wait. Enjee gave Robere, Ursula and Ringtoe devices that would allow them to levitate for a few hours a day, ad Orsanne and I flew to the shore towing them behind us. All of us were invisible, which turned into somewhat of a problem, as Orsanne and I kept bumping into each other as we pulled the rest of the team.

We made it to shore, and started to explore the place. The island was rocky with what looked like cooled lava. Sulfurous smelling steam was coming from vents in the earth, and lava bubbled up and flowed into the sea on the eastern side of the island, causing a large plume of steam. It looked like a pretty rough place. The island was about 15 miles in diameter, with a large mountain on the eastern side that rose about 800 feet above the water. We started to walk the perimeter of the island, looking for signs that anyone had been there before us.

We made it about half a mile before seeing what looked like a path leading into the center of the island. Something heavy had been dragged from shore towards the mountain and worn the rock smooth. We decided to follow it.

The path gradually went up hill, and after a few hours we had climbed a few hundred feet, and now were at a point where the incline became much steeper. The path ended at a hole leading into the mountain. The opening was about 15' tall and 6' wide. We used the compass, and the sight glowed about 20 degrees offset from the hole.

"The compass doesn't show elevation, and that opening probably doesn't continue in one direction forever " Robere offered.

I reported in to Enjee, and we carefully walked into the opening. We saw that a ramp had been carved into the rock leading down. We followed it and traveled down almost 100' where it opened up into an open cavern.

The heat was somewhat oppressive, even with magical heat resistance, for there were streams of open lava bubbling another 100' below the opening. The cavern used to be occupied, there were rooms built into the walls and towers rising up to fill most of the open space. The construction looked dwarvish, and old. Most of the city was likely now under lava, but what stuck out above was spectacular.

"Kaer Barabbus" Ringtoe said, somewhat in awe. That was a name I had heard before, but only in tales about ancient times. It was supposedly a dwarven city located on the ocean floor. Being heavier than water most dwarves hate to swim, so I had always thought it a fable.

"Could be" Orsanne agreed. "The architecture is of the proper era, and the location matches some theories I have read about.

The path ended, so we looked at where whoever made it could have gone. I flew out over to the roof of the nearest tower and tied off a rope and the others roped themselves across. Standing on the roof we could see another opening across the cavern but down only about 10' above the level of the lava.

We moved from the rooftop to an open window in the next tower, and stepped inside. There was a stone stairwell leading down inside that was wide enough that Ringtoe could fit, so we took it and went down two floors. The rooms were all empty, but there were occasional runes cut into the stone. Orsanne was able to read them and described them as listing family names in an archaic version of Dwarvish.

We managed to cross the rest of the way across the cavern, exploring each tower we had to cross to get there. They were all empty. It looked like the city had been abandoned for centuries.

We found ourselves in another smooth hallway about the same size as the one that brought us to the cavern. It was no longer going down but was no rising gradually. It was extremely hot, and we were all feeling it.

We had no warning, one minute we were walking, the next minute they were among us. They looked like 4' tall spiders, but the webbing they shot was made of liquid flame. Ursula hit them with a spell that caused the rock wall and ceiling to liquefy momentarily, sliding over and engulfing them in liquid rock which rapidly hardened, and Orsanne followed up with a ball of energy that killed the few not buried.

What was interesting though was what was behind the rock. Ursula's spell had displaced rock separating this passageway and another chamber. The chamber had statues of four figures standing guard in front of a door made of granite and covered with runes.

Three of the statues were of armored dwarves, and the fourth a Goliath. The statues were about twice life size. Ringtoe stepped into the chamber, along with Orsanne.

"Rockbrother's Tomb" Orsanne read. Ringtoe looked even more excited than he had earlier. Apparently this Rock Brother was someone important in Goliath history.

Ursula's spell had cracked the wall of the tomb and I was able to climb up to a gap in the wall and peer inside.

"There is a huge piece of granite inside, with an enormous Warhammer placed on top of it. The room is very dusty, but the hammer and the rock have no dust on it. This thing is huge, at least 6' tall. I'm not sure I could even lift it."

I checked the room for active enchantments and saw none. Orsanne followed me in after widening the hole a bit. "The wards failed." he said. "Good thing, or we would be dead.

Ringtoe couldn't wait any longer, and chipped the hole larger and squeezed into the chamber.

He approached the rock, and knelt down in front of it, praying. After a few minutes he got to his feet and reached in and picked up the hammer. As he did so the whole chamber shook momentarily.

I scrambled back outside, then stuck my head back in. Orsanne and Ringtoe were still there and still alive, though Ringtoe looked like he was almost in shock. He knelt down again in front of the rock and prayed for a few more minutes and then got to his feet and squeezed back out through the hole and we kept going. If I didn’t know better I would have tjought he had been crying.

We rounded another bend, which opened up into another cavern with more dwarven buildings. We entered the cavern and I flew across to the roof with a rope. Robere followed me over, and when he got there we were ambushed by three more of the spiders. They dropped down among the two of us and started trying to web us with their flaming webs. One of them caught me with a web, and when it hit, it immediately hardened. The spider leapt in and bit me, and I immediately lost all feeling in the area near the bite.

I couldn't turn my head but was able to just barely see my friends back at the opening to the cavern. They were fighting something that had come down behind them from the direction we had came. Robere fought nearby me and was able to kill all three spiders, while Ringtoe, Ursula and Orsane fought in the hallway.

"Let me help" Robere said to me.

I can't feel anything" I replied. "I'm completely numb."

At this point I was starting to freak out and was glad he was there. This feeling of helplessness was awful. I felt weaker by the moment.

"Hold on" he said.

My view of the world faded suddenly, and I blinked. I was no longer in my body, but was looking down at Robere and my body from above. I watched as he pulled the dagger from my side. He smiled as he removed my rings and necklace and kicked my body into the lava and pulled himself back to the passageway with the rope where my friends were still fighting.

At this point the view faded into nothingness.



This was one of my favorite sessions of the campaign. I'm not a very good writer, so I know I'm not doing some of this justice. The DM is very good, and the sense of wonder that all of us felt when we found the ancient city was great. The fights were tough, finding the dwarven city was intense, and getting blindsided by another PC was unexpected. I love it when something catches me by surprise, and boy I did not see the last part coming. :)

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-07, 02:53 PM
And there goes my love of this story.
(Unless you have some justified come-uppance in store for us later on.)
I just seriously dislike the idea of P.C. backstabbing, surprise or not.
I've survived more than one attempt. Some people hate an Intelligent Paladin.
Not to mention that I've had IRL people betray me. Don't ask.
Let's just say this isn't exactly the most pleasant topic for me.
I'm still seeing that event in negative emotions. Don't ask why the statement is clinical.
Setting that aside,
I seriously enjoyed seeing the construct's advancement,
not to mention the dwarven ruins. And that hammer is just wrapped in intrigue!
I'm looking forward to the continuation of that.
All I hope is that it isn't negative. And I apologize for using that word so often.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a better day!

Prefect Blart
2016-07-07, 03:24 PM
In our games we don't ban Inter party violence, but we don't encourage it either.

I recognize that this isn't acceptable at all gaming tables, but it is at ours. Most of us have been playing together for a long time, so we've had plenty of time to work out what works for us. We have an understanding that no PC will go into the game with a specific agenda against another PC, but if something comes up that drives a PC to have a valid IC reason for conflict, then we accept it. It wouldn't have happened if the players didn't know each other well enough to go there.

As to come-uppance, you'll have to wait and see whether Robere gets his... or if this was a case where Shmikie deserved it. :)

Toxic Shaman
2016-07-07, 05:54 PM
Wow, nice turn of events. You don't see that happen in a long term game that often. Maybe you've been playing too much Shadowrun and your group got too accustomed to running around with scumbags that will shank you for a few bucks.

Looking forward to seeing how you resolve this. Since your character is telling this tale I assume you survived. Your body is gone, so raise dead is out, unless they pull your bones out of the lava. I'm guessing your 'Insurance Policy' pays off?

Prefect Blart
2016-07-08, 07:15 AM
Yes, our game had a bit of a Shadowrun vibe. Betting you're a SR player from your handle Toxic. The game was originally going to be a one shot, so we didn't take it that seriously. Enjee's character was created when one of the players joked that another one always played riggers. With the words "Challenge Accepted" Enjee was born. After a couple of sessions we were really getting into the game and it became much more serious and took on a life of its own. I enjoed this game as much as any we've played in the last 18 years.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-08, 07:16 AM
Consciousness came back in a disorienting rush, and if I had a body at that point I would have probably puked. My senses all felt wrong. I was in a cave, near the opening, and I could hear birds chirping outside. I tried moving, and panicked a bit when I realized that I had no arms, no legs, nothing. I startled myself when I felt myself hovering in the air.

I tried to twist to see myself, but it wasn't possible. I hovered there until the panic passed, and I realized where I was. My Insurance Policy had worked apparently, but not against the threat I was expecting, so I was probably still screwed.

Now that I knew where I I was things made a bit more sense. I was not in a cave, I was behind a stone in a wall on a farm in Horner.

I knew that someone looking at me would see something that looked like a psi-crystal but a bit smaller, and a lot more fragile. I spent the next few minutes experimenting in my new form, because I knew I would be stuck in it for at least the next 10 days, if things went well.

Eventually I got the courage to peer out from behind the wall and look around. I was back on the farm. I decided to head up towards the house to get this over with as soon as possible. I had a plan: slip into the farm house, charm everyone present to ignore me for 10 days while I regrew my body. After that I would slip away and they could get on with their lives.

I should have known things weren't going to be that easy. I heard voices coming down the road and slipped under some leaves on the ground.

Three men were walking down the country road towards the farm house. Unfortunately I recognized them. They were very bad news, they worked for the organization and when they showed up people tended to get hurt. They were typical organization muscle, two young humans and a half-elf. There must be more people on the island, these guys were just muscle, there would be someone running them probably. I decided to let them pass, accosting them would be far too risky.

They walked up to the farmhouset. A little boy was playing out front. He went and got his mother, and they all started talking.

They were asking about me. She knew nothing about me and said so, but they didn't believe her. They were sure I was nearby, and it started to get heated.

One of them grabbed the boy, and at that point I knew things were going to get ugly pretty quick. They thought she was lying, or maybe they were just bored, but I knew they wouldn't leave now.

I tried to convince myself to slip away but I just couldn’t do it. I had brought this problem to the woman and her child, it was my fault the thugs were here. Someone had probably tried to scry me while I was unconscious, and had narrowed my location down to a few miles. No use crying about it now, it was either walk away or act.

The larger of the two humans was holding the boy while the half elf was in the woman's face. I mentally pushed the remaining one hard. He was standing behind the other two, and they weren't paying any attention to him . I forced him to pull his dagger and slam it into the body of the one holding the boy.

He let go of the boy and fell to his knees, screaming in pain. I forced my thug to slash him again, and then move towards the third one, who had let go of the woman and was turning around in shock.

My thug tackled him, and they went down in a heap.

The one that had been holding the boy got to his feet and pulled out his own weapon and started to stagger away looking around wildly. " He's here, oh gods he's here" he cried.

The woman grabbed the boy and ran while my thug and the half-elf fought. One problem with forcing someone to fight is that its clumsy. Controlling someone takes work and it lacks finesse, so my guy was soon bleeding heavily. I let go of him and shifted my attention to the one running away, and forced him to stop. He came back towards the farmhouse just as the half-elf put down my original thug. My new thug stabbed him, and within moments there was only one left, and he was badly wounded. I made him carry the other two off into the woods and then we had a little chat.

It didn’t take long to sift through his mind and learn what I needed to know. I disintegrated everything and pondered what to do next.

There were a dozen Organization men looking for me here. They had arrived the day before, and had set up in an inn near the docks. I had two choices, hide and try to grow a body, or try to take them all out before they found me. I didn't like my odds either way, but hiding and growing a new body would be suicide, once they scried me, they could come and kill my defenseless body easily. I had to take the fight to them.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-08, 12:18 PM
When Shmikie died I figured that he was probably done, and I had better roll up a new character. Even if my insurance policy worked I would be stuck in a 1 HP 1 hardness crystal that glowed with a dim light, with no allies and no resources. The DM and I played it out, and we both had a blast with it. I went ahead and created my backup character just in case, but I figured that if Shrieking Mikie was going down, he'd go down fighting.


I put some distance between myself and the farm. It took me a while as I was being very careful not to be seen. I eventually stopped in a small town of about 500 people about 5 miles from the farm. I flew up into a tree and hid in the branches high off of the ground.

I thought I would be hard to see there, but as the sun began to go down I noticed a glow, and realized that it was coming from me. I telekinetically grabbed a few leaves from the base of the tree and floated then over to me and wrapped myself up in them to hide the light. I huddled under the leaves and waited until morning, hoping I wouldn't get scried on.

In the morning I shifted my location by about half a mile and found another tree to hide in. I spent about an hour recreating my Psicrystal. It looked so big, it was about three times the size as I was in my current incarnation.

I spent the rest of the morning working my way back to Horner. I set myself up on the rooftop of a building across the square from the Inn that Organization was operating out of and waited to see what happened.

Around lunch time two Organization thugs walked out of the Inn and headed further into town. I let them go, I was waiting to see if I could find the one that was in charge, he was the one I had to worry about. Ten minutes later I saw another two thugs leave, they also headed in town. I sent my Psicrystal to follow the.

That turned out to be a mistake. I hadn't noticed that the two men were being followed by someone until a bolt of energy shot out and just missed my Crystal. My crystal ducked into an open window, through a door, and exited another open window on the other side. Now they knew I was in town. I snuck away, and was just on the outskirts of town when I detected another remote viewing.

The rest of the day was a success in that I didn't get caught, but it was touch and go. The thugs were travelling in pairs looking for me, and were in contact with whoever was scrying me. They kept trying to surround me, and I kept trying to escape.

I quickly realized that they were protected against being dominated. My first two attempts failed. I managed to take out three of them by other methods, but it was tiring and risky, for I knew my current body was extremely fragile and could not survive any damage at all.

In the end I dove into the water, hoping that some fish would not eat me. My pursuers apparently had not expected that, and did not follow me. I surfaced a bit later and snuck aboard a small merchant ship heading out to sea.

I knew I had only gained a temporary respite.

Later that evening I could have sworn I heard someone chuckle, but there was no one there. I scanned the area and found no one, and chalked it up to nerves.

I stayed on the merchant ship all night. In the morning I was scryed again, and a few hours later a pair of boats appeared behind the ship I was on. They were small boats, about 25' long with a single sail. I could see 4 men in each boat. They were traveling faster than the merchant ship and would catch up within the hour. I slipped back off the ship into the water, flew through the water and looked up at the hulls of the approaching boats. One of them overtook the boat while the other one hung back to watch. I approached the one that hung back a bit and concentrated for a moment, and manifested two Astral Constructs. They looked like Sharks and they immediately laid into the boat, while I took off, putting some distance between myself and the boat.

Within seconds the boat had capsized and the four men were in the water. The constructs pulled two of them under water until they died. One of the remaining men was a spellcaster of some sort, he levitated into the air and started blasting the water with lightning bolts. He managed to destroy one of the constructs, but the other one pulled the remaining man under before it dissolved.

The other boat apparently had a spell caster too. He summoned some sharks and they searched the area, but I was far enough away I wasn't found.

I watched from a few hundred yards away. The survivor from the first boat landed on the remaining boat and they immediately headed back towards Horner. I followed at a discrete distance and after about 15 minutes I manifested a power onto my psicrystal and had it fly through the water to the boat and touch it from under the water, which delivered the power I had charged it with. The power did no real damage, but shook their boat. The crystal kept going and pulled away quickly.

The occupants on the boat went nuts. Both spellcasters started casting spells. I did this three more times, and each time more spells were cast, and they got more and more frantic.

I moved in closer, and popped up out of the water just long enough to dump a wall of sonic energy onto the boat and then sped away. The wall ate through the boat and it started to shake itself apart. All but two of the men jumped into the water to escape the damage. The spellcaster from the original boat floated up out of the way, and one of the others drank a potion and levitated out of danger. Seconds later two others had drank potions and levitated out of the water, leaving only one man down.

I waited them out, figuring the potions wouldn't last long. The flying spellcaster must have thought the same thing because he took off. I chased after him and took him out with a couple of screamers over the course of the next 10 minutes, ducking in and out of the water to dodge his counter-attacks.

When I got back to the original men, they were still floating in the air, apparently with no idea what to do. When their levitation ran out they went into the water, and grabbed onto pieces of their boat to stay afloat. I took them out one by one, then probed the mind of the last one before letting him slip below the waves as well.

I headed back to Horner to try to take out the man in charge of this hit squad, more confident than I was earlier. That confidence lasted until I heard someone chuckle in my mind, and my confidence left completely.

MintyNinja
2016-07-08, 02:06 PM
Absolutely enjoying this. I don't know much about D&D 3.5, but I really can't get enough of this 10 day Crystal journey. It's like a stealth game where you've gotta take out a small army without getting hit. So exciting!

