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the-house-of-the-nine · 4 years

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In Mind of Misery: Manipulation, Part 2

[In an effort to promote something fun for people to do in this trying time, where we have all been forced to self contain and remain indoors. . .I will try and be posting these parts of our story every other day or so to give people at least something to read to hopefully stave off boredom. Thank you all! Stay safe out there!]

[ And so the journey begins. Three Separate stories to tell here all happening Simultaneously. Attacking from three fronts, is this the beginning of the end for The Nine? Please Like, Share, and Follow us! We are hoping to get new people coming our way, and could use the love! Thank you everyone!!!!! ]

Cast:

[ L.K ] - Lazarius Kashebahl, Marseille, Raelyndia Duskhollow

[ P.K ] - Kretus Dark

[ V.D ] - Verzatea Duskflame, Pame Myl’Brin

[ J ] - Jursol, Jimba, Mawa

[ T ] - Talisin aka The Boy

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[ L. K ] Marseille fled through the brush and thick of the Ghostlands with his tomahawk brandished in his left hand. The southpaw would flip over a large boulder and move into position waiting for Pame to act. This was one of their drills he enjoyed; distract and disperse. The moment the fan of knives would shred the bats attacking the tail; the arcane ancient burst into a sprint.

He was not like the rest wearing armor and gloves; Marseille was topless, only a bandolier of knives across his pectorals. His pinkish white braid was dangling behind his back would bounce with his speed. And in a rush of arcane energy he was on top of the boy.

Marseille grabbed the young man and slammed him without much regard for his health; into the tree, spine first. The scruff of his plain shirt was then axed into the tree to suspend him off the ground while two long blades were crossed against the boys throat. In silence; the ancient Shaldorei whispered an almost ghostly voice.

“Nod; or shake your head.”.

His glowing pale eyes scanned over the threat as he whispered again.

“Are you alone.”

Regardless of the answer; he would prompt again.

“Do you know who we are.”.

He again didn’t stop there.

“Do you know where we are going.”

Lazarius kept himself moving with Verza and Jursol and her raptors of course, and he peeled his vision back toward the elf.

“You know I don’t eat...”

[ T ] The boy was simply petrified as he was pinned and questioned. He was fortunate he wasn’t required to talk to answer those questions; He nodded, then shook his head twice, eyes wide with fear and terror all the while.

His spine hurt against the bark of the tree. The fragile skin on his back felt warm, but not bloody. Something else had also thumped against the tree that felt different from his body: a tail, some might consider it, but more of a tendril in truth.

He had grown it as the elder gods afflicted him, and usually it was tucked under his clothing, but being harshly pinned had shaken it loose. It hung limply against the tree trunk.

[ J ] Jursol watched as Pame took off into the trees to check out the sounds. Honestly she was impressed with her skills and planning. Watching the other go after her slightly amused her. Never had she thought elves could be so agile. Her pace kept up with the other two as Jimba rustled in her arms.

The other raptor remained highly alert as it protected them. Hearing about food caused her to turn her attention to Tea. A small laugh escaped her as she remembered offering the same to Laz before. However she still needed to eat, just not yet as she goes long days with little food.

[ V . D ] Pame bristles, her irritation rising and threatening to break her advantage of her bird eye view. This allowed her to check the area for any other concerns or threats. A wonderful distraction from the unnecessarily brutish performance from the Shaldorei. He was a barbarian, but he was efficient.

It didn't stop her from climbing higher, making her voice but a whisper in the wind as she changes posts to a better height, casting a wider range of vision,

"Don't be so rough." Her concern for the life was evident. Whatever it was she knew first and foremost it was young... Frightened. Pitiful.

Verzatea twitches, her ears picking up what was surely a painful thud. But her eyes remained focused, forcing her breath to slow or else she'd get excited and objective, certainly to protect her members if it was one of them who was hurt so, but if one of the blades had put such force into their attack against what seemed such a minimal threat... She was gonna get real mean.

"Oh humor me,"

The woman sneers, throwing a peanut at Lazarius head before offering a chunk of bread to Jursol straight from the loaf, as well an apple after setting the loaf of bread back into the bag.

[ L. K ] Marseille was well over ten thousand years old; the only being here that could have even competed in his age in terms of natural progression was Pame, maybe Jursol. The old elf would watch the boys reactions and he observed. There appeared to be no threat here, that was until the tail protruded toward forward allowing them all to see.

