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masterqwertster · 9 months

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#33. Power Word: Pain, with Orym.

Maybe a capture and interrogation situation? Getting thrown back into a cell afterward with a couple of protective friends would be nice too. 🥺

Ah, yes. The torture spell.

33 Power Word: Pain

You speak a word of power that causes waves of intense pain to assail one creature you can see within range. If the target has 100 hit points or fewer, it is subject to crippling pain. Otherwise, the spell has no effect on it. A target is also unaffected if it is immune to being charmed.

While the target is affected by crippling pain, any speed it has can be no higher than 10 feet. The target also has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, other than Constitution saving throws. Finally, if the target tries to cast a spell, it must first succeed on a Constitution saving throw, or the casting fails and the spell is wasted.

A target suffering this pain can make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a successful save, the pain ends.

The worst part about the spell Orym's been afflicted with is that the pain is, quite literally, all in his head.

So when he's returned to the cell, the interrogation session concluded, there's no wound to sooth in the aftermath. Well, not beyond the superficial scratches and bruises from his pained writhing. And yet the ghost of that intense pain lingers, bolstered by the knowledge that it can revisit him every day, every eight hours, sooner if they have enough mages with the spell.

As he lays there, breathing, a fairly large rat scurries up. And it's strange. He could almost swear there's moss in its fur-

Suddenly Fearne is in the cell with him.

"Hey, best friend," she whispers, stroking his sweaty face.

"Hey, Fearnie," Orym sighs back, a smile gracing his lips. He'd honestly expected to hear Bells Hells coming for him before he actually saw them.

"Let's get you out of here," Fearne says, ruffling his hair. Orym gives a lolling nod in reply. "This might be a little weird, but just trust me, okay?"

Orym nods again. He trusts Fearne. Trusts her with his life. (Though not with shiny objects)

Warm, fey magic washes over him and Orym doesn't resist.

When he blinks his eyes open, the world is even bigger than usual. Fearne's hooves are bigger than him right now.

"I don't know how much you can understand me right now, but just stick with me, okay?" Fearne whispers, crouched down by her mouse-ified friend.

With another twist of magic, Fearne's own form collapses back into a rat. A little sniffing and whisker touching to help assure mouse-Orym that it's alright, and then she scurries off with him right on her tail.

It doesn't take them long at all to make their escape. No one is looking for a pair of rodents, after all.

Once Fearne has guided Orym back to where the rest of Bells Hells are hidden in an alleyway with view of the building he was held captive in, she drops both polymorph and her own wild shape. It only takes a moment to scoop Orym into her arms for a cuddle as the others gather around in a defensive formation.

"Not to be ungrateful or anything," Orym mumbles out to the group, "but I really didn't expect you guys to stealth a rescue."

"Eh, we just figured it'd be easier to get rid of them all by blowing up the building. Which meant we had to get you out first," Chetney explains with a shrug.

"Speaking of. Laudna," Ashton says, pacing to the end of the alley with the undead sorceress on their heels.

Orym watches as Ashton stills on the edge of the street, fiddling with the position of their recently upgraded hammer. After a few moments of eyeing and adjusting, they give Laudna a thumbs up.

Laudna's hands twist in a spell as she chants lowly before a bead of fiery light shoots forth from her hands, passing through the crystalline additions to the hammer, resulting in a truly enormous fireball.

Ashton and Chet both whistle in appreciation at the destruction caused as Laudna giddily claps her hands and Fearne gives an awed 'ooooh.'

Orym... thinks he's glad that his friends are on his side. Because they are obviously terrifying arsonists when left to their own devices.

The fireball idea came from this post. Who knows if this is how it would actually work, but it's fun to pretend!

#MQ&A #MQfic #critical role #orym of the air ashari #bells hells #spell hurt/comfort prompt

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samwellwinchesterthebrave · 2 years

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You know what I'm really enjoying about the campaign 3 characters now that we've gotten a decent amount of backstory for them?

Their relation to trauma and the tragedies in their pasts. So far, most of them have had something terrible and life-altering happen to them and their story is how they dealt with it (or haven't yet) and continued to live.

I'm sure, for a few of them, there might be a quiet wish in the back of their minds that maybe they hadn't managed to survive it (or come back from it in Laudna's case). I have to wonder how much of Orym taking point and protecting others at a cost to himself is due to survivor's guilt. How many times after the attack did Orym wish he had taken Will'a place? Or even that he'd fallen with Will?

How many times after waking up hanging from the tree and having Delilah's voice in her head did Laudna wish she hadn't come back? How often, when she was alone, did she contemplate finding a way out? She built Pate to help with her loneliness and he is made of death. A rat corpse with a raven skull head. He is a symbol for something that may he completely out of Laudna's reach. And having your murderer in your head. How do you deal with that?

While Ashton seems to be letting bygones be bygones now, how angry were they that the Nobodies left? They were there when he fell, barely surviving and left terribly wounded, and they turned their backs on him. After being put back together by Milo, how much pain was he in before adapting to his wounds? How often did Ashton think of finding the Nobodies, what did he imagine he'd say to them? "How could you leave me? Why didn't you try to help after seeing me fall? Was it worth it to escape and leave me to Jiana Hexum's mercies?" How long did the anger and pain simmer in them before finally reaching the point where they could say "eh, it doesn't matter, they did the right thing leaving me to die" even if he doesn't feel it deep down?

How much survivor's guilt must FCG have? He is the only survivor of his family (as far as we know. I have thoughts about the shadowy figure Imogen saw) and he couldn't help them when he had the chance. They constantly put everyone before themselves, taking their damage on himself and even taking damage from it if it can't be sent to an enemy. Their always asking if the others are okay and deflecting questions while answering with absolute truth. It's a delight seeing Sam manipulate conversations to have FCG be truthful while saying almost nothing at all. And, deep down, is there a fear FCG is burying that their responsible somehow for their family's deaths? (A pet theory of mine that somehow he had a hand in it, whether out of his own free will or not)

Chetney is dealing with this massive change to his life. He's become what many view to be a monster, a creature that can be monstrous if not controlled. If he were to give in to the animal mind and instincts, he could hurt everyone around him. What must that feel like, knowing you are a lit fuse on pause and if you waver in determination and will for a moment, boom? And it seems to be that there's a feeling of diminished importance, a uselessness, in the craft he'd devoted his life to. Sure, he is a master woodworker. But his repeated assertions make me think he's trying to convince himself just as much as the others.

Poor Imogen, given a power she didn't ask for, that causes her pain and suffering. She has no idea what it is or why she has it. She has nightmares of this terrifying storm and hears what she thinks is her mother telling her to run. The mother she doesn't remember and hasn't seen since she was a baby. How do you deal with knowing the worst of people's thoughts, sometimes whether you want to or not? What is it like to have that cacophany in your head, never being able to relax or you'll be flooded with voices and voices and voices. To know you are different and that there is no place you fit.

While Fearne's trauma so far isn't as dramatic, I'm sure it's still painful. Losing your parents, even if you believe they are still alive, is never easy. Going 60 or so years without seeing them, without even knowing where they are short of postcards sometimes? Knowing they chose to leave and left you behind? And that isn't counting anything that might have gone on in her grandmother's home. Or court, if we believe Fearne that her grandmother is nobility of a kind in the Feywild. I feel like there's depths we are going to be very surprised by in Fearne.

I really like how the cast is crafting a story of living. Yes, terrible things happened. Yes, we couldn't control them or stop them but we persevered. And now, we need to discover the shape our lives take now

#critical role

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