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-09, 09:58 PM
Another chuckle.
I don't suppose there was a hitchhiker at the dwarven temple..
Anyways, thank you for continuing to post this story,
as I've found myself checking it everyday.
I honestly hope that there was a regrouping later on.
I'm also waiting for the come-uppance. And hoping that voice isn't a dark deal.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a better day!

Prefect Blart
2016-07-10, 03:38 PM
Ringtoe, Orsanne and the rest will certainly be part of the story the rest of the game. At this point we were about 2 months in on a game that lasted about a year and a half.

We haven't seen the last of Chuckles either. :)

Prefect Blart
2016-07-10, 03:46 PM
By the time I made it back to Horner I had come up with a plan. I knew who was in charge of the team sent after me. His name was Hovid, he was a Wizard specializing in Divination and Protections. He was pretty formidable and his magic would be counter mine well. He was holed up at the Inn with four local thugs hired as bodyguards.

I knew he would be well protected against any powers I threw at him, so I decided to use a simpler approach, a tactic I had never used before, so hopefully he would not expect it.

I found an alchemist shop and let myself in. It was after hours so the owner had locked up for the evening, but I was able to dispell the simple ward and get in. He had everything that I needed, and I was able to create what he didn't have onhand.

I spent a little time before leaving rewiring my mind again, there was a power that I needed that I swore I would never use, but desperate times and all that...

I took what I needed back to the inn. I created a distraction at the back door and my psicrystal slipped into the kitchen and hid.

A few hours later they sent down for food. My crystal alerted me, and when the thug came down to pick up the food I intercepted him.

I wore his body up to the room and passed by the two men guarding the door. A third man was watching from the other end of the hall. I gave them all their food and took mine and Hovid's into the room.

When Hovid picked up his cup he came in contact with the poison I had smeared on the inside of the handle. Before he could react I stepped forward and scraped him with the handle of my cup. I had coated it with some of the same poison and he went unconcious. I pulled a knife and he died immediately without making a sound.

I stripped a few of his magic items and put them aside, disintegrated him, then opened the window slightly and switched bodies with the thug again, then modified his memories so he remembered nothing since we had switched minds originally, then left.

I left my psicrystal to watch, and 10 minutes later the four thugs had grabbed Hovid's items on the table and fled.

An hour later I was resting in an attic of a building in town when I heard that damn chuckle again. I felt my pluses rate shoot way up, which made no sense since I didnt have a body at the moment.

Then the voice spoke:

*I'm impressed*

The telepathic connection was unreal. I tried to kick him out if my mind and he still came through loud and clear, and with more sensory information than I thought possible. I smelled something floral, and it felt familiar, it smelled like home, like Boone. I could feel the breeze and the cool mountain air. That scared me more than anything, I couldn't even come close to managing the power and control required to do that. That he almost certainly sensed my fear made it that much worse.

*You survived everyone I've sent...at least the ones you know about...and the Astral Seed, a brilliant move, but one that ultimately limits your options ..what will you do now?*

I knew I was screwed, and the way it amused the guy in my head flushed out the fear and replaced it with anger.

*Ah.....that's better. I'll leave you now, but don't worry, I'll check in from time to time, see how you are doing. If my hounds are good enough they will get you. If not, you will do me the favor of getting rid of them, and then we can talk again. I have the utmost confidence in you. *

As the connection faded I felt his amusement...there was no way out, he just wanted to give me hope and watch me fall even harder....

When I first planned this I figured that if they killed me they would destroy my body and that would be that, they wouldn't keep looking and I could grow a new one without getting caught. But since they weren't the ones who killed me, that plan was shot. I had only a few weeks left before I had to start the process or I wouldn't have enough time to finish it. Now what in all the hells was I going to do...

Prefect Blart
2016-07-10, 05:22 PM
The DM and I played this out in a two evening solo session. He asked me early on about what I planned as a replacement chsaracter when Shmikie died. I told him about what I had in mind and his response was "Oooh! I love it.... Tell me more!"

I told him no way I was saying anything else, Shmikie wasn't dead yet...


I spent the next day checking out the docks, looking for a ship out of Horner. I figured that my best shot was to keep moving. Ideally that ship would be a large going on a journey of over 10 days, I could hopefully find a spot large enough to hide and grow a body.

I quickly found nothing like that available. What I did find was a smuggler that was planning on leaving town the following morning, and decided that it would be even better choice.

I made my preperations, and in the end made a fatal mistake.

They caught me just as I was getting ready to fly out to the harbor. I passed an old man feeding pigeons on the hill overlooking the harbor. He was nothing special, dressed in shabby clothing and he never looked my way as I slipped past him and went down the hill to catch up with the ship.

I looked around and didn't see anyone, so I ducked into the water and flew out to the ship. I wanted to have my psicrystal watching over me, but a ship was heading to port so I sent it out to keep an eye on it in case more Organization members were on it. I hovered up over the stern and down into the hatch, almost into the face of the assasin waiting for me.

He leapt backwards and threw a knife at me, which sailed wide. I tried to push him to take control, but he must have planned for that and prepared the appropriate magical countermeasures and shrugged it off.

He managed to shout a warning so I knew he wasn't alone. I concentrated and tried somethig else. I hoping he was warded against mind spells but not those that affected the body, and felt a momentary sense of relief when he crumbled to dust.

I slipped farther into the hold, and conjured up a small Astral Construct and it leapt out on deck, and was immediately zapped with something that destroyed it.

Suddenly the hold in front of me was enveloped in fog and I heard the assasin jump down into the hold with me. I couldn't see him, and he was guarding my only exit from the hold. The fog dissipatd quickly, and I saw him before he saw me, and I disintegrated him.

I snuck over towards the hatch quietly, and listened, hearing nothing. I was getting ready to fly back out when I saw movment, and the old man dropped the flask into the hold and it burst and enveloped me with some sort of fiery gell. I knew that I was a few seconds away from dying. If I stopped to put out the flames he could destroy me easily. If I didn't I was dead anyway. I acted on pure instinct, and reached out to his mind and pulled.

I looked down through his senses and saw my Seed melt, and felt something happen when it broke apart, then felt a sharp impact against my arm. No more body for me.

I almost panicked, I knew this mind switch wouldn't last long, less than a few hours, and when it was over I didn't have a body to go back to. I climbed down into the water and swam to shore, not sure what in the hells I was going to do.

I was stuck in some human geezer's body, but he was in good shape, and I was able to swim to shore without issue. I pulled myself out of the water and fled into town. I made my way to a dingy inn far from the waterfront, paid the innkeeper for a room with some coins I found in the geezer's pocket. Once inside the room I collapsed on the bed. Only then did I wonder what my psicrystal was doing. I looked down and noticed something on my arm, right where I felt the impact earlier. I took off my shirt and saw something slender wrapped around the arm, something that seemed familiar. I probed it with my senses and got back an emotion like panic, then relief when I backed off.

I reached out towards it again and probed it a bit more cautiously. Eventually I figured outout that it was my Psicrystal, and that it was keeping the mind of the geezer in check so that it coudn't kick me out. It had flew towards the boat as fast as it could and arrived just as I switched minds with the geezer. Since it was part of my subconcious, it must have known what I was doing, and tried to help.

I gently asked it if it needed help, and it just flashed irritation at me. When I backed off I got the same sense of relief I felt earlier.

I figured that it would either work, or it wouldn't, and if it didn't I was dead anyway so I might as well assume that it would. I took inventory of what he was carrying. His belt, socks undershirt and neclace all radiated magic. The undershort had a few hidden pockets full of wands and scrolls inside, and he had a decent amount of money in a pouch around my neck. I stripped out of the wet clothes and let them dry for a few hours, then put them back on again, went back into town and bought some better clothes and had some lunch. It felt really good to eat again, even though I had no idea how long I had..

Toxic Shaman
2016-07-10, 05:46 PM
Yes, our game had a bit of a Shadowrun vibe. Betting you're a SR player from your handle Toxic. The game was originally going to be a one shot, so we didn't take it that seriously. Enjee's character was created when one of the players joked that another one always played riggers. With the words "Challenge Accepted" Enjee was born. After a couple of sessions we were really getting into the game and it became much more serious and took on a life of its own. I enjoed this game as much as any we've played in the last 18 years.

Yep, I'm a long time Shadowrun player, it and Earthdawn are my favorite gaming systems, though I'm disappointed with what has happened to both games over the last decade or so.

I'm enjoying this so far, I think Robere may be in for a surprise soon!

Kane0
2016-07-10, 07:20 PM
This is fantastic! More, good sir!

Harmelyo
2016-07-10, 10:25 PM
I agree, this is high quality material. I really look forward to the next entry.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-11, 06:05 AM
Thanks all, I had a blast playing this game, and am enjoyin writing about it too.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-11, 07:13 AM
I was walking back to my Inn from a trip to an alchemical shop when I saw him. It was early evening and he was walking into a restaurant on the docks a few blocks away.

Johnny One Shot was one of the most feared assassins in the High Country. He didn't look like much, a quiet unassuming human in his mid-twenties. What set him apart was how he did it. He didn’t use spells or blades, he wielded the Soul Bow. It wasn't a physical weapon, but a missile generated by the power of his mind. He was a sniper, killing from a distance, and ir rarely took him more than one shot.

I knew about him, he worked alone, he didn't need help. What he didn't know was that I knew what he looked like. I saw him work once, he took out one of my former employer's rivals, and just happened to see him take the shot.

Now I was in a different body, one that he didn't know. At least I hoped that was the case, I had no idea how well known the guy I was wearing was.

I knew I needed to get off the island, but I didn't want to leave him behind me.

I stopped outside the restaurant and stretched my senses and watched as he sat down for dinner. I waited for him, checking in on him periodically, When I saw him get up I concentrated and started creating Astral Constructs. By the time he reached the door I had two on the dock and two more in the water.

He opened the door to the restaurant and was immediately bull rushed into the water by one of the constructs, who jumped into the harbor after him. I continued creating more as he struggled.

He must have had some way to prevent from getting grappled, and he managed to get partially out of the water before getting dumped back in by the two I had waiting for him.

It took longer than I expected. By the time he died he had taken out six of my constructs, but eventually I prevailed. I had my remaining two constructs pull him out of the water under the dock and I climbed down into the water and stripped him of all of his gear and disintegrated him.

The next morning I started hunting assassins. I wanted to take advantage of the anonymity of my new form before anyone figured out what was going on.

I went into each inn and had tea and listened to the surface thoughts of the patrons eating breakfast.

I eventually found two more. They asked the innkeeper if he had seen a halfling of my description. They told the keeper where they were staying and left. I met up with them later. My kindly grandfather look was working out well, they never looked twice at me until it was too late. Maybe being stuck in this geezer body wasn't so bad. I called him a geezer but he was still stronger than I used to be, and just as fast.

I killed her and read his mind and disposed of him too. He hadn't been hired directly by my ex-employer, he was responding to the bounty on my head, I was both impressed and horrified by how much I was worth.

I took their stuff and continued looking. Over the next two days I found another three. I took out all of them, and mind probed those I was able to take alive long enough to do so. None of them were as accomplished as Johnny One Shot or the two that had gotten me on the smuggler's boat, I was definitely down to the second stringers.

It was time to run. There was a ship leaving the next morning and I planned to be on it. As I was walking back to my inn I noticed a ship coming in. It was still far out, but looked like it would make landfall in an hour or so. My plans changed completely on seeing it. Enjee's ship the Sprite was back in Horner.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-14, 03:09 PM
I was at a crossroads, I could either alert my team what had happened to me and confront Robere, or try to join them without letting them know who I was. I always tend to make things hard for myself, and I wanted to find out why Robere killed me so I chose the latter option.

I did a quick rearrangement of my mind to gain the appropriate powers I needed and made my way down to the office that Enjee had checked in with the last few times we had been in the port in the past and introduced myself as Blartifus, a psychic investigator tasked with looking into the disappearance of some religious pilgrims traveling in the area.

While I was the Enjee checked in as well, and went in the back room with one of the officials I had been talking to.

They came back out about 40 minutes later and she approached me. We talked for a bit and I described some of my psychic abilities, and did a quick demonstration. She handed me a few magical items and I studied them and told her about their former owners. She seemed pleased, and we arranged for me to meet her back at the ship in a few hours to join the team.

I met them at the ship. It looked a bit worse for wear. There were gouges on the deck that were in the process of being repaired by some constructs with help by Ringtoe.

I introduced myself to the rest of the team and the dog Boo, who seemed happy to see me. Ursula seemed pleased that the dog liked me, and was friendly once the dog approved of me. The rest treated me OK as well, and none seemed suspicious.

They told me what happened to them. They had barely survived the fight that killed me and decided to retreat back to the ship to regroup. Shmikie was the communication link between the team and Enjee, and without him she wouldn't have any way to know what was going on. They were ambushed again by the flaming spiders and some lava elementals and were almost overwhelmed. Ringtoe and Robere died, and Orsanne and Ursula barely managed to make it back to the ship with their bodies.

At that point they brought Ringtoe and Robere back to life and decided to head back to Horner to resupply, and hopefully find a replacement for me.

I looked around the ship to see what had changed. I could tell that Enjee had been busy, her constructs looked much tougher, and Robere had a new bow.

We waited five days before heading out again. I didn't see Enjee much at all, she was consumed with upgrading the ship. I kept my distance from Robere, I needed to resist the temptation to corner him and peel his mind like a grape. I was pleasant to him, but it wasn't easy.

Ursula spent the time working on her staff, while Ringtoe, Orsanne and I visited every magical supply house in town, picking up various things we needed. Ideally we would have had Enjee craft everything we needed, but we didn't want to wait that long.

The journey back to the island was uneventful. Enjee finished crafting two earrings that allowed telepathic communication between the people wearing them. She wore hers while Ursula wore the mating one. Enjee said she planned on making more when she gets a chance.

I took a look at the compass with my new power and was able to identify the magician we had fought with the bone creature/ship. I was more interested in finding out how he got it. I got a brief image of a gaunt looking elf and then the power failed.



We went back in much like we did the last time, but better equipped. We climbed the mountain and went down into the tunnel that led to the dwarven city.

We were attacked twice by spiders on the way in, but took them out much easier as we knew what to look for. We passed the point where I died, and I resisted the urge to look down to see if I could find any sign of my body. I could have sworn I saw Robere looking at me when we passed through that area but I convinced myself I was just imagining things.

We went down further underground and were attacked by lava elementals. I had never seen one before. They looked like a cross between an earth elemental and a fire elemental and were very bad news. Normal fire resistance was not very effective against them, and they had the ability to engulf you, which burned and suffocated. Orsanne and Ursula were able to take care of them using spells that generated cold and water while Ringtoe and the constructs I summoned kept them at bay long enough to die.

As an aside, my constructs now looked much different than what the ones I created when I was Shmikie. Shmikie always liked to make his look like animals and were always very detailed. I decided that Blartifus preferred making them look rougher, more industrial looking. I patterned them after the work of a blacksmith I knew who disdained ornamentation of any kind.

Ursula seemed disturbed as she looked at the dead elementals and commented how they were not acting normally, they seemed enraged, and/or insane.

The temperature kept rising until the point it was tough to breath, and we had to stop and rest frequently. We occasionally heard the sounds of something skittering around near us. Dark vision was useless, and we were using magical sources of light to see. They stayed out of the light as much as possible, but I was able to make out what looked like small beetles. They stayed in spots where we couldn't reach them easily, and we didn't think it worth it to waste a sell on them.

Finally we reached a spot where it looked like there had been activity recently. The tunnel opened up into a larger cavern with a ceiling that stretched up higher than we could see. No signs of any dwarven buildings here, just rock, and the floor had been leveled out. Fumes venting into the room from the volcano made breathing a challenge. Without magical aid from Ursula and Robere I doubt any of us could have stayed there long.

The dominant thing inside the chamber was an archway made of thousands of bones fused together. The opening in it was about 9' tall and 5' wide. I kept watch on the darkness above us, I don't like it when I can't see everything and knew with our light we were visible from a long way off.

Orsanne and Ursula approached the arch to inspect it while the rest of us kept an eye out for any signs of life or undeath… I heard what sounded like a flapping of wings and had just enough time to shout "Incoming above" when it landed near Robere and Ursula.

It was disgusting, a 9' tall winged creature mad of rotting flesh. Robere and Ursula backpedaled as Ringtoe charged in with his hammer.

We heard more skittering of beetles, and they all came together into one big mass, climbing on top of each other to form a crude body. In some odd way it reminded me of the skeletons as they formed a pyramid high enough to get to me when I was flying. It gestured at Ringtoe and Robere, and they both dropped, writhing on the ground in great pain. Ursula and Orsanne's spells went off right after that but whatever they were doing didn't have any noticeable effect.

I left the bug thing to the others while I took on the other one. I summoned an enormous Construct, and it ran into the rotting creature to get it away from Ringtoe and Robere, who seemed totally unaware of what was going on. My construct tackled it, driving it backwards and wrapping its huge arms around it.