It immediately struck an alarm with him. The Shaldorei snatched the hatchet from the tree causing the boy to drop, but not far; and not far enough to allow him to escape.

His deft fingers grabbed the boy by the collar and began dragging him toward Lazarius.

"Pame, watch our six."

He commanded and snapped up at her in the canopy. Marseille pulled the young man behind him with his hatchet in hand; something clearly was causing the ancient elf to become flustered.

"Master!"

He yelled out, causing Lazarius to turn his head.

Lazarius peered back toward the two; his lead Shade and this intruder; The black eyes of the Inquisitor searching them over carefully as they approached. Lazarius watched as the tall elf flipped the youth forward onto the ground before their lord and immediately pressed his foot onto his back to pin the boy down.

"They have sent an agent; you were correct. .. . the moment we set foot out of the Bastille they were aware."

Lazarius peered down at the boy further as Marseille plucked the tail from his backside and pulled it straight out. This was an odd turn of events; how unfortunate.

"We should eliminate this threat before more are drawn to us."

[ T ] Pulling that tail elicited the first sound from the boy: a yelp of pain. He rarely talked, but he made noise all the same, and began to sniffle when he figured he’d die soon. Even when crying, he was quiet.

[ L. K ] "Stop whining!"

[ T ] The boy silenced immediately, wiping his tears with a free hand.

[ J ] Jursol seemed more then happy to eat something at this point. Who in their right mind would pass up free food! She reached to take some of the bread as she got one bit before hearing others. Her attention turned to the small one who was now pinned by a larger elf.

Her eyes looked him over closely before speaking.

“He don’t seem ta be a danger. Be but a child.”

She said as her raptors moved up to sniff him. They seemed fascinated by him but were still careful.

[ V . D ] Pame tensed, a second knife drawn into her free hand. Though she silenced herself at once. There was no point in denying this didn't look good for the child, and it was of no concern to her. It was up to Lazarius to determine their course of action over this certain threat and the two guards would have to follow through. Twas their duty.

But Verzatea was a different story. She was biased, as a mother, but also more sociable and aware of genuine terror when she could hear it. Her tone was sharp as she remarks toward Lazarius,

"Tread lightly Lazarius. We must be certain."

[ T ] Eventually, the boy spoke - his family didn’t like it when he spoke, but they weren’t here anymore. He practically yelled out his first words in months.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE ALL TALKING ABOUT! I JUST GREW THIS TAIL AND THE WHISPERS DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT!”

[ L. K ] Lazarius steadied himself as he peered down at the boy with a sincere and omnipotent gaze. Flanked on both sides by raptors; the towering Zandalari and of course the intimidating stance from his Confessor, he was in no way worried about what was going to transpire here.

To him; this child was not helpless, fourteen he was capable and should have been much better at taking care of himself than this. But; he would reserve his judgement until after he examined him.

"There is no telling how many more of them might be lurking in the shadows, Master allow me t---"

Lazarius raised a hand toward the Shaldorei and it would cause him to immediately silence. The white pinkish hues never tore away from his Master and would hardly disobey by continuing. The Inquisitor took only a short moment from peering at Marseille to return to the boy.

It was this distinct gaze that caused him to move neither closer or away; but rather down on him over the bridge of his nose. If this young man was sensitive enough in any type of power he would have felt an overwhelming sense of weight placed on his shoulders and back; not from the boot of the ancient elf behind him, but from Lazarius himself.

At the rattling voice; he leaned forward and knelt down. He was nearly eye level with the child as his voice calmly; and soothingly hushed him.

"You have arrived at a most unfortunate time boy..."

He remained peering at him and continued.

"NZoth seeks to bring about the end; this world is crumbling, being torn asunder from within. . .growing a tail made of pure void energy; hearing the whispers of madness. . .perhaps you are no agent of NZoth. . .but you still carry the taint of one who is. . ."

The mummified fingers of his left hand would then creep out toward the boy; there was nothing imminently dangerous about it, just a middle and forefinger.

"Through you. . .it sees us. That is why my Shade is holding you down. . .a threat without actively being a threat. . .you are still dangerous."

[ T ] The boy shivered and shuddered under the weight and touch of Lazarius.

“I-...I don’t want to be a threat...”

He murmured as tears formed in his eyes again.

[ V . D ] "Why are you here, in that case?"