Orsanne took notice of Beetle-Caster and must have decided that preventing it/her from casting another spell was more important than going on offense. After seeing what it did to Ringtoe and Robere I couldn't blame him, and I was glad he was successful dispelling its next spell. Beetles skittered off in every direction as its formed began to shift.

I heard the sounds of something coming from the general direction of the arch and placed a wall of pure cold between whatever it was an us, centering it so that Beetle-Mage would feel its effects.

Ursula's spell went off at about the same time and an enormous gust of cold wind came up and blew Beetle-Mage apart into its component parts.

Something that looked like a dead lava elemental clumsily ran through the wall heading towards Orsanne. I hoped he could handle it, I needed to put my attentions toward the creature my construct was grappling with. It looked like it was about to get disrupted. I conjured another one and it raced over to join the battle.

Ringtoe and Robere still looked like they were in great distress. It looked like hundreds of tiny spikes were pushing their way out through their skin from the inside. Suddenly they stopped struggling, which seemed even more ominous. Robere wasn't moving at all, and Ursula cast something that appeared to bring him back from the brink.

Meanwhile Orsanne cast two spells in succession, faster than I had ever seen him cast. The dead elemental was blown into multiple chunks as Orsanne's second spell hit it.

Beetle Mage must have decided that it was time to leave. The beetles swarmed together near the arch and its humanoid form quickly appeared and started chanting. Ringtoe had gotten to his feet by this point and started to charge towards it, but ran into some sort of invisible barrier.

Ursula cast another spell that got Robere moving again. While I created another construct to dogpile that big rotted meat thing my other constructs were slowly taking apart.

The arch started to shimmer with a sickly green light. Orsanne blasted Beetle-Mage, and she blew apart in an explosion of little beetle corpses. As soon as she died the shimmering light intensified, then vanished and a portal opened momentarily and we saw a glimpse of somewhere else.

It looked like late afternoon in autumn there, the trees were just about to lose their leaves. It was a pretty place, with gently rolling hills and a blue cloudless sky.

The image dissolved and we could see the rest of the cavern through the arch. After a few moments the arch crumbled to dust, along with the body of the giant rotting meat critter that my constructs had finally destroyed.

"Did you notice the moons?" I asked everyone. "It had three of them….Where the heck was that?"



Psychic Reformation is the best reason to play a psion, particularly a sneaky bastard like Schmike/Blartifus. The ability to swap out powers, feats and skills is amazing. I worked out a feat before the game with the DM that allowed me to modify how my powers appeared each time I reformed the feat. So where Shmikie creates beautiful constructs and hideous sounding sonic effects, Blart uses blocky, crude looking constructs, but any sonic effect he creates sounds like a beautiful choir singing.

Enjee's player had some issues making it to gaming sessions during this entire campaign. Lots of travel for work, so Enjee isn't present a lot. The DM ran some seperate private sessions over Skype with her player, so she was able to still participate. It worked out well, as it made sense IC for her to stay with the ship.

MintyNinja
2016-07-14, 06:28 PM
Pretty awesome so far. I have a question, though. Do the other players at the table know you're playing Shmikie still or do they think you just rolled up another Psionic? I can see the table talk being different with each option and it would be so epic for you to pull a Count of Monte Cristo on Robere later on.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-14, 07:03 PM
Im pretty sure at this point in the story none of the players knew. They thought Blartifus was just a new PC. During the game we talked in character about wishing we had a tracker of some sort, so it made sense that Blart would shape his abilities to fit the team's perceived needs. OOC, the players thought I was doing the same thing.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-15, 06:22 AM
We searched the cavern but found nothing. Robere pulled out the compass, and it still lit up when facing one of the walls. It was pulsing so fast we figured we must be right on top of it.

Ursula called a friend, a little Earth Elemental that hung around her a lot. It melted out of one of the walls and dubbed up against her legs like a pet. She instructed it to glide through the wall of the cavern to see if there the earth opened back up again.

It glided through, and within about ten minutes it had discovered another chamber. There was 30' of solid rock in between, but the distance dropped to only about 12 feet higher at a 40' higher elevation inside the cavern.

Orsanne studied for a while and loaded up a useful spell for traveling through walls. He cut a hole through the wall at the point with the least rock in between and we all passed through it.

Orsanne's tunnel opened up into a large very loud room. It looked like a huge blacksmith shop with multiple forges. Only one of them was in operation. A creature I had never seen before was operating it. It was about 8' tall and had long arms that reached down to below its knees. It's skin was reddish orange and there were large cysts all over its back.*Its skin was covered in tattoos and it was wearing nothing put a pair of shorts and some sandals.

We were high enough up that we weren't immediately detected. The noise was intense, so I guess it's not surprising that the Smith had not noticed the battle we had participated in about 45 minutes earlier.

The Smith had skeleton assistants, the same clawed skeletons we had faced before from the Bone Ship. We watched as two of them picked up a badly decayed corpse from a stack in the corner and place it on the anvil. The smith did something and the corpse opened its eyes and screamed, then the entire body disolved into dust.
Orsanne was studying the process. "They are harvesting souls I think. "

Ursula did not seem convinced. "Those people are dead. Their souls should not be there."

"Nevertheless their souls must be trapped inside the body. That's why they have been killing people and taking the bodies." Orsanne responded.

We couldn't leave it like this, these people's souls were being destroyed, ensuring they could never be reborn.

We noted only four skeletons and the Smith. We applied a few buff spells and used a few wands charges to get ready. We levitated Ringtoe down to a ledge where he would able to leap almost directly onto the Smith, waited until two of the skeletons went for another body and then attacked.
Ringtoe leaped down and knocked the Smith over the anvil and into the wall. On the backswing he managed to slam both skeletons into the floor where they shattered.
Meanwhile Robere started firing arrows into the other two skeletons and Ursula conjured up an elemental, which tried to pull one of them into the floor. Orsanne and waited to react to anything else that showed up.

The Smith tried to get back up, but another shot from Ringtoe put him down totally. As soon as he died we could see the change in the remaining skeletons, they went Berserk. A spell by Orsanne shattered them.

We converged on the forge. Orsanne and Robere studied it while Ursula inspected the dead bodies that had not yet been harvested. Ringtoe and I stood watch.
Ursula contacted Enjee using her earing so we could get her opinion as well.

There was a large gem on a stand near the forge that made my skin crawl to look at. It radiated an enormous amount of magic, very dark magic. We concluded that it must be where they were storing the souls they harvested.

Orsanne was very careful not to touch anything and stayed clear of the Smiths body. Robere was not as careful. He stripped the body of the Smith, taking two rings, some bracers, an amulet and the sandals, and shoved all of it into a bag. He then reached for *the gem and he pulled his hand away as if he had been burned when he made contact with it.

We decided to destroy the gem. No one was willing to touch it, and we had no way to transport it anyway. We didn't know what would happen to the souls inside, but thought they were likely beyond recovery anyway.

We all cleared out of the room back into the tunnel, and from as far away as I could I disintegrated the gem. The resulting explosion just about killed me. A wave of negative energy passed through me, draining much of my life force. Ringtoe yanked me back and Ursula healed me and we peered back in to see what was left.

The explosion had not had any effect on the room itself, but it had revived all of the destroyed skeletons, the Smith, and all of the dead bodies inside. All of them immediately went berserk and tried to claw their way up to attack us.

We had the advantage of having elevation and a choke point to defend so Ringtoe was able to mow them down as fast as they came up.

When the last one was destroyed we climbed back down into the room, destroyed the forge and all the rest of the equipment we found. We rested a bit, healed up and then Ursula called her elemental friend again and he searched the walls and found a secret passage we had missed earlier.

We opened it and followed another passageway down into an enormous cave full of water. There was another bone ship there, and about 70 berserk skeletons. We buffed Ringtoe up and retreated back into the passageway where he could defend it and let them all come to us. Robere and Ursula took turns healing him, and when he got tired I dumped a couple of Constructs in front of him to give him time to rest. In short order they were all destroyed.

We checked the compass again, it pointed towards the bone creature. We destroyed it too, then searched it, gathering up some pretty powerful magic items. These didn't seem tainted so we took them too.

The next two weeks went in kind of a blur. We explored the rest of the complex each day, returning to the ship at night to recover.

We found another room filled with two gems full of souls and some extremely valuable metals that made Enjee drool when we described them. She came ashore and supervised the removal of the metals. Once everything else was clear she brought in a small disposable construct she had made to destroy the gems with some sort of contact disintegrator she had constructed just for this purpose.

We also searched as much of the dwarven city as we were able to. Ringtoe and Orsanne were particularly intrigued by it. Orsanne took what lots of notes about the runes he found while Ringtoe found a pair of boots back at Rock Brothers tomb. We must have missed it last time.
Eventually we had to leave. The volcanic activity was gradually increasing, and Orsanne theorized that the Smith and his allies must have been doing something to affect it, and now that they were gone things were changing.

We were a day away from the island when the Volcano erupted. It was a major eruption that threw so much debris into the air that it dimmed the light of the sun.
We spent a good time talking about what we had seen. The world with three moons, the portal, the gems full of souls. We had no real answers, but the questions we were asking scared us a bit because we didn't know if we got all of the ones doing this. We hadn't found the elf I had sensed when I read the impressions from the compass. Where was he? Were the souls being harvested to open up a huge portal? We just didn't know.

I don't remember which of us first suggested not going back to Orleans.

As soon as someone brought it up, Enjee made it known that if we went back now, her employer would consider this matter closed, unless more shipping got damaged. We decided we would continue to explore the area and see if we could find any more signs of trouble, using the compass to detect bone creatures.

Enjee's logic made sense, but if reinforced a notion I had the first time I came on board the ship. Enjee worked for the merchant house, and had control over how she ran the ship, but it wasn't hers, it would never be hers, and they told her where to go. I had suspected that she might take the ship someday and run. The effort she put into upgrading the ship was intense, she never stopped. Why do that when they could take it from her at any time?

I mentally cursed myself as being too cynical. She was just pointing out that we needed to keep going for the good of the entire region. Whatever her motives I was on board for the good of the world, and because Orleans was way too close to Boone for comfort.

That thought brought up something else. I hadn't heard the voice in my head for weeks. Maybe I was free?

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-17, 07:36 AM
As good a campaign to read as ever. Well done.
I'll probably be reading this for however long you post about it. Thank you again.
I earnestly hope that this campaign journal get's the attention it deserves.
That is to say, enough to make it on-par with the necroranchers.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a better day!

Prefect Blart
2016-07-19, 03:09 PM
Thanks, it was a blast to play

Prefect Blart
2016-07-20, 06:06 AM
It was a relatively relaxing journey back to Horner. We looked for Bone Ships using the compass twice a day and found nothing. I spent a good bit of the rest of the time getting to know everyone better. In all the rush, we really all hadn't spent much time just talking to each other. What I learned:

Orsanne commanded some really impressive Arcane Power and was relentless in his pursuit of knowledge. He still maintained that reliance on magical items would stunt his magical growth. While I had my doubts I could not deny that his abilities in the magical arts were impressive. He came from a monastic background, and I think he would really do well to get his head out of his books occasionally and cut loose in a bar. I resolved to make that happen the next time we reached port. I had to revise my initial impression of him. I've had bad experiences with power hungry mages before, and while he certainly fit that bill, he seemed to have a respect for others that tempered the single-minded obsession that shaped his life.

Enjee was in her own way just as obsessed as Orsanne, but with her it was her constructs and crafting. She was wound tighter than most anyone I had ever met. If she had an interest in a social life I hadn't seen it yet. She was ex-Navy, and this gig with her employer was starting to wear her down. She all but admitted she wanted to go freelance. She probably needed a night out just as much as Orsanne,

Ursula seemed to live in a different world that the rest of us. She saw things differently, and her calm patient attitude was a nice counterpoint to the more aggressive and uptight members of the team. We got along well, I think partially because Boo liked me and that raised me in her eyes. She apparently was a pretty important person in Shifter culture. She didn't come out and say it, but her attitude made it clear that she was used to getting what she wanted.

Robere remained an enigma. He made a point to staying in the background. He was a valuable member of the team but seemed to prefer to let others do the talking. In all of our evening talks around the dinner table he said the least, and when he did speak, he managed to say little about himself. If it was an act it was a good one. He was either well trained in being inconspicuous, or just a genuinely nice self-effacing guy. I think everyone on the team considered him a friend. I made sure to act as if I felt the same way. I made no attempt to do anything that would alert him that I was suspicious of him, figuring that it would be easier once his guard was down.

Ringtoe had changed since I knew him before, even since we met again in Orleans. He was a little calmer than before and a bit more cerebral. Finding some artifacts of his people seemed to have given him a purpose, and maybe a burden to live up to some mythical Goliath ideal.

We pulled into Horner just long enough for Enjee to check in with her employer's office. Enjee reported what we had done and seen, and told them we were following up on more leads to the south. The shipping losses locally had ceased, but her employers agreed that it deserved a little more work on our part.

We decided to continue to the larger and more populous islands to the South-West. It would take us another two weeks to get into the heart of the chain. Our destination was the port of Leicester, a wealthy city located on the largest island in the chain. It would be a good place to check on rumors, and Orsanne wanted to check out the Great Library there. I had never heard of it, but apparently it was pretty well known in among the more studious magical types.

We made one stop before we hit Leicester, to a small fishing village about 4 days out. . The locals reported no missing ships at all so we went on our way.

We arrived in Leicester and anchored in one of the smaller harbors intended for non-merchant traffic. Most of us went ashore that first day and split up.

Enjee went into town to go get supplies for the ship. Ursula went to visit the small Shifter community on a nearby island. Orsanne went to the library. Ringtoe and I split up to check out dockside bars to check out rumors. Robere stayed on board the ship to keep an eye on it.

I had just got ashore and left Ringtoe when I recognized someone, a man named Kinslan. He was an Organization man, he worked on a crew out of Boone that used to collect when people were behind on payments. I was surprised to see him, I always thought the Organization was more a regional thing. He was pretty far from home.

He was watching people walk into the harbor district, looking for someone. I wondered if he was looking for me. Since I wasn't wearing my old body I walked up to him, pushed him slightly, and then we were the best of friends. He told me he was there along with Lonegin, an up and coming boss, and two other Organization men. They were watching for someone coming off a ship, but he didn't know why. He had a sketch of who he was looking for, I looked at it and recognized Robere.

He told me that if he saw him he was supposed to drink a potion that would allow him to communicate with Lonegin and then follow him.

I thanked him, removed the memories of the last few minutes and left him there so he could continue waiting. This was something I had not expected, but something I was happy to exploit.

I caught up with Lonegin where Kinslan thought he would be and repeated the exercise with him. Lonegin knew a bit more than Kinslan did. Their job was to find Robere, keep track of him without him noticing them and follow him to see who he talked to. Once they saw who they talked to, they were supposed to use a communication device to report back to Lonegin's boss back in Boone for further instructions.

I thought that was a marvelous plan and removed his memories of our conversation before I left. I wondered what interest the Organization had in Robere, and whether that had anything to do with my death.

I went to a few other taverns to pick up the local rumors and then went back to the ship to meet up with everyone. Ringtoe came back with the same general rumors of what was going on as I did. There were a few ships that were overdue coming back from Orleans or Horner, but no talk at all about undead ships. There was some talk about pirates, but most though that pirate activity was down a bit.

The next day Ringtoe and I stayed on board while the rest of us went into town. About midafternoon Robere came back and I went into town to do some shopping.

I caught up with Lonegin and learned that they had followed Robere to a small house. Robere spoke with the man who opened the door for a moment, showed him something and then they both went inside. He stayed for about half an hour, then left. Robere seemed to know where he was going, he didn't ask directions and walked directly to the house.

Kinslan left the other two Organization men Mahon and Mac watching the house while he followed Robere back towards the harbor. He lost sight of him and was now hanging out around the dock hoping to spot him again.

Lonegin had contacted his boss back in Boone, who told him to forget about Robere now and to keep an eye on the man in the house and to report back who he talked to.

I got the address of the house, then left him there with no memory of our conversation and headed off to check out the house that Robere had visited. I stopped about a block away to check it out. The house was in a middle class neighborhood relatively far from the harbor. The houses here were old, but relatively well maintained. I stopped about a block away and opened my sight to see if there were any magical barriers or auras present. I didn't see anything so I attempted to extend my sight into the house.

Inside the old man was packing a bag as if he was getting ready to leave. I searched the house mentally and noticed that there were only two rooms furnished in the whole house, the front room right behind the front door, and a small bedroom behind it. The second and third floors were empty. I brought my perception back to the front room and watched as he pulled a small chain out from a secret compartment under the floor boards in the kitchen. He replaced the board and held the chain up to look at it. The chain was silver and had a small silver amulet attached. He kissed the amulet and put the chain over his head and tucked it under his shirt so it wasn't visible. I didn't recognize the symbol on the amulet but committed it to memory, hoping I could track that down later.

The man seemed unconcerned as he walked out the front door and headed down the street. As he turned the corner I saw Kinslan step out from a doorway and follow him.

I decided to let them go. Kinslan was pretty good at following people, and while I was really curious about the man, I didn't want to tip either the Organization or Robere that I was involved in this. I figured I could let them work it out and pick up the pieces later.

On my way back to the ship I stopped at a few magic shops. I wanted to trade some of my stuff for some items that would prove more useful to me than what I got from taking out all of those assassins back in Horner. I found what I was looking for at the second shop and headed back to the ship for the evening.

The next day I went to the library with Orsanne, paid the admittance fee, and met with one of the lower rank librarians, who assisted me in finding a few books. I explained that I was interested in religious symbolism and the evolution of holy symbols throughout the ages. I ended up finding nothing, which piqued my interest. It was either an obscure deity or organization, and I needed to find out what was so unique about it.

I followed up with Lonegin later and discovered that the old man had given them the slip, and they didn't know where he had gone. He seemed quite concerned about how that news would be received by his boss. I sketched the symbol the old man was wearing to see if he knew what it was, but no luck.

I erased his memories again and decided to try a different tack. I charmed a woman I met on the street to write the symbol on a piece of paper, and then add the name of a tavern on the docks I had seen earlier, and the time 9 bells.

I had her pay another man to deliver the paper to Robere, back on the boat. I then modified her memory of writing the letter in the first place and went back to the ship to see what would happen.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-21, 01:42 PM
I got back to the Ship before the messenger, and sat down on the deck to talk to Ursula and scratch Boo's ears. Robere and Ringtoe were there as well, sparring with wooden staves for bragging rights. I was surprised how well Robere was able to match up with Ringtoe.

I looked with my second sight to check out their auras and saw why. While both of them had removed all of their magic items, Robere's aura indicated he was buffed pretty heavily. The aura of the spells were muted, either they were very low level spells, or he had some method of reducing the aura. From the way he was moving I suspected the latter.

After about an hour I watched a water taxi approach, and Orsanne boarded the ship. He handed Robere the piece of paper.

"This is for you, a guy on the dock wanted me to give it to you." Orrsanne said.

Robere opened the piece of paper and looked at the name of the tavern and the time. He looked like he was trying not to show any emotion "Did he say who was sending this?"

Orsanne walked over and looked at the paper over his shoulder before he could close it. "He didn't say, but it looks like its signed." He pointed to the symbol. "I'd be careful if I were you. That is the holy symbol of a cult that worships a particularly nasty demi-god."

Orsanne continued on, oblivious to the sudden change of body language change that Robere showed. To be fair, I don't think the rest of the team noticed it either, they weren't as good as reading people as I was.

"I thought that the cult had died out a few hundred years ago when their god was struck down. Very interesting, when I have time I'll have to look into that."

Robere recovered quickly. "Whoever it is, I don't want to have anything to do with something like that. Tell me, what is the ethos of this cult?'

"I have not studied them in detail, so my understanding of their beliefs may not be complete, but from what I remember reading they believed that true enlightenment can only be found through deceit and trickery. Those that deceive are doing their target a favor by teaching them to really look at the world. Taking everything they value, including their very life, is only a just reward for the effort they put into testing them. Those that do not survive the process will get an earlier start at their next incarnation, where hopefully they will do better the next time."

Orsanne sounded pretty knowledgeable, making me wonder what he would say about subjects he had studied in detail…

Robere did not look happy. "I think I had better go and see what this is all about."

"Not by yourself" Ringtoe said. "I'll go with you"

"I think we should all go" Orsanne said.

"I disagree" Ursula got to her feet and walked over to look at the letter. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would a cult of deceit and trickery put their own symbol on an invitation. You'd think they would not want to advertise."

"I don't want all of you with me, I can handle this myself" Robere responded. "I agree, it doesn't make any sense. It's best that you stay out of this. More people may scare whoever did this off. I want them to approach me so I can figure out what is going on. I'll deal with this."

I stayed out of the conversation, curious to see where this went. Orsanne's revelations were quite interesting, but the big question was whether Robere was a member of the cult, and what dealings he had with them. He did not seem surprised when Orsanne described the cult, but if he already knew, why did he ask? I hadn't figured out what was really going on with Robere yet, and I wasn't going to act until I was sure.

I also wasn't about to insist on going into town with him. I knew nothing was going on, and did not want to raise any suspicions in him that I was looking into him. If he wanted to sit in a tavern for a couple of hours by himself that was fine with me.

In the end he went by himself, but Ringtoe decided to go eat dinner in a tavern half a block away to keep an eye on him in case he needed backup. He left about 15 minutes after Robere.

I spent the evening on deck playing cards with Ursula and Enjee while Orsanne was studying in nearby. At about 9:45 we heard a commotion on the docks followed by a huge crash, followed up with flashes of blue light.

I looked up, thinking "What the fu……." I scrambled to my feet and took to the air. Orsanne was only a few seconds behind as we raced over to the docks. I glanced behind me and saw Ursula and Enjee patrolling the ship.

When I got closer I saw a large hole where a window used to be in the tavern wall where Robere was planning on going. I headed towards it and had to dodge at the last second as Ringtoe came flying back out directly at me. I decelerated quickly and peeked inside, wondering what could have thrown Ringtoe so far. I saw a small woman dressed in some sort of flexible armor that blended in with the background as she moved, it made her hard to see. There was no sign of Robere, or anyone else inside. She turned to run back through a door deeper into the tavern.

I sent a construct in after her as I bent down to check on Ringtoe and a few seconds later it came flying back out knocking another hole in the wall before disspating into nothing.

Ringtoe was unconscious, so I dumped a potion down his throat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Orsanne pass overhead at high speed about 20' above me, heading around towards the back of the building.

I felt Orsanne's spell before I heard it. I don't know what he was doing, but I found that recently some of his spells made my head ache when they went off nearby, he was manipulating an enormous amount of power.

I figured that he was probably engaging them coming out the back door so I flew into the kitchen to try to trap them in between us. I made it to the back door and into the alley behind the building in time to see the woman leap across the alley and land on the wall about 8' above street level. Kinslan's body lying on the ground below her. It look like he had been hit by Orsanne's spell. Robere was sprawled on the ground nearby.

Orsanne fired another spell at the woman, and in one incredibly quick motion she dodged the spell and then a bolt of blue electricity shot out from her towards Orsanne. She stepped on the bolt while it was still in motion and flew up towards him at incredible speed. When she reached him she grabbed him and threw him into the side of another building. He crashed through part of the wall and through a window and disappeared from view.

She glided to the ground, gracefully spinning to avoid the bulk of the energy I fired at her as I tried to disintegrate her. She responded with a burst of energy at me and I tried to dodge it, realizing only after it passed me that I wasn't the target. Kinslan's remains turned to dust.

She started to run towards me, but was stopped by a wall of pure force that Orsanne threw up between us. He looked a bit dazed and bloody but was still in the fight. As Ringtoe came around the corner she decided that it was time to go and sped down the alley much faster than we could follow.

I looked at Robere and rolled him over, he was fully conscious but paralyzed. As I poured a potion into his mouth I thought of how ironic it was that he was helpless and relying on me for help. He got to his feet slowly, but recovered quickly.

We walked back around front. Ringtoe told us he had taken out three men before the woman had shown up. We went back to where he had left them unconscious and found piles of dust where he had left them. Apparently they had been disintegrated too.

We headed back to the ship to regroup and compare notes on the evening. Orsanne quickly lost intereste and went back to his room to study some more.

What had happened was :

Robere was sitting at the table when the woman showed up with Kinslan. She approached him and that was all he remembered.

Ringtoe was outside the tavern watching and saw her and Kinslan approach Robere's table. She gestured and Robere fall over in his chair. Kinslan picked him up and put him over his shoulder and headed to the front door.

Ringtoe started running towards the door and three men had moved to intercept him. It only took him a few seconds to take them out, and then he leapt through the window after the ones taking Robere.

Kinslan turned and headed toward the kitchen while the woman and Ringtoe fought, with Ringtoe taking the worst of it, then was tossed back through the window into the street.

Kinslan made it out of the kitchen into the alley but dropped Robere when Orsanne appeared. He died from Orsanne's spell, and a few seconds later I came out the kitchen door into the alley.

And that brought us up to where I got there.

"Any idea who she was?" Ringtoe asked.

"Never seen her before, or the guy with her" Robere answered.

"I recognized one of the guys I fought, he was a leg breaker for a big criminal operation running out of Boone" Ringtoe responded. "I wish Shmikie were still here. I think he was on the run from them. They put a price on his head, a pretty big one too. Must not know he's dead"

Robere looked up at that. "I thought Shmikie WAS Organization"

I got the impression that he hadn't meant to say that.

Ringtoe "That's possible I guess, I can't see him joining something like that but he always was too cocky for his own good, had a gift for getting in over his head" He stared at Robere. "So you know of them then?"

"I've heard of the Organization" Robere admitted. "They're bad news. I've clashed with them in the past, maybe that's what brought this on."

I just stayed in the background and listened. I didn't ask any questions, I wanted the others to do that while I kept as low a profile as possible.

They talked for a while longer. Robere described his prior run in with them. As far as I could tell he was telling the truth, but I think he was leaving a lot out. He talked about working for a small outfit running caravans between Boone and Orleans, and having one of his caravans hit by an Organization team when they didn't pay for protection. Robere ended up killing a good many of them, including the son of one of someone relatively high up in the Organization.

I remembered hearing about that, it happened a few years before I arrived in town. I didn't bring that up, as Blartifus had no reason to know about it. As we were speaking a boat approached us with the markings of the local constable. He came aboard and discussed the attack with us, took our statement and left. He didn't have any idea who the woman was who attacked Robere, and since the witnesses stated that she started it, we weren't going to be charged with anything.

After the constable left Orsanne came back up on deck all excited.

"I found something." he said. "That bone portal was a gate to another world. There are only a few places where something like that could work, and I know where at least two of them are."

Toxic Shaman
2016-07-21, 08:19 PM
Liking this, interesting plot twists. I think your GM is enjoying messing with you and Robere.

I'm curious, how much backstory did you all work out before the game started? You and Robere seem to have a lot of stuff that happened before the game started,and Ringote's player knew some of it too. Am I correct that Ringtoe knew Shmikie pretty well before you all took the current job?

And I sense a lot of Earthdawn in your game. That cult that Robere may or may not belong to sounds like a darker version of an Earthdawn Thief.

IntelectPaladin
2016-07-21, 10:02 PM
It's still suspenseful, I'll grant you that.
What I want to know is, aren't there ever any resilient altruistic players?
I'm watching with interest. Especially to take notes.
Thank you for continuing to post these! It makes a nice day nicer.
And I'm still waiting for that comeuppance.
And thank you for reading this, I hope you have a better day!

Prefect Blart
2016-07-22, 09:30 AM
The DM definitely has fun with us, and we usually tend to give him handles to push us around, it makes it easier for him to come up with plot elements.

In my case I painted a big fat target on my back by choosing to begin the game having pissed off a crime boss who is MUCH more powerful than me. I made him located far enough away that the DM could decide whether or not it was worth his effort to come after me. If he needed something to drive the plot he could use it, but it wasn't necessarily something that he had to use because of the distance involved.

We had pretty detailed back stories, and Ringtoe and I did work out how we knew each other and a shared history. We also played one on one with the DM before the main game started so we had a lot of details up front.

There are definitely elements from Earthdawn in the game, and the cult is one of them.

Toxic Shaman
2016-07-25, 12:42 PM
Sounds great, I'm jealous, I gave up playing anything but pbps a long time ago, no time and no group. Your group sounds good.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-28, 02:53 PM
We talked for a while that night, deciding what to do next. Orsanne had identified two places that were conducive to building portals. The spot where we found the first one was one of them, and he had discovered the existence of two more. He explained how he had discovered this, but the technical details were way above my head.

One of the spots was located near the elven city of Caerenendalius, deep in the Northern mountains almost half way around the world.

The second was much closer, but almost as inaccessible. The island of Tharmea was legendary among adventurers, it was once home to over two hundred thousand people spread out over thousands of square miles of excellent farmland. About three hundred years ago someone apparently decided that the island should return to its more natural state, and over the course of only a few years made it happen.

Using druidical magic on a scale never before recorded, he/she/they expelled everyone living there and turned it into a natural and extremely dangerous place. Many groups of adventurers had tried to explore it since then with varying degrees of success. Most did not return, but those few who survived came back speaking of ruins of cities guarded by great nature spirits that took the form of animals, plants or the elements themselves.

We decided to approach Tharmea first. Ursula had heard rumors of ways to speak with those who controlled the spirts guarding the island. If there were activity going on there of the sort we had faced already, they were not going to be happy about it and would hopefully be willing to ally themselves with us.

Robere and Ringtoe argued that we had a few things to clean up here first though. They wanted to find out the identity of the blue lightning mage that had kicked our butts and figure out why she was targeting Robere.

I agreed with them, saying that we shouldn't leave an unknown adversary behind us when sailing into something so dangerous as Tharmea. I also wanted to pay for the damages to the tavern, which were considerable.

In the end we decided to do that. Enjee had been working on something that should help speed our journey, and that in another three days she would have it ready, so it wouldn’t be costing us significant time to do so.

Robere, Ringtoe and I went into town the next morning. I paid the owner of the tavern for the damages, plus extra for the business he would lose while he made repairs. He took the money and seemed relieved when we left. He said he had not heard of the blue lightning mage, and I tended to believe him. We spent the rest of the day hitting some of the seamier sides of town and the working class pubs. People had heard of the attack, and it was the topic of a lot of speculation, but nothing concrete. We followed up a number of rumors, but in the end found nothing. I suspected she must not be local. It would have been difficult for someone to work out of the city here without anyone knowing about her.

We did find out some other interesting information though. Ringtoe ran into a bounty hunter that he knew in a dockside bar. The woman knew that Ringtoe and Shmikie used to be friends, and she asked him if he had seen me. Shmikie still had a very large price on his head.

Apparently, since the Sprite was at sea while I was taking out all the Organization assassins in Horner, they never put it together that I had been on board her. I had also learned how to blank my mind from detection since then, so finding me now via magic would be much harder. That was definitely a relief. Between that and my new appearance I hoped I was safe.

Except that if whoever was chuckling in my head on occasion wanted to find me I knew my mental defenses would likely not even slow him down. But I tried not to think about that.

Robere seemed uptight during all of this, he still tried to maintain his quiet cheerful demeanor, but was having a little trouble pulling it off. I thought again about either confronting him, or pushing him hard enough that he would tell me everything that he knew, but held off for a few reasons. Priests are usually pretty strong willed, and I wasn't sure that I could pull it off without a fight. I was on the edge of trying it anyway, we were looking into something with potentially large ramifications here. If he was going to sabotage things it would be better to stop it now. On the other hand, if he wasn't I would be weakening the team at a time we needed to be strong.

Ringtoe's comments on my being too cocky and getting in over my head were running through my mind a lot. I knew he was right, I did tend to charge into situations where I would be better served trading carefully. My involvement with the Organization was a perfect example. I thought I could get in, find out what I needed to and get out, but in the end I found myself caught up with things that were far byond my ability to control, and in the end a lot of people I cared about got hurt. I decided to keep an eye on Robere but do nothing more until I could get some proof.

Orsanne, Ursula and I checked the library, churches and some of the local magical societies on the second day, and Enjee, Robere and Ringtoe talked to the merchants on the third.

No one found anything worth staying in town to follow up on so we left when Enjee was ready the next morning. The ship was much faster, and moved at a rapid clip even when sailing into the wind. Enjee fretted a bit about how the ship was handling, but was eventually satisfied, and moved on to her next project, namely coming up with a way to levitate the ship so that it could fly.

To make sure we weren't being followed Orsanne conjured up two flying mounts, and he and I took off from the deck and flew overhead while invisible. We circled the ship at a distance of about 10 miles and a few thousand feet above the water to see if any ships followed us out of port, but saw nothing.

We continued traveling. Each morning Orsanne conjured a flying mount and one of us used it to patrol the area around the ship. We always had one of us flying overwatch above us during daylight hours. By the evening of the third day we had already covered a considerable distance. A normal ship would have been hard pressed to cover that distance in two whole weeks, and Enjee assured us she had some speed left in reserve.

That evening I was sitting on deck when I felt someone attempt to scry the ship. I got a brief image of the spellcaster behind it before the image faded. It could have been blue lightning made lady but I wasn't sure. Whoever scried us did so in the general direction of our last port but maybe halfway between that port and our current position.

Their location told us a good bit. They were definitely not on land, and if they were following us by ship, they either must have not come from the same port, or were travelling in a ship that was magically enhanced to come close to keeping up.

The next day we upped our overwatch and continued on. That evening I detected another scrying attempt. Whoever it was they were traveling slightly faster than we were, they had closed the gap a little. The next morning we passed an uninhabited island, and Orsanne and Ursula flew over to it to wait for the passing ship. We kept going and kept in touch via Enjee's mind link jewelry.