The Confessors voice carried strong, her eyes focused in on the young boy, her curiosity peaked. Though the threat remained, her intentions to clear the child of his charge as a beacon for all which they were trying to escape-- And once his innocence was proven, if he was innocent, then he could be sent straight back to the city... Or so Tea hoped this could go.

Pames attention remained scanning the ground level and canopy, her focus going into the sounds surrounding them. In such effort she manages to ignore the majority of the conversations going on beneath her, drowning it out slightly.

To be continued in “In Mind of Misery, Manipulation, Part 3″

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usagi-zakura · 4 years

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Today on Adventure League

...I almost lost my favorite kobold...

I’m tired of referring to everyone simply as race and class (it got confusing since some also overlap) so I’m just gonna use their actual character names.... except for one who only wanted to be refereed to as “child.” (She is the party’s youngest...at least by race... Dott is younger at 10, but she considers herself middle-aged, and gets rather offended when people call her young.)

Child- Tiefling bard Shaumar- Human Bard Wind- Tabaxi Cleric Tara- Human Paladin Cat- Elf monk (reason for a bit of confusion since the DM would frequently refer to the tabaxi as simply “cat” before she came along). Dott- My Kobold Ranger/Rogue Ttod- my wolf. (Frequently referred to as “the dog”) Hercules- Sir not appearing in this session- Goliath Barbarian. Amber- Miss not appearing in this session- Tabaxi rogue. Loads of dead people- Dott’s previous party members. Also naturally not appearing because they’re dead.

Also: Spoiler alert for Storm King’s Thunder. We’re made it to the finale somehow.

So at the beginning of the session we met with three giants. One introduced herself as the missing Storm King’s daughter.

Oh yeah there was a plot to this campaign wasn’t it? We’d been too busy gambling and robbing traveling traders to notice... (In our defense, they were demons..)

Shaumar introduced the party as “The Chosen Ones” and the Princess claimed she’d already met some of those... this confused the party a little but then again there had been quite a few chosen ones over the past little while... Zefros the Cloud Giant just seemed to have a habit of picking up random adventurers calling them the Chosen Ones.

These people had found signs of the Storm King in the “Trackless Sea” so she offered us an expensive ruby and a mysterious orb.

We were then suddenly teleported to a small coastal town. Our party’s combined intelligence isn’t particularly high so Wind decided clearly the orb was supposed to transform into a boat...so she yeeted it into the sea.

It did not transform, it just sank to the bottom.

The child transformed into a dolphin using polymorph and managed to retrieve it.

After that Tara and Wind went to the docks to see if they could rent a ship to take us out to sea, while the rest of the party went to get some supplies, namely arrows.

Dott, not being very good at math, went into the supply store and dropped about 930 copper on the table asking how many arrows she would get for that... all of them apparently. So she stuffed about a hundred arrows into her bag of holding, and gave two stacks to Shaumar and Child.

At the docks Tara and Wind only found two ships willing to take us.

The largest one was owned by a crew of totally-not-pirates in creepy black robes, the other one staffed entirely by gnomes.

Naturally.... we went with the totally-not-pirates. They seemed like a trustworthy lot. We paid using the ruby (despite Wind’s protests at giving up her shiny rock.)

So our sea-journey began.

Not much happened for the next few days beside Tara learning how to sail, Child holding a concert for the crew, and Dott tied Ttod to the mast so he wouldn’t jump off the edge.

Then one day we spotted a storm in the distance.

The ship stopped, presumably to avoid sailing straight into the storm, but someone overheard the captain say in dwarvish that it was “almost time.”

Time for what?

An ambush of course...

Things didn’t go so well for our paladin as she ended up getting hit by a ballista and got stuck to the mast.

The rest of us on the other hand basically massacred the crew, Child even took control of one of the ballista with “Animate Objects”, as well as animating a fancy puppet she had picked up along the way. The (very expensive) puppet was however sadly destroyed by one of the pirates.

Child shattered his head in response.

Tara got herself free from the mast by using Misty Step and got healed by Dott...just as an even larger ship appeared in the storm, ramming straight into us, instantly killing the remaining pirate...

Also the ship we were on was now quickly sinking...

We managed to get on board the other ship, finding it completely empty... and yet seemingly sailing on its own, always at the center of the storm.

The orb we’d been carrying was glowing extra brightly on this ship, even more so when we found what appeared to be the Captain’s quarters.

Inside we found five bottled ships, one of them marked “Morkoth” as well as a torn up piece of paper.

Child used her “smarts” to put the paper pieces back together, but no one was able to figure out what it said... except Dott. It was written in thieves cant.