I detected the srying once again that evening, and around noon the next day Ursula reported back that a tiny ship passed by. It was traveling at a rapid pace and was camouflaged very well, it almost blended into the water. She and Orsanne began to follow it while flying on his conjured mounts and invisible.

As soon as they scried us that evening we turned around, heading back towards it. Enjee turned the ship loose and it picked up speed even faster than it had before. I peered over the side and saw that only the very bottom of the ship was still in the water, so the resistance from the water was much less. At our current pace we would reach the ship trailing us just before dawn.

As we got close Enjee starting buffing everyone. When she was done we were all much stronger, faster and tougher, and we all could fly, see invisible and breathe water. She also gave us some resistance to electricity on the assumption that Blue Electricity Mage Lady was among the ones on the ship following us.

We almost went right by the ship, it was that dark, and the ship that well camouflaged. We were within a mile when we saw it, and Enjee quickly adjusted course to head towards it.

Almost immediately someone on the other ship saw us and we could hear the sounds they made as they raised the alarm. At our current rate of approach we would be alongside in about a minute. Enjee pointed with a wand, and a streak of light shot out and illuminated the area over the ship. The ship was crewed by what looked like 2' tall monkeys, and there were a lot of them. Some of them were climbing up the rigging adjusting the sails, while others were running around the deck. A number of them went inside a small structure while others moved to block the entrance to it.

Suddenly there was a flash of lightning arcing out from the space between the boats, arcing through Robere, Ringtoe, me and two of Enjee's drones. Fortunately we were all warded and didn't take much damage.

Robere retaliated with his bow, and as soon as she arrows let loose a second arc of lightning shot out and I could sense her rushing in right behind it. I knew the others could see invisible too so I didn't try to dispel hers. Instead I dumped an energy wall of pure sound on the enemy ship. It sounded beautiful, like a choir singing, but I figured it would do a good bit of damage and I hoped that Enjee, Ringtoe and Robere could handle her.

I was wrong.

The woman landed right in front of Robere and tossed him into Ringtoe, knocking both of them overboard where they floated in space without hitting the water. Enjee's flying crossbows were firing volleys of arrows at here, but they had no effect on her at all.

I sensed something nearby and Enjee slumped over on the deck. Somewhere on the enemy ship was someone who had powers like mine, but it felt odd, like there was more than one mind working in concert.

The woman didn't try to move, but a burst of acid erupted from her, flying out in every direction. Enjee's two animal looking constructs were instantly destroyed, along with one of the flying crossbows. Enjee took some damage as well and appeared to be in bad shape.

I responded by trying to disintegrate the woman, but she shrugged off most of the damage.

Orsanne made his presence known by blasting the enemy ship with energy that sucked all the heat out of the air. Ice crystals formed on the ice and the monkeys screamed in pain and many died.

Ursula hit the ship at the same time with a fierce wind that also radiated cold all over the enemy ship. Most of the rest of the monkeys on deck were killed by this.

Orsanne began to cast a second spell but was cut off before he could finish. He slumped over his conjured mount and it flew past the ship and kept going.

Robere fired a burst of arrows at the woman and cursed as they fell short. Ringtoe leapt on board and swung his hammer at her, hitting her with a glancing blow, but not knocking her back at all. She retaliated by tapping him on the elbow, which rocked him back on his heels.

I felt the minds on the ship concentrate again, and this time Ursula slumped over. Fortunately her mount was circling the ship at that point, and it continued to do so.

I was started to get worried. We had ambushed them, but within seconds, Enjee, Ursula and Orsanne were all down, with Orsanne leaving the scene at a speed that none of the rest of us could match.

I pounded away at the woman with another disintegrate while Enjee's repair construct fired off a burst of small missiles. Ringtoe swung again and she sidestepped the blow and redirected it so he ended up smashing his own left foot. He howled in pain and rage and kept going.

Robere rushed over to Enjee and knelt down. He healed her wounds but she still did not move.

I felt the presence on the other ship manifest another power and my sonic wall was dispelled. Knowing that I couldn't let the mind try again I brought a Construct into existence right at the entrance to the structure on the enemy ship with the instructions to take out anything in the room.

I headed towards that door as fast as I could and felt Ursula's wind get dispelled and then my construct went through the door.

I followed it up with another one and sent it in right after it. I felt the mind retaliate against me, but it was nowhere near as strong as it was before, and I only felt one mind not many.

I dumped another construct in there and then peeked inside. There were monkey bodies everywhere and my constructs were finishing off the last ones.

I looked back to our ship and saw Ringtoe and Robere fighting the Blue Mage woman. She was bleeding from a number of wounds, as were Ringtoe and Robere. I watched as her body was suddenly engulfed in blue flames and she exploded. Robere and Ringtoe both fell to the deck. The only things still moving on either ship were me and Enjee's repair construct.

It rushed over to Enjee and began to search through her bag as I flew back to our ship and tried to revive Robere and Ringtoe. They were both dead. There was no sign of the Blue Mage, just a few bits of her armor.

I knew we were in trouble, I had recognized the power that the minds used on Ursula, Orsanne and Enjee. It was one that I could not counter on my own,.

I looked around as the sun started to rise. The heavily damaged enemy ship was starting to fill with water and was slowly drifting away. The Sprite was also drifting.

Enjee, Robere and Ringtoe were laying on the deck surrounded by the half-dissolved remains of most of Enjee's constructs.

Ursula was still circling overhead, slumped over her mount. We were gradually drifting away from her.

Orsanne was no longer in sight.

MintyNinja
2016-07-28, 05:18 PM
:smalleek:

Alright, well... cliffhanger much?
I jest. Thrilling read.

GnomishPride
2016-07-28, 06:12 PM
Simply incredible, though it sucks that most of the party is dead/KO'ed.

Prefect Blart
2016-07-29, 02:05 PM
It was very close to a TPK. We did not handle the encounter well.

We all got buffed up, but in the end it wasn't an ambush, they had a couple of minutes to prepare once the saw us and we gave up the iniative. We weren't going to attack without being sure they were a threat, while they knew who we were as soon as they saw us.

We were concerned that if we preemptively attacked it would turn out not to be the enemy we thought it was. We should have used Orsanne and Ursula to sneak in for a closer look instead of having us all converge on the ship simultaneously.

The monkey metaconcert was also brutal. I don't know what level psion the leader was, but with 7 others in the loop the save DCs were insane. It could have been one 11th level psion and 7 4th level psions just there to boost the DCs for all I know.

It was a cliffhanger in game too, we left off for the night where I stopped the story. We had to wait another week to work out what happened next.

Prefect Blart
2016-08-01, 06:41 AM
"Get them under cover and start inventorying what we have to work with" I asked the construct. "We need to figure out how to revive Enjee." I got up from where I been trying to revive Ringtoe. "I'm going to check out that ship before it sinks, see if they have anything there I can use on them."

The other ship's deck was a mess. My energy wall had eaten most of the way through the deck and into the hull, and there were dead monkeys everywhere.

I checked out the room inside. There were 8 dead monkeys in there, all of them wearing jewelry of some sort. I pulled off rings, amulets, bracelets, anklets , a mask and a crown. I also found a number of dorjes and power stones on a nearby shelf and a really ugly looking crudely made ceramic statue in the shape of a sunflower. I grabbed everything and dumped it all into a large sack and continued looking.

Below decks it was very cramped, but there was one cabin tall enough to stand up in. There was a small backpack on the floor next to the bed and some vials and letters. I stuffed them into the backpack and continued as the water level began to rise a bit more. The floor of the hallway was wet and I figured I didn't have long.

The cargo hold was also bigger than it appeared to be. It was mostly empty, but there were four large, heavy crates in there. They were too heavy for me to move, so I went back on deck and flew back over to the Sprite.

I spent the next 10 minutes rearranging my mind a bit. I needed some way to get Ursula off of that mount, or she would be circling above us for hours. When I was done I saw that the other ship was still afloat, so I flew back over and used my new telekinetic abilities to transfer all four crates over to the deck of the Sprite.

I had just returned back to the Sprite when the other ship was beginning to break apart. I heard something and looked up, and saw two monkeys perched up on the top of the ship's single mast. They were looking at the water and appeared terrified.

I reached out with my mind to them and got back feelings of stark terror and little else. They were not very bright, little more than animal intelligence, but they did appear to be speaking to each other. I concentrated for a bit, and their language became intelligible to me.

They were almost frozen with fear of what would happen with the destruction of their ship. They couldn't swim and they couldn’t climb any higher on the mast.

"Come here?" I chattered back to them. "I have a dry ship and you can come with us as long as you agree to behave."

They were understandably uncertain as they had witnessed the battle that had destroyed the ship and the rest of the crew, but their fear of the water overcame that.

"Yes, we help sail ship, friends us"

I levitated them over one at a time and they immediately scampered up the masts and started checking out the rigging. I could sense their relief. They were still a little afraid, but within a few minutes they seemed content. I got the sense that someone had messed with their minds. They were interested in sailing, and almost nothing else.

I reached out with my mind and pulled Ursula off of her conjured mount. The first time I tried I didn't get a good grip and she fell into the ocean, but I was able to grab her before anything else happened to her. I brought her back aboard and then moved her into the ship's big common room. I pulled Ringtoe, Robere and Enjee in there as well, and then went to check on the repair construct.

For some reason I thought of the construct as male. He didn't really have a gender, but he just acted like a guy. Of all the things that Enjee had created, this construct was the most impressive, because it had a personality and free will, it was not just an extension of Enjee's mind. I was glad he was here as for the foreseeable future it was going to be just him and me.

He had inventoried everything he could find. He knew about most of the items already as he had worked closely with Enjee, but could only activate some of them. Unfortunately none of them would be useful in reviving Enjee or Ursula, and neither of us could use the one able to bring back Ringtoe or Robere.

I asked him to try to get the ship moving again while I searched through what I had found in the other ship. The two monkeys that I brought over seemed eager to help sail the ship, and the construct was able to get them to do what he needed with gestures.

I went back below decks and sat down with everything I had found and started looking at it. Boo came up and curled up next to me. I scratches his ears and belly to reassure him, I could tell he was pretty freaked out by all of this too.

I spent the next few hours checking out everything. I started with the items the monkeys were using. Since their power seemed similar to mine I hoped there was something here I could use. I went through the power stones first. Some of them were very useful, but none of them would help me here.

I then focused on the rest of the items. The mask and the crown both seemed to have do something with improving the senses or creating new ones. Very useful, but not what I was looking for. The rest of the items were defensive in nature. The statue didn't radiate magic so I ignored it. I put everything back in the sack for later, I just didn't have time to identify everything fully.

I went back on deck and found that we were able to move again, not as fast as before, but still slightly faster than the average ship. The construct and I talked about where to go next. We looked at a map and decided to head towards the nearest port. If I was unsuccessful finding a way to revive Enjee or Ursula they would die in a day or two, and then I would try to find a priest to raise one of them. We would reach the nearest island in about 3 days.

I went back down and started looking at what I had taken from Blue Mage Lady's cabin. The vials contained some pretty nasty contact poisons. I left the letters for later and pulled everything out of her pack. There was nothing there but some extra clothing.

The crates were all locked, but the repair construct was able to magically open them. One of them contained enough Black Onyx to keep a Necromancer busy for a long time. The other three contained a highly addictive drug popular in some of the larger cities. Very nasty stuff. In the right circles these drugs were worth a fortune. I thought about dumping them overboard, but decided to wait, in case there was something here I was missing. I sealed everything back up.

I wasn't ready to give up yet. Maybe there was something else on board ship that would help. I searched every room on board, digging into everyone's personal possessions, and everything Enjee had stowed below deck. I figured that the rest of the team wouldn't object, these were desperate times. I found nothing that would help, though I did learn a bit more about them.

Orsanne really was interested in nothing but books, he had literally nothing else, not even a spare change of clothes.

Enjee had a navy ensign's pin and a wedding ring in a box in the chest at the end of her bed. She also had an enormous amount of precious metals in a hidden compartment in her workshop, she was incredibly wealthy.

Ursula had some really expensive looking perfume and a black silk dress in her pack. For someone who dressed and acted like she lived in a hut in the wilderness It was an unusual thing to find.

Ringtoe had a small painting of a Goliath woman and two small children tucked into his pack. I wondered if he had a family and felt guilty looking at the picture as he had never mentioned them. I felt like I was intruding but felt I had no choice.

I didn't mind searching Robere's cabin at all. He had no personal items at all, his possessions were even more bland than Orsanne's. At least Orsanne was interested in books, Robere had absolutely nothing other than a few sets of clothes in various styles.

I then started on what they were wearing and carrying. I checked out everything, again no luck in solving the problem I was facing, but it wasn't a total loss.

While checking our Robere I made a discovery. While removing his armor I discovered a piece of metal molded into the inside of the leather backing of his chain mail. When we was wearing the armor the metal would have been resting against his chest. That metal was the same symbol that Orsanne had recognized early. I had my proof that Robere was a member of the cult.

By this point it was midafternoon. I came back up on deck with some food and called down the monkeys. As they ate I tried talking with them. They had little concept of anything other than sailing. They didn't know who the Blue Mage lady was, other than she was not part of the crew. From what I could tell the monkeys were all one big extended family and the ship was their home. These two cared for nothing other than sailing, they left everything else to a few other monkeys that dealt with outsiders. These two were already relaxing a good bit, and weren’t that interested in talking about their old ship. All they wanted to do was get back up into the rigging and keep working.

I slept for the rest of the afternoon into evening, then rechecked everything I had found, hoping I had missed something.

I continued going over the same things the next day, checking and rechecking everything. It was almost midnight when I found it. That ugly statue I had brought from the monkey cabin turned out to be hollow. I broke it open and found two more power stones inside. One of them was what I needed.

I knelt down next to Enjee and Ursula to check on them. Ursula had died but Enjee was still alive. I concentrated, and as the power manifested I felt reality warp around me. The rush from manifesting it was incredible, and a bit scary. I struggled to keep my focus on restoring her. I was relieved when she opened her eyes and started swearing.

She recovered quickly and I brought her up to speed on what had happened. She spent about an hour checking out the ship and her constructs. I stopped her from frying the monkeys in the rigging when she first saw them. She was not happy about them, but I was able to talk her into allowing them to stay on board until we found somewhere to put them. She assigned one of her remaining constructs to keep an eye on them.

Once she was satisfied that she understood the state of her ship and constructs she raised Ursula and Ringtoe from the dead, then Ursula healed them. She was about to do the same to Robere, but I stopped her.

"Wait, check this out." I pointed out the holy symbol on the inside of his armor.

She started swearing again.

"Let's go have some dinner. I have a story to tell you…"

I sat down with them, and we talked for a couple of hours. I told them about being on the run from the Organization, and how Robere had killed me in the battle in the dwarven city and dumped my body into the lava.

I told them how I had survived due to the preparations I had made before hand, how I had taken out all of the people after me, except for the last one whose body I wore. I also admitted that I wasn't sure how I was staying in this body, and that I had no idea who this guy was, except that he tried to kill me and was likely an assassin.

Ursula just shrugged and told me she knew I was Shmikie all along, that Boo had told her. I looked down at him laying at my feet and he wagged his tail. So much for my attempts at keeping my secret, outsmarted by a dog. I reached down and scratched his ears.

Ringtoe and Enjee didn't believe me initially, but once I mentioned a few things that only Shmikie would know they were pretty pissed off. Most of their anger was directed at Robere, but they were understandably not happy at being deceived by me either.

I tried to explain why I didn't tell them what happened when I came back. When I saw Robere I was angry, and wanted to find out why he did it. I didn't trust that I would find that out if I told them and we confronted him. I knew if I told them, confrontation was the only outcome, they would not be able to hide what they knew from him. Once we got further involved with trying to prevent whatever the bone ships were trying to accomplish I worried that bringing it up would delay that important work. It was a poor excuse, but it was an honest one.

Ursula spoke up for me then, saying that she knew I wasn't the only one who kept information from the others. She asked Enjee when she planned on telling us her secret, and whether it endangered us. I could tell that Ursula was fishing, but apparently Enjee couldn't, and she colored for a moment, then nodded. I suspected that I might know that secret, and that we were endangered by it, but didn't really care at this point.

Ursula reminded Ringtoe that he had told her about our earlier battle with the bone ship, where I almost destroyed myself saving him, and asked whether he thought he would have died then if I hadn't been there, willing to risk myself without thought of the consequences to myself.

She also pointed out that when Robere killed me he sabotaged the fight against the bone ships. They had to turn back because I was the communication link back to Enjee on board the ship, and that Ringtoe dying on the way back to the ship was at least partially attributable to my death. If I had been there he would have been more likely to survive. Turning back and retreating to Horner delayed us destroying that base by at least a few weeks. How many more people died because of that?

Ringtoe had cooled off and was a bit more understanding. He made the observation that I could have easily just made sure that Robere's body was lost before reviving Enjee, or could have just thrown everyone overboard and walked away entirely with all of their stuff. Instead I took a more difficult path. By telling us who I was, I was risking a lot. Shmikie had a bounty on his head, and that people would pay a lot of money for information that I was still alive and my location.

I added that while as far as I knew no one looking for me suspected I was on board, if that information got out they could be in danger as well. I would understand if they wanted me to leave the ship at the next port. I asked if they could delay that until we tried to recover Orsanne first. I told them that I assumed that they would want to talk to Robere to get his version of this and that I was leaving Robere's fate in their hands, even if that meant telling him that I was alive.

Finally I brought up who I was really running from. I told them I didn't know his identity, only that he was a Telepath with abilities that far exceeded my own. Finding out that he even existed was what caused me to run in the first place. There was a council that ran the Organization, and I suspected that he was the puppet master behind that council that no one knew about.

I told them that while I had learned how to shield my mind from divinations, I suspected that it was extremely unlikely that I could currently keep him out. I brought up what he had told me, how he was using me as a means of weeding out the less competent members of his Organization, and was not telling them everything he knew about me to see what his own people were capable of. As long as he continued with that I was probably OK, but if he ever came for me himself or told his people what he knew it could get ugly.

In the end we decided to look for Orsanne's body, find and bring him back to life if possible, then decide what to do longer term.

Ursula and Enjee put their heads together and figured out how to track him. It took another two days, but we found his remains in the belly of an enormous shark. Killing it and carving it up to get his body back was unpleasant, but soon enough he was alive again.

We told him what had happened. He was disturbed about Robere, but his only comment to me was to ask if he could study me to see how I was managing to maintain my consciousness for so long in a body that wasn't mine. Ursula rolled her eyes at that.

We all sat down in around Robere, then Enjee brought him back. He looked around and his smile faded momentarily when he saw everyone's faces. He recovered quickly and smiled again.

Prefect Blart
2016-08-03, 01:01 PM
"What happened?" Robere asked. "Did we take out that woman?"

"We did. The ship is sunk and the woman dead., but never mind that" Ringtoe answered. "Why did you lie to us about that cult. We know you are a member."

Robere laughed. "You guys are nuts. I never heard of them before Orsanne told us about them. Really, what's going on?"

"You need to stop lying to us. You have that holy symbol built into your armor, but you know nothing about it?"

Ursula reached out and grabbed his hand. "Stop. If you try to cast a spell we will retaliate, and you are in no shape to survive it."

Robere stopped moving and laughed again, though there was a little strain in his voice. "I don't know what you all are talking about." He appeared confused.

"Why'd you kill Shmikie?" Orsanne blurted out.

There was a long pause as everyone looked at Orsanne. We had talked about keeping that part secret, but Orsanne was never very good at anything in the social arena.

"I didn't kill Shmikie, the spiders did" Robere responded. "You remember, you were there….Why would you think that?"

Orsanne just glanced at me, but it was enough. Robere turned his attention to me. "What are you trying to…" His eyes widened and he laughed again, this time genuinely. "Damn, it's you, Shmike isn't it! You bastard, how did you survive that?"

He seemed thrilled. "You must tell me, me how did you do it? You couldn't have known I was going to do it, I didn't even know I was going to do it!..."

Everyone just stared at him as he laughed.

"Wait, wait, wait…You didn't think I was going to kill you….You were worried about *him*….."

He winked at me. "Prudent move on your part. He's pretty damn scary."

He looked around at the others. "I admit everything. I knifed Shmikie and dumped his body, and you had no idea. Shameful lack of attention on your part."

He bowed to me and added "Shameful lack of attention on my part too, I should have known it was you when you came aboard. Thank you for the lesson, you have given me a great gift."

He leaned back against the wall, looking content. The rest of us looked around at each other, not sure what to make of all this.

A moment later he slumped over and slid to the floor. Ursula bent down to look at him and found the tiny packet in his hand. He had used a nasty contact poison, and it had killed him quickly.

We tied his body to one of the crates I had taken from the ship and dumped him overboard. None of us wanted to bring him back.

"OK, he's gone now, what about me" I asked.

"We're a man down already, you aren't going anywhere" Ringtoe said. "You aren't getting off this boat that easily."

We changed course and headed back toward our original destination.



What I wrote above is an abbreviated version of the dialogue from what we thought of at the time as our final confrontation with Robere. We spent about an hour talking through this, and I didn't feel like trying to type the whole thing. Robere spent a good bit of effort trying to squirm out of this, but as soon as Orsanne let him know Shmikie was still alive he abruptly changed course and admitted everything, and went all crazy happy I had survived. Robere's player did a great job making Robere seem totally unhinged at the end.


While we were sailing we all looked through everything I had gathered from the other ship. The letters I had found in the enemy ship's cabin turned out to be correspondence from a list of shipping manifests from ships owned by Enjee's merchant house. They also contained their expected routes. Enjee looked at them and could not see why she would have had them. Nothing in the letters was that secret.

We dumped the rest of the crates I had brought over too. While the contents would have been worth a fortune, none of us wanted that stuff getting into circulation.

My new monkey buddies were fitting in well. Enjee had come around, and she was pleased with how well they were working out. For their part, they seemed happy to have something to do and treated the rest of us as their family.

Enjee continued working on her plans to make the ship fly. She agonized about it, as she also wanted to build some replacement constructs, but in the end decided we needed the flying ship more.

We arrived at Thermea late one afternoon, and spent the next two days sailing around the island, looking for the best spot to go ashore. The island was totally overgrown with vegetation, with no sign of the civilization that once flourished there.

We ended up anchoring a few hundred yards off shore in a small natural harbor on the east side of the island. Three hundred years ago there was once a town of 10,000 people here, now it was empty. Ursula had heard of a spot about half a mile island where it was possible to communicate with the ones who had transformed this place.

Ringtoe, Orsanne, Ursula and I went ashore early the following morning. I flew up above the treeline and looked towards the interior. There was nothing but dense vegetation as far as I could see, so I flew back down to ground level to travel with the others.

As soon as the first person set foot on the island all of the bird chatter we had heard from the boat ceased almost immediately. We could still hear birds singing far away, but nearby it was silent.

We walked through the remains of the original city. The buildings were gone, the only sign that it had every been occupied wS the remains of a few building foundations, which were mostly covered with vines, moss and trees.

We continued on inland. After we had gone even fifty yards in we could no longer see the ocean anymore and the light dimmed considerably due to all of the tree branches overhead. Visibility was poor, you couldn’t see more than 10-20 feet in any direction. The silence continued and we could no longer see any birds or animals, they had all disappeared.

Travel was miserable to all of us except Ursula. The island seemed to be making it difficult for us. Our clothes kept getting caught on tree branches and thorn bushes, and we were soon all covered with scratches that burned when we brushed up against anything.

It took us over an hour to travel half a mile, and another three hours to find the small clearing that Ursula had heard of. We were all tired, miserable, wet and itchy from the effort it took to get there. The clearing was in the center of seven enormous trees and was maybe 50' in diameter. The jungle vegetation underneath the trees was absent, and I could see a little sunlight coming down in the gap between branches.

Ursula walked into the exact center of the clearing and turned to face the rest of us. "Alright, you guys keep your mouth shut no matter what happen….I do the talking if someone shows up. She stared directly at Orsanne until he nodded that he understood. I was amused, but that stopped when she stared at me too until I nodded. She didn't seem worried that Ringtoe would cause problems. "I don't know how long this will take, or even if this will work at all. Just make yourselves comfortable and stay quiet. If something does come, follow my cue. Don't attack anything unless I do."

She sat down and pulled out a wooden cup and a small flask, a loaf of bread and a block of cheese and set it all in front of her. I knew nothing of Druidical rituals and was curious as to what they symbolized. She looked up at me watching her and grinned. "Having lunch before I start, who knows when I'll get to eat again." She ate quickly, put everything away, and then began to sing.

Her words were in a language that I did not know, and suspected that I could not learn. I have no idea what she was saying, but it seemed appropriate in this grove. She sang softly but her voice carried in the silent jungle.

After about twenty minutes I felt *something* approach. I looked around but saw nothing. Apparently Ringtoe and Orsanne both felt it too, they were looking around, but each one of us in a different direction.

Ursula kept singing, and after about 5 minutes I felt the presence gradually recede.

About an hour later the jungle gradually started to make noise again. The local birds had returned. I felt the presence behind me and turned to look for it. There was nothing there.

When I heard Ursula stop singing I turned back around there was someone standing at the edge of the clearing. It was human sized and dressed in various shades of green and brown and carrying a thin walking stick. It did not look remotely human, with an oddly proportioned body and a long slender face with oversized ears that came to a point at their tips. It stared at us with violet eyes and said nothing. I noticed that its fingers were extremely long and had an extra joint. I concentrated for a moment and looked at it with my second sight. It was hard to tell where it began and the forest ended, the whole area radiated power at a level I had rarely seen before.

None of us made any move towards it. Orsanne bowed slightly, and it moved its gaze towards him. Ursula glanced over at Orsanne with alarm.

"You speak for your companions" it said. It was hard to tell whether it was a question or a command. I suspected the latter. Ursula looked concerned for the first time since we left the ship, which made me nervous as well. Its voice was as odd as its appearance. It sounded like a young boy and an old woman speaking in unison.

"She speaks for us" Orsanne replied.

The thing nodded. "Then you are not needed" It gestured and he was pulled down into the ground before any of us had a chance to react.

I kept looking at it while keeping Ursula in my field of vision, waiting to see what she would do. I felt the presence back behind me but did not turn to face it.

Ursula spoke in the same language she had sung in, and the creature responded in the same language. They talked for almost a minute, and then it responded in common. "I accept"

It gestured again and Orsanne was expelled from the ground. He coughed as he spat out some dirt and took a big breath.

The creature turned and left. We all gathered around Ursula to see what she said.

"I made a deal. In order to meet the one that runs this place we have to pass three challenges. One of us has to compete against the champion of their choice in a competition highlighting strength, quickness and endurance. Another has to face a champion of their choice in a magical duel. The third has to survive a night alone on the island without using any magic at all, chased by a hunter of their choice, also not using magic. Whoever doesn't participate is the prize. They agree to serve those who run this place for seventeen seasons if we lose once, seventeen years if we lose twice, and for life if we lose all three competitions."

It wasn't much of a discussion about who would do what. Ringtoe was by far the most suited to the physical challenge. Ursula was the only one with the skill set to survive here without magical assistance, and Orsanne was the most accomplished magician we had. That left me with being the prize.

"What happens when we win?" I asked, trying to stay positive.

"We gain an audience with the man behind this place" Ursula responded. "No guarantee that he will help us, or even let us live, only that he will listen. I was lucky to get that much. The apprentice was about to kill us all. "

My eyes widened. "THAT was only an apprentice?" I knew that whoever did this was powerful, but I thought it was an entire druidical circle that did this. If the apprentice could take out all four of us, how effective did that make the master?

We left the clearing and went back to the beach. The creature was there waiting, along with three other people. The people were an eclectic mix: an athletic looking young man dressed in monk's robes, a kobold wearing leather armor carrying an ornate looking staff, a dwarven woman dressed in heavy plate mail , two elderly human women that looked like twins and an enormous dire wolf. None of them looked that thrilled to be there. There were also numerous odd looking fey creatures, all different, with most of them of types I had never encountered before. The fey were all watching from the forest, none of them got very close.

"Compete here, and if you win you reduce your service by one term" the creature offered to the people and wolf gathered near him. Every single one of them volunteered. The creature pointed to the monk, the kobold and the wolf.

The creature explained the first contest to Ringtoe and the monk. He showed them a large blue stone about the size of a dwarf's heard. It looked very heavy. He levitated out over the bay and handed the stone to a large water elemental that rose out of the water beside him. It took the stone and disappeared back into the ocean. The winner of the contest would be the first one to bring it back. He explained that the stone could be found in 15' of water about 2 miles away, a few hundred yards off shore. The elemental would remain visible directly over the spot where it was resting. They would have to run down the beach for two miles, swim out into the ocean and dive down to get the stone, get it back on shore, and bring it back. The one who handed it to him/it would be the winner.

At the creature's signal Ringtoe and the monk raced down the beach. The monk attempted to trip Ringtoe at the starting line and Ringtoe retaliated by punching him in the face so hard he fell into the bay. The monk caught back up to him a few hundred yards down. He pulled ahead slightly as they reached a bend and from that point we could no longer see them.

While they were racing we went on to the next challenge. Orsanne and the kobold faced off, each hovering 100' in the air about 500 yards off shore, about 1000 yards apart from each other. There was a glowing orb floating in the air next to each caster. The goal of the contest was to retrieve the orb behind the opposing caster and bring it to the creature. The first one to do so would win.

When the creature started the competition they both started casting. Orsanne created a wall of fog around him and his orb, then shot out, rapidly closing the distance between him and his kobold adversary. As he took off, three human sized air elementals appeared in front of the kobold. They instantly scattered and started moving towards Orsanne's Orb.

Orsanne responded by casting some sort of buff that sped him up considerably while the kobold summoned a single large air elemental, which moved to intercept Orsanne.

Suddenly four enormous 8' tall creatures rose out of the water. They looked like water elementals, but they were able to fly, connected to the ocean through a narrow column of water. The air around them grew windy and lightning crackled across their bodies.

Orsanne changed direction, flying straight up to avoid the two rushing towards him. He gestured and a small ball of light flew out, blowing one of them apart.

The kobold shot straight up in the air as well, and two more air elementals appeared below him. They slammed into the water creatures and started to battle.

More air elementals shot out from the water underneath the orbs. They weren't that large, but there were many of them, at least four per orb.

Orsanne shot forward towards the kobold, disintegrating the water elemental chasing him. The Kobold conjured yet another large elemental, sending it towards Orsanne. Orsanne disintegrated the first one, then shot of an orb of energy into the second one, destroying it as well.

The kobold frantically countered with another elemental. Orsanne ignored it, conjuring a sphere of energy around the kobold.

He then destroyed the elemental heading towards him and approached the orb. The water elementals below him couldn't get high enough to attack him, but were high enough to prevent him from grabbing the orb. He gestured once more and a wall of force appeared underneath the orb as he shot down towards it. He grabbed it and swooped back up before the elementals could get around it and began heading towards shore.

Meanwhile, the air elementals that the Kobold had sent towards the orb reached the fog and blew it away, revealing Orsanne's Orb. It was surrounded by a glowing sphere similar to the one encasing the kobold, and the elementals appeared powerless to break into it.

Orsanne swooped down towards the creature to finish the contest. Just before he reached the shore an enormous elemental rose out of the water, engulfing him and pulling him down into the bay. The water gradually calmed down, until there was an enormous explosion underwater about 20 seconds later. Orsanne shot back out of the water, landing in front of the creature. He had blood streaming from his eyes, ears nose and mouth, but he was still alive. He handed it to the creature and bowed, just like he had bowed on their initial greeting.

The creature laughed and declared Orsanne the winner. The creature gestured and dispelled the sphere around the kobold, who slowly flew back in towards shore looking unhappy.

About 40 minutes later Ringtoe staggered down the beach carrying the rock. He was covered with bruises and bleeding from multiple cuts and his shirt was wrapped around his bicep in a crude tourniquet as he missing most of his left arm. The Monk was nowhere in sight.

Ringtoe handed the rock to the creature, then collapsed on the beach. After Ursula healed him he said that he and the Monk had been attacked by dire sharks as they swam out to get the stone, and the monk had died.

It was now down to Ursula. She walked into the jungle alone, followed twenty minutes later by the wolf.

The rest of us went back to the ship to wait. At dawn the next morning we returned, and watched as Ursula stumbled out of the jungle in front of us. She looked exhausted. A few minutes later the dire wolf arrived, along with the other 3 surviving members of his pack. The creature grinned, and declared her the winner. He announced that we should all go back to the ship and return at dusk for dinner.

Toxic Shaman
2016-08-05, 05:08 PM
"What we thought at the time"

LOL, so Robere isn't done yet.

Still enjoying this

Prefect Blart
2016-08-07, 06:39 AM
It's hard to kill something permanently in this game. We forgot that at the time. Who would think that dumping a body in the middle of the ocean might come back to bite us?

Prefect Blart
2016-08-11, 01:06 PM
The creature met us at the shore at Dusk. Enjee stayed back on the ship but sent one of her constructs a long so she could see what was going on. It was a tiny thing and spent the evening riding in one of Ringtoe's shirt pockets.

The creature introduced himself as Andrew and led us deeper into the forest. He used some sort of magical effect to cover ground quickly. It seemed like the island itself was propelling us along, with vegetation slipping out of the way. It only took us 5 minutes to reach the grove.

The whole area was illuminated with softly glowing orbs that floated in amongst the tree branches. I got a close look at one of them, it was some sort of tiny winged fey. It laughed at me as it floated out of reach.

There was a long formal table set up, with place settings for 6. Andrew directed us to our seats and took a chair at the foot of the table. The head of the table was reserved for our host, who arrived shortly after we did. She took the form of a young female dwarf. I had no idea whether that was her real form or not, with the power that radiated from her I suspected she could look like whatever she wanted at any time.