The message warned not to open “Morkoth”.

Wind naturally went to try to open this bottle right away but Child put it in her bag of holding. Wind crushed another one of the ships in frustration. Dott being the hoarder she is, pocketed the remaining three.

At this point we realized the orb was no longer glowing... but if we took the bottle ship out of the bag it glowed brighter than ever.

So it seemed we had found our goal... but we had no idea what to do with it.. or how to get back to land since the ship seemed to be sailing on its own towards who knows where, and there was no food aboard...

Eventually we just decided to open the bottle, assuming the ship may somehow escape we brought it outside, Wind however remained inside because she didn’t want to go out in the rain.

The cork was removed from the bottle and...we were immediately sucked inside.

All of us, sans Wind, fell into the water right in front of a large squid-shaped ship, while falling we spotted several people walking around on the deck and in the middle, chained up, was a storm giant... wearing a crown.

Child polymorphed herself into an orcah and the rest of us got on her back.

Shaumar used Greater Invisibility to try and explore the ship, and reported his findings to the rest of us, before we too climbed on board, and immediately attacked the crew.

This battle however wasn’t quite as easy as the one with the pirates.

A spellcaster appeared from inside one of the rooms, and cast Dominate Person on Shaumar.

And Dott...my darling Dott... was downed by a half-orc using a poisoned sword.

Worst part is she was on a different floor when it happened so none of the rest of the party knew where she was or that she was even knocked out, they had enough to deal with with the mindcontrolled bard and the spellcaster.

Child spent much of the battle ramming the ship in orca form and Ttod was just kinda confused and scared.

Just to make matters worse I rolled a nat 1 on my death save... two out of three failures. Luckily however I rolled a 19 on the next one.

Ttod eventually sniffed his “mommy” out and ran up to the ladder barking to get the attention of the paladin, who probably could have done more if her only healing spells weren’t also touch spells.

Thankfully Dott’s savior finally made it on to the ship, in the form of a purple whale... namely Child, who turned back to her tiefling form and cast mass healing word on the party.

She then attempted to cast polymorph again but was counterspelled...

Dott did manage to get revenge on the orc though, shooting him through the head from the second floor.

Now only the spellcaster was left, (as well as the still mind controlled Shaumar, no amount of damage we did to the spellcaster seemed to break his concentration).

But we did finally beat him. Ttod went down twice due to his low HP but thanks to the paladin he didn’t die...but he may have a grudge against Shaumar now.

When the battle was over we managed to free the Storm King, as soon as the chains were off he woke up immediately, after a quick explanation (and a good persuasion roll) he did not immediately murder us, instead he teleported us out of the ship, and then the whole party (including Wind who’d been watching from outside the bottle this entire time) back to his daughter...

Back at the castle however we found the Princess paralyzed, her guard dead the third giant missing and a hole in the wall... a large dragon-shaped hole...

#adventurers league #dnd #dungeons and dragons #dott #kobold #storm king's thunder

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littlemissgeek8 · 5 years

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Okay I just wanted to say I love your dnd art like so much!! It’s amazing!!! If you don’t mind me asking, can you summarize what you’ve done in your campaign with Jemima Appleblossom so far? She’s so cute and I would literally die for your PC

Aww!! Thanks! It’s always a joy to run into people who likemy characters! :3 I can totally give you a summary of our campaign thoughunfortunately it is 30 episodes atthe time of writing, with 31 going up later today, and I was unable to shrinkit to a reasonable size. I’ll put it under a cut to save on people’s dashspace, and I’ll also put links here for the youtube playlists in case there’sanyone who’d like to watch it instead of just reading about it. XD And for anyone interested in the series, this recap will catch you up in time for today’s episode to go out!

For those not wanting to read through all 8,930 words ofthis, TL;DR: “Ragtag group of adventurers get pulled into another world wherethey find themselves rubbing elbows with gods, fighting monsters, makingfriends, reviving demigods and unwittingly unleashing some massively dangerousthings onto the planet. In between accidentally dying a few times.”

[Ghostwolf] [EscoNitz] [CriticalHat]

Well, we started off in Parnast, sent by our individualfactions to investigate a missing wizard. My halfling bard Jemima is a Harper,same as our other bard, the human Gineye. Our other party members included Lei,the Tortle Paladin, Zuradar the Tiefling ranger, Lilystra the half-orcbarbarian and Zareem, the Aasimar