She sat down at the table and introductions were made. She gave her name as Trella. Apparently she and Andrew didn't bother with last names. She seemed bored and made no attempt to hide it.

"Why are you here?" she asked Ursula, not sounding very friendly at all.

Ursula started to talk about what brought us here, and Trella gradially became much more interested. She said nothing and just stared at Ursula through the whole story of how we destroyed the two ships and the portal, and how Orsanne had determined that there might be more potential places where portals could be built, including one on this island.

When Ursula was finished Trella was silent for a moment. She glanced over at Orsanne with an appraising look. She glanced at me for a moment, looked closer and scowled, then looked back to Ursula. She ignored Ringtoe altogether.

"I have a theoretical understanding of how one could construct the portal you found. From what you describe it was very close to completion" she said. "and I can think of no purpose that would justify an attempt to build one. Any one attempting this they must be stopped. I am just sorry that they were not stupid enough to try to build one here, it would have been easier to just deal with this myself… "

As I watched her speak I found her more and more interesting. She did not speak like your typical rustic druid, she sounded more like some ivory toward wizard. She looked the part too. She was slightly overweight, kind of plain, and wearing well-worn clothing, your typical absent minded young wizard.

But for all that she terrified me. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing up from all of the ambient magic leaking out from her. I watched how all of her people standing at the edge of the clearing waiting for her direction watched her carefully. They looked tense, like they expected disaster if she didn't get what she wanted as soon as she asked for it.

While she was speaking Andrew got up suddenly and left the table, coming back in a moment with a small dragon. It was a beautiful creature, with scales of midnight blue. Andrew sat back down and the dragon perched itself on a nearby low hanging tree branch, watching Trella warily, though it was making a pretty decent attempt to hide its fear.

Trella continued speaking to Ursula. "I will support your efforts. Acesulfame here will join you in searching for more of these portals. Traveling to Caerenendalius is of the utmost importance" From her tone it was obvious that this was not a request.

"I am honored my Lord" the dragon responded.

Trella continued on, not waiting for a response from Ursula. "I will spend a few days preparing you, so you know what to look for when you get there. You will not be able to count on the Elves to help you, Caerenendalius is not what it once was. Now, how will you get there?" she asked.

Ursula looked frazzled. Things were getting away from her. "Um, one of us is working on granting our ship the power of flight. In weeks, maybe a few months we will be capable of traveling there directly.

"So time is what you need?" Trella nodded and handed something to Andrew, who got to his feet and approached her before she ever reached out with her hand. She looked at the small construct peeking out of Ringtoe's shirt pocket and spoke to it. "Time I grant you, use it well…"

Andrew left the clearing. A few moments later I felt a powerful disturbance, like what I felt when Orsanne bent reality with his magic, but on a much more massive scale. Enjee's construct abruptly went still.

She got to her feet. "Enjoy your evening. Andrew will meet you here in the morning. She walked out of the grove and disappeared from view.

As soon as she left servants brought the evening meal out. The food was exquisite, but none of us were very hungry.

"What was that they did just now" I asked. I could feel that from here"

Ursula and Orsanne just shook their heads. The dragon Acesulfame replied "She modified time around her ship. It will pass much faster to those on board. By morning, many weeks will have passed for them. Don't worry about your friends. They will not need to eat, and will not even age during that time."

"How do you know this?" Orsanne asked. I could tell he was dying to run down to the beach and investigate.

"She has used this before. Those who have failed her have spent what seemed like to them years in there." the dragon responded. "Your friends are lucky. She normally puts people in there with absolutely nothing so they are forced to just sit in there for a few years with nothing to do….Be careful what you do or say while you are here, and follow her instructions when we leave without question. You do NOT want to cross her."

"Aren't you worried about offending her, talking about her like this? She sounds awful" I asked.

The dragon looked exasperated. "You don't understand. She wants me to tell you these things…. To her we are all just nuisances that are barely worth her time. We are nothing more than tools to her. She puts up with having us around because we can do things for her that she doesn't want to waste her time with, but she has no patience at all.

"She has given you a great gift, a few days of her time. That is unheard of. She must be extremely concerned about these portals. If she thinks we can't handle this she will choose another route. I don't recommend letting it come to that, it will not be pretty. She probably won't destroy us outright, she is too practical for that. Serving her for life in whatever capacity she wants is a more likely outcome. Just do what she asks, keep your mouths shut and you may get out of here free and clear…"

The evening was subdued after that. Ace bid us good night, saying that she would be back in the morning, along with her partner. We camped out in the grove and waited until morning.

I had just drifted off to sleep that night when I had a short vivid dream:

I was sitting in a park on a hill overlooking a city on the water. I had been there for over an hour and I was starting to get irritated, he was supposed to have been here by now. After a few minutes I decided that he wasn't showing up, so I got to my feet and started walking down the hill.

And I woke up, and it was morning. I got to my feet and looked around, wondering what the view of the harbor would be like without all these trees. I tried to fly up through the gap in the grove. As I reached the top of the tree line it became difficult, the branches were getting in the way. I was just able to see the harbor, and the shape of the coastline did look vaguely like what I saw in my dream.

I floated back down to the ground. Everyone else was up and ready to go. Andrew showed up, and we walked further into the woods, using the same method of travel as before.

About 15 minutes later we were far inland. We arrived at a valley and found Trella waiting for us. The dragon was already there too. She was wearing a harness around her torso that secured a tiny saddle on her back. A small figure was mounted on it. He had the proportions of an average human, but was only about 9" tall. He was wearing a suit of light chain mail and carrying a tiny shield. She flew over and said "I'd like to introduce you to my partner Ace"

I was dying to ask a question about what the heck was up with Ace but held my tongue at the warning glance from the small dragon.

Trella spent the morning with us. She questioned Ursula and Orsanne about their magical knowledge while Sue and Ash compared noted with Ringtoe and I.

It turned out that the dragon was called Sulfame, but Trella treated them as one entity, so she combined their names. I ended up calling the dragon Sue. Sue and Ace had been here a few years. They came here trying to find a relic rumored to be in a temple somewhere on the island. Ash was a priest of the deity associated with that temple. e'Shaop was a popular deity with the ideals of Justice, Protection and Strength. Sue was here as the familiar of Ace's wife, a powerful Sorcerer. Along with three other adventurers, they had made it almost four miles inland before they were attacked by the local spirits defending the island. After a horrific night that saw two of their group perish, they tried to make their way back to the coast. They failed. Andrew arrived when Sulfame and Ace were the only ones left. He offered them their lives for 17 years of service. Ace agreed as long as they could take his wife's body with him when their period of service was complete, and Sue agreed to stay with Ace.

They had been there ever since. Ace could no longer speak, Trella had removed that capability after an argument. Ace just stood there watching as Sulfame told us all this. He seemed more sad than angry. I noticed that he followed Sue's lead in everything. Of the two, she was definitely in charge.

After working with Orsanne and Ursula for a couple of hours, Trella abruptly declared that she was satisfied that they would be able to detect a portal, if one were being built. Ursula came out of the conversation looking a bit frazzled and annoyed. Orsanne looked eager and fascinated. I think he was in love with this psycho dwarf, or at least her intellect.

She left us there and Andrew took over, telling us that Trella would meet with us the next morning. In the meantime there was a task we needed to perform.

Andrew explained that 15 few years ago Trella had sealed a troublesome group of adventurers inside a cave complex about 10 miles away. She had sealed them in a pocket of time much like the one currently surrounding the Sprite, except in reverse. Only a few days would have passed for them. They had killed a number of Trella's servants and she had to personally intervene. She hadn't bothered taking the time required to destroy them, she just put them away for later. Andrew said that the adventurers had managed to find an artifact in the remains of an abandoned wizard's tower that could prove useful to our quest. The artifact was one that allowed the bearer to pierce any illusions.

Andrew admitted that they were likely at least as powerful as we were and would have had time to prepare for an assault, and would be expecting one. He told us the name of the group: the Sling Blades. Ringtoe had heard of them, they were mercenaries for hire and notorious for taking any job if it paid well enough. The last he had heard of them they had been working for a group of slavers raiding villages along the coast near Orleans about twenty years ago.

I asked whether the cave complex had any other exists, and he said it did not, but that it was pretty deep, and went back into the earth for hundreds of yards. The trapped adventurers were in an area about 80 yards in diameter, deep inside, and there were multiple rooms there.

We came up with a plan. We sealed up the entrance to the cave using the services of a few of the local elementals that Andrew provided. We figured that the group would likely be expecting an assault from the cave mouth and any traps they set would likely be facing that direction.

We climbed up the hill above the cave mouth and used a few more elementals to clear earth away until we could see the shimmering barrier of time in multiple places. In a couple of hours we were able to map out all of the exits from the area they were in and we had the elementals seal off all of them. Once we were sure the entire area had earth blocking every exit except the one area we had left exposed on top. Ursula nodded at Andrew to drop the barrier, and as soon as he did so she cast a spell down inside. At the same time I moved my senses into the cavern.

Within seconds there was a tornado raging underground. I watched as the winds tossed the people around below. They managed to find cover and at that point the cloud of dirt and dust in the air made it too difficult to see more than a few feet. I moved my perception over towards the last point I had seen one of them. I found him, then called out the range and distance to Orsanne, who dumped some energy into the area. His first blast was off a bit, so I gave him adjusted coordinates and his second shot took the guy out.

We repeated this a second time, taking out another of them. I looked around for the rest, and discovered that one of them had created a wall of stone around two of them to protect them from the winds. I moved my perception inside the wall and saw that they were just hunkered down trying to ride it out.

Ursula conjured two earth elementals and I created two Astral Constructs. Ursula concentrated and created a small eye in her storm below and the elementals and constructs dropped into the hole. She expanded the eye until the wall of stone was visible and the elementals glided through the wall of stone to attack the two behind it. Ursula gradually increased the size of the eye while the constructs searched for other the last one.

Within a few seconds it was over, and Ursula canceled the storm. The two behind the wall had nowhere to go and little room to maneuver, while the elementals had no trouble passing through the wall. The final body was found under the debris by the Constructs.

Alcibiades
2016-08-12, 10:09 AM
So...A dragon PC with Leadership?

Prefect Blart
2016-08-12, 12:31 PM
This was Robere's player's replacement character. I never saw the character sheet, but I don't think it was a Dragon PC with the rider as a cohort, because the rider cast a lot of Personal range Cleric Spells on the dragon. I think it was built as a Prestige Paladin PC with an Incarnum Dragon Mount, optimized around the mount. The main character definitely is the Dragon, not the tiny rider. The combo was far more powerful than an Incarnum Dragon of the same age category advanced with either class levels or Dragin HD to get to the party's ECL.

Kane0
2016-08-13, 11:45 PM
Ooh, now that sounds pretty interesting.
Any chance you can scratch some details on it from him?

Prefect Blart
2016-08-14, 11:27 AM
I talked to the player, he's willing to give me the character info now that the game is over. The character at approximately this point of the game was a Cloistered Cleric 3/Incarnate 3/Sapphire Heirarch 6/Prestige Paladin 2 with the Holy Mount and Share Soulmeld feats.

So he basically had the spellcasting of a 10th level Cleric, the mount of a 14th level Paladin and the ability to share soulmelds and spells with it.

Divine Power and Righteous Might Spells plus Soulmelds boosting damage and AC made for a pretty formidable little dragon.

We don't use Alignment, so he had no trouble reconciling the alignment requirements of the classes, he just had to work with the DM to come up with his code of conduct, and then live by it, which proved difficult, but that doesnt come up until later...

Thorongil
2016-08-14, 12:09 PM
This is a great read- can't wait for the next update. :smallsmile:

Prefect Blart
2016-08-14, 02:56 PM
Thanks, had fun playing it.

One thing I forgot to mention it the last update was that Ace is not naturally a 9" tall being. That was another modification imposed on him by Trella. He agreed to serve for 17 years, but did not agree to keep his mouth shut, which she did not take well. Shrinking him down and taking his voice happened in two separate incidents when she got tired of him disagreeing with her.

Prefect Blart
2016-08-16, 06:53 AM
Just a small update...


We searched through the rubble and found the gem that we were looking for. We took the rest of the magical gear, then buried the bodies in the cave. Ringtoe also found an unusual looking deck of tarot cards. It was kind of surprising that they survived the tornado, but they did. The deck did not appear to be magical, but he took it anyway. Ringtoe always had a thing for fortune tellers, he talked about telling us our fortunes later with them.

Andrew led us back to the same clearing we stayed the evening before and we had dinner. After he left for the night we had a few more glasses of wine, and then Ringtoe pulled out the deck of cards. He shuffled them and asked each of us to draw one so we could learn our future. We all did, including Ace. He had trouble picking up the card but Sue helped him. After we had each taken one Ringtoe took one, and then we all turned them over.

The first inkling that something was very wrong came when Trella appeared in our midst a few seconds later, appearing out of the ground. "What in the nine hells did you people just do?" she shouted. She looked at the deck of cards and groaned and took a step backwards.

"OK, put the cards down…. Which of you fools drew one?"

We all raised our hands. She shook her head. "Orsanne, pick up the deck, the damage has already been done. We need to take it and put it somewhere out of reach, then figure out what you all just did to yourselves."

She had Orsanne carry the deck into the woods. She opened up a hole in the ground and had him drop it inside, then she wrapped it in another of her time barriers and filled the hole back up. After that she tasked two enormous elementals to keep an eye on it.

She then turned her attention back to us. She concentrated for a long time, staring at each of us, one at a time. She looked a bit pissed off when she looked at me and it took her a bit longer than it did the rest. Then she stared at Ace and Sue and her eyes widened.

When she finished she said "That Deck of Cards is an extremely powerful cursed item. I did not know it was here, or I would have removed it from play before tonight. The good news is that it can never affect you again. The bad news is that has already affected you deeply at a level that even I cannot counter."

She paused to let that sink in. Her demeanor was a bit different than it had been before. The arrogance was still there, but for the first time there was some empathy as well.

She explained what she had learned. The deck had affected us based on what we believed and what we most wanted. She offered to tell us all privately, but we decided that we would be better off knowing everything. There were too many secrets between us already.

Ringtoe's abilities as a warrior had been enhanced, he was even more skilled than he was before. That increase in abilities came at a price though. His abilities when enraged were also amplified, but at the expense of a loss of control. Trella warned him that he had better learn to keep control of himself, whenever he raged now he might not be able to stop on his own, even if there were no more foes present.

Ursula's racial connection with lycanthropy was much closer than it was before. She now had enhanced senses and reflexes, but she could no longer stand even the touch of silver.

Orsanne had been striving to operate without reliance on magic items for most of his life. The deck had transformed this into a resistance against all magic. He was now greatly resistant to any magic that he did not generate himself. This came at a great cost though. He could not drop this resistance ever, his body would attempt to resist even beneficial magic cast upon him.

Trella had struggled to determine how I had changed, and only figured it out indirectly. She told me that she could no longer tell that the body I was occupying was not my own. Her attempts to divine anything about me had failed, so she had no idea what downside this change might bring. She assured me it would likely be something I would not like, and cautioned me that a change drastic enough to foil her ability to divine anything about me would come along with a correspondingly powerful negative effect.

Trella left Sue and Ace for last. She led us into the forest to the spot where Ace's wife was buried. The grave was gone with no sign that anyone had ever been buried there. What disturbed me was how confused Ace and Sue were. They asked what was going on, why they were at that particular spot. They didn't remember her. They had no memory that she ever existed.

Trella nodded and we walked back to the grove. She pulled the rest of us aside and told us that the island did not remember Ace's wife either. Trella suggested that we not bring it up with Ace and Sue again until she could look into it further. She promised to do so while we were gone.

That shook me. I could not imagine Magic powerful enough to erase the memories of a person's entire existence from multiple people who knew and loved her for years without them realizing there were any holes in their memories.

When the DM put a deck of cards out there most of us immediately assumed it was a Deck of Many Things. All of us knew out of character that interacting with one would be a Very Bad Idea, but we thought it would be fun.

The Deck is one of those odd leftovers from the game's first edition, which is what many of us started out with. Even though we know it's a terrible item that could totally derail the game, many in our group remember it fondly because it brings back memories of when we first started playing RPGs. Three of us got our start playing first edition, and another player got her start with 2nd edition. Our current gaming group got together to play Shadowrun in the late 90s, but most of us started with D&D.

The Deck has also appeared twice in the last 10 years of gaming, once in an Earthdawn game and the second in a Shadowrun game that ended up as a crossover with the Earthdawn game. By this point it was almost a running joke when it showed up. In both the SR and ED games we made sure we had nothing to do with it, so I think the DM was surprised when we embraced it here. We're just starting an Ars Magica game, and I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up there too. :)

I think the DM's changes to the deck here were inspired, making each card a bane and boon at the same time, and tying the effects to what the character most wanted in life. It removed the random element and ensured that we all got something we wanted, and something we did not, all at the same time.

Toxic Shaman
2016-08-21, 04:52 PM
LOL, talk about walking into a trap with your eyes open. :)

Intriguing changes. Orsanne is screwed if he takes HP damage, and I'd he dies, no more raise dead. You and Ringtoe both took major hits to your characters main schtick. What a brutal change....

Prefect Blart
2016-08-25, 07:06 AM
We took some severe hits, but became much more powerful in other ways. Orsanne had it the worst, it took him a while to come up with some IC ways of gaining Arcane Healing. None of us minded the tradeoffs though, it made it fun.

Prefect Blart
2016-08-25, 07:15 AM
Trella, Ace and Sue left the rest of us to ourselves and we spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out the limits of what had happened to us. We were all a bit buzzed from the wine, though our recent experiences had sobered us up a bit.

I conjured a couple of Astral Constructs for Ringtoe to spar with, and he took them out very quickly without much effort. He seemed satisfied with his abilities but I could tell that he was concerned over losing control.

I loaned Ursula a silver amulet I had, and she winced as she grasped it and when she handed it back to me she had a red burn on her hand. She tried to heal it, but was unable to do so, apparently she would have to heal naturally. I noticed the other changes on her too, she looked even more exotic, her athleticism was even more pronounced that it was earlier, and she looked a bit younger . She told us her senses were noticeably improved. She walked into the forest to try them out and came back about 10 minutes later. She seemed to be pleased. I noticed that I had a hard time reading her face and body language now, her mannerisms had changed enough that it was difficult to relate what I was getting from her to what I would get from a normal person. That made me a bit nervous.

Orsanne wanted Ursula and I to test out his resistance to magic. We both hit him with various effects, and he shrugged off all of them without trying. He then cut his finger with a knife and Ursula tried to heal him, using her strongest healing ability and it failed totally. He seemed so fascinated by all of this that it made me wonder if he realized how fragile he was now. An arch mage may have trouble affecting him directly with his magic, but he could still be hurt by any guy swinging a pointed stick at him, and he wouldn't have Ursula or Enjee to fix him up afterwards.

Ursulla and Orsanne both studied me that night. They both had spell abilities that could see things as they truly were, and Ursula had the gem we had acquired earlier. They agreed with Trella, they couldn't tell that I didn't belong in this body. We tried to figure out what the downside to my new ability would be, with no success, until at his request I tried to use my abilities to sense Orsanne's surface thoughts. At first I thought that the problem was Orsanne's magic resistance, but I could tell something else was wrong. Eventually I figured it out.

The deck had changed me so that I was no detectable by magic. It did so in multiple ways, it strengthened the ability that I used to blank my mind, and it also pulled my mind closer into the mind in the body I was occupying, so it was almost blended with it, so I was much less visible. My psicrystal was still keeping that mind locked, but I could feel the other mind there now. The net effect of all this was that I could no longer manifest powers to affect or sense another's minds at all unless I dropped my own shields.

I dropped my shields, and as soon as I did so, Ursula and Orsanne were able to see me as I really was. I could also sense Ursula's surface thoughts, though they smelled weird and somewhat alien to me now. I tried sensing Ringtoe's and they smelled normal, so Ursula's weird thoughts must have been tied to her transformation not mine.

I spent a couple of minutes experimenting with my shields down, and was about to put them back up, when I felt another presence in my mind.

"Interesting"

My heart leapt into my throat. He didn't chuckle this time, but I recognized him. I hadn't heard that voice since I rejoined the team. I should have known that I hadn't heard the last of him.

"Your abilities have grown, and you are still alive. There may be hope for you yet. Why don't we…"

I put my shields back up as fast as I could and his voice was abruptly cut off. I listened for a moment but he was gone. I guess that was good news, but for him to contact me as soon as I dropped my shields meant that he either was monitoring me continuously and noticed that I had greatly improved shields that just dropped, or the action of dropping my shields was noisy enough that he sensed it from this great distance, or I was broadcasting to the world continuously when my shields were down now. None of the options were pleasant to think about. I decided on the spot that I would not be using any of those mental abilities except in a dire emergency.

I told them what had just happened. As usual Orsanne was more interested in the nuts and bolts of how it had happened than the tactical and strategic implications it had for us. Ursula commented that there was nothing that we could do about it now, but after we finished our current quest, looking into this more would be a good idea.

Ringtoe pulled me aside and made me promise to take over control of his mind if he lost it in combat. I was reluctant to do that, messing with the mind of a friend was a line I did not want to cross, and I knew that in doing so I would be opening myself up to trouble, but in the end I agreed, but only if he were about to take out one of us, or an innocent.




That night I dreamed again:

I was deep underground, walking through a great dwarven city. I passed through a market district. I was following a young dwarven messenger. He walked into Vanal's temple and I settled in to wait until he returned.

In the morning we met up with Trella one last time before we left and gave us a few things to help us on our Journey. She gave Orsanne a book on herbalism and some plants growing in pots. Ursula received a wreath made of laurel, it radiated strong magic, and she immediately put it on. Ace and Sue were there too. She was wearing a ring I hadn't seen before, as was Ace. Ringtoe and I both received amulets that toughened our skin.

We walked down to the bay and she dropped the barrier around the Sprite. I noticed a number of changes on board the ship as we approached it. There were too smaller masts folded along each side of the ship, and two six foot wide circular hatches built into the deck. The two monkeys and Boo were ecstatic to see us. I floated up to the deck and reacquainted myself with them. The monkeys were pleased when I told them we would be leaving soon.

Trella asked Enjee whether she needed any more time, and Enjee assured her that she did not. Enjee seemed a little pissed off, but was doing her best to keep her temper. She was a bit mollified when Trella handed her a large sack, telling her it was filled with a number of minor items that Enjee could either use, or pull the magical essence out of them.

Trella left after telling us not to screw this up, and to come back when we were finished.

Enjee wasted no time raising anchor. Ursula asked her how she was doing, and Enjee told us she was extremely glad to see us, the 18 months she had spent trapped inside the barrier had been really rough, but that she was finally almost caught up in her crafting.

Once we left the harbor she showed us what she had made. She had replenished her stock of constructs, and they looked considerably more formidable than the ones she had before. The two hatches on deck were for her largest constructs. She popped the hatches and what looked like an enormous War Troll hopped on deck out of each hatch. They were carrying enormous great swords that were considerably larger than I was and appeared amazingly lifelike. The ship was now much better protected from elemental damage as well. She had seen what I had done to a few ships with Sonic Walls, and we were now protected from that danger.

When she decided she was ready she went below decks, and within a few minutes the ship gradually started to rise out of the water. She came back out on deck and deployed to two additional masts, which swung out sideways and slightly below the ship. The monkeys and her constructs quickly got the sails out, and we picked up speed. She leveled off at about 50' above the water initially, until she was satisfied that things were working well, then she climbed up until we were about 500' in the air. She pulled out another staff and concentrated for a moment, and the ship gradually changed color, until it was blending in with the sky. It wasn't true invisibility, but it would make us much harder to see from a distance. Over the next half hour we gradually climbed even higher until we were a few thousand feet in the air.

We were now travelling much faster than we ever had on the water. Enjee assured us that we could cover hundreds of miles a day in anything but the worst weather. I think the monkeys were enjoying this the most. They were swinging from mast to mast to check the sails, and I didn't need any of my mental gifts to tell how happy they were.

We traveled like this for almost a week before we reached a major landmass. We settled in at traveling at a few thousand feet elevation, high enough that we would be tough to spot, but low enough to see what was going on below us. We passed near a number of ships and islands, but only stopped once, at an island to replenish our supplies of food. We could magically create whatever we needed, but fresh food just tasted better.

When we reached land we kept going, and flew higher to get above the mountain range that was in our path. The terrain below was rugged, with very little signs of civilization. A few hours into our journey over land we saw something below.

Ursula noticed it first. There was some sort of battle going on about half a mile ahead. As we got closer we all went to the edge of the deck and looked down. There were a large number of figures below battling a small number of other figures near the base of a small cliff. The larger force looked like Ur-orcs, a larger more bestial Orc variety found at high elevations in the mountains. There must have been at least 150 of them, but only about a dozen or so were assaulting the smaller group, the rest were just watching and laughing. Enjee pulled out her spyglass and took a look. The small force defending were all dwarves. They looked like a small military force, they were all well armored and carrying heavy shields, and were formed into a small semi-circular shield wall protecting something in the back.

By this point we were almost over top of them. We were just beginning to discuss whether or not we would intervene when Ringtoe took matters into his own hands and leaped over the deck rail and plummeted down towards them.

As soon as I saw him jump I followed him over the rail. I wasn't about to let him face this alone, and figured the rest would either follow or bring the ship down where they could fight from it. I heard Enjee swearing as I dropped over the side.

We plummeted down and I tried to angle myself to keep behind Ringtoe, who was a good bit below me already. As we got closer I could see that the dwarves were in bad shape, and were barely standing. The Ur-Orcs fighting them were considerably smaller than the ones watching, but were gradually wearing them down.

I held off flying as long as I could so I could keep up with Ringtoe. At the last minute he decelerated rapidly and landed with both feet on the back of one of the Ur Orcs attacking a dwarf and drove him into the ground. His hammer swung out and knocked a second one back into those watching.

I concentrated and began to decelerate. I had just started to slow down when I felt someone dispel my flight and I dropped like a rock into a mass of Ur-Orcs. I slammed into one of them, then another two tried to grab me while a third turned back towards me. I knew I needed to get out of there fast so I sped up my own time sense, manifested something which would prevent them from tackling me, then re-established my ability to fly and shot back up in the air.

I cleared the mass of Ur-Orcs trying to rip me to shreds in time to see Ringtoe trip the Ur-Orc in front of him then drive him into the ground with his hammer. He quickly reversed the weapon and slammed it into a second opponent, and as he did so a burst of energy erupted from him, passing through everyone nearby. It had no effect on the Ur-Orcs, but it seemed to revitalize the nearby dwarves.

I gained enough altitude to get clear of the Ur-Orcs and looked around frantically for whoever had dispelled my flight the first time. Blood was streaming down my face and one of my arms felt like it was about to fall off and I felt like I was about to puke, but at least I was still alive. I saw a number of Ur-Orcs take flight on the backs of what looked like Wyverns. They looked like they were heading towards the ship, so I figured we had no help coming on that front.

I dumped a wall of electricity in order to block the majority of the Ur-Orcs from attacking Ringtoe and the dwarves, and ducked as a huge weighted net thrown by one of the Ur-Orcs barely missed me. Arrows were flying by me and I could hear the Ur-Orcs scream in frustration as they kept missing me. I gained even more altitude and dropped another wall near the first one to cut off more of the Ur-Orcs.

I heard shouting below in dwarvish and saw that the dwarves had realigned themselves so that Ringtoe was in between two of them. Ringtoe was mowing down Ur-Orcs left and right and the dwarves were protecting his flanks and whatever was behind their formation.

It was chaos down below. Some of the more powerful Ur-Orcs must have decided that the time to play with the dwarves was over, and a large number of them were massing. My walls were slowing them down, they preferred to go around rather than through them. I dumped yet another one in front of the bulk of them just as they decided to go through the first wall. They took a good bit of damage, but about 15 made it through and were charging up towards the dwarves. Ringtoe took down one, and the same healing energy came off of him again to wash over the dwarves a few seconds before the rest of the Ur-Orcs reached the dwarven line. I threw up another wall and caught many of them. For a moment I could see nothing, and then I saw Ringtoe clearing the area around him, and soon Ur-Orcs were trying to avoid him, making them easy targets for the dwarves. He and the dwarves gradually pushed them back until they were struggling to avoid my walls.

During all this the sound was intense so I couldn't hear the battle going on above me at the ship, but I could sense Orsanne's magic, and saw more than one wyvern and/or rider drop back down to the ground. It seemed like the battle lasted forever, but in reality it was all over in a few minutes, and the surviving Ur-Orcs were fleeing with Ursula and Orsanne in pursuit. I doubt more than a dozen survived. I looked up and saw Ace and Sue circling overhead to make sure there were no other nearby threats. The ship was about a quarter mile away above us, and Enjee gradually turned it and brought it back over us.

I dropped down and landed next to Ringtoe, who was talking to the dwarves. They were charged with protecting Tuchi, the sister of the dwarven king and her baby, and were traveling back to the dwarven fortress city of un'Doeshuk. There had originally been two dozen of them plus a steward, but now there were only seven left standing. The soldiers and the king's sister deferred to the steward, who did most of the talking to Ringtoe. Sila was a pretty young dwarven woman, and she thanked us for our help, and asked if we could give them an escort back to dwarven lands since they were down a number of soldiers and the journey had proven much more dangerous than they had expected. We agreed, and Enjee sent down one of her launches, and we loaded everyone up and brought them back to the ship.

The king's sister seemed overwhelmed by the recent events, and the soldiers were exhausted, but trying to stay vigilant, so they didn't say much. Sila and Ringtoe got along well and were chatting like old friends by the time they reached the ship.

Ursula and Orsanne returned about ten minutes later and introduced themselves. Usula healed the wounded dwarves while Orsanne went down to his cabin. He had a nasty looking wound on his left arm that Sue helped him bind.

Sila told us that they had been travelling back to un'Doeshuk after attending a wedding at a human city about four days from the borders of dwarven lands. They were not expecting trouble. UrOrcs were not unheard of in the area, but never in numbers like we had seen, the territory they claimed was nowhere nearby. The UrOrcs had discovered them a day earlier, and had been harassing them ever since, rushing in for quick attacks, and then retreating just as quickly. It had been a war of attrition ever since, and they had been on the run for over a day. We gave Sila and Tuchi my cabin, and they went in and took a nap. Most of the dwarven soldiers slept on deck, but two stayed awake outside of their cabin door.

It only took us a few hours to reach the edge of dwarven lands. We eliminated our chameleon effect on the ship, flew lower so we could be seen easily from the ground and ran up a flag given to us by Sila that indicated that Tuchi was on board. By the time we reached un'Doeshuk there were a number of soldiers gathered near the gates waiting for us. Enjee brought the ship down to about 300' and the dwarves, Ringtoe and I all floated down in the launch, with one of the dwarves carrying Tuchi's standard so that it was visible to those below.

Everyone on the ground looked a little on edge as we approached. The ship had stayed out of range of the seige weapons guarding the gates, but the launch was in range, and much more fragile. Once they saw Tuchi sitting in the launch everyone relaxed. The guard captain manning the gate sent word and King Albert arrived, and the reception became much warmer. We soon realized we had a powerful new ally.

We attended a reception in our honor that evening. We described our mission, but the dwarves had heard nothing of any portals or unusual undead activity in the area. We still had thousands of miles to go to get to Caerenendalius, so that wasn't surprising.

We stumbled back to the ship very late, and then left the next morning. Something I ate must have disagreed with me, I spent the next few days puking over the side. The next week was a blur. I slept through an attack by a dragon the size of the ship, something I was a bit embarrassed about.

Finally we reached our goal, and saw the famed towers of Caerenendalius off in the distance. The sight of the towers made me nervous, for though I had never been here before I recognized them instantly.

The night before we arrived I had the following dream:

I walked through the city, past a number of elves who didn't even notice my passing, so intent were they on the evening's celebration. It took me a while but eventually I reached my goal, the royal gardens. The royal court was there waiting. They didn’t see me until I was almost among them, and when I appeared I could see the fear on their faces. I drew my rapier and waited. Some of the court went to draw their weapons, but the prince gestured and they stopped. He stepped into the center of the clearing and drew his weapon and waited for me. I just stared at him until I was sure I had unnerved him, and then stepped forward.



I missed a gaming session when I was out of town and missed the time in the dwarven city and the dragon attack.



When Shmikie died the first time he asked me about the backup character I was thinking about. I told him a little about him, it was a concept I created for a PBEM that went nowhere back in the days of DnD 3.0. It was inspired by Clint Eastwood's character in Pale Rider. I handed the DM what I had written about him:

The barbarians of the northern wastes still sing dirges about the man with the shining axe who killed Chief Bear-Heart and all of his Named Men four generations ago.

The Orc raiders of the western plains revere Ack-Thorag-Norock, the masked warrior who appears in so many of their shaman's tales.

The elves in their mountain citadel of Caerenendalius never speak of the man who dueled their prince at midnight on the summer solstice over a century ago, but they remember, oh how they remember.

All of those stories are about me. I have been called by many names: The Dark Man, Pale Rider, Ack-Thorag-Noroc, He-who-walks-through-Fire. Even I have forgotten some of them. I am not what I once was. For an eternity time did not touch me at all, but now it does. I am glad of it for those who made me are long gone and I am tired. I was not meant to operate without direction. For now I endure, as my makers intended.

I recognized the last dream. The DM had decided to use my back-up character to try to assassinate me, and I ended up taking him out and taking over his body...

And I was about to walk into a city wearing that body where I dueled a member of the royal family, and elves were long lived enough to remember what that body looked like.

MintyNinja
2016-08-25, 02:09 PM
I am going to go out, buy a hat, take it off, and hand it to your DM. That's a beautiful twist to be revealed about who you are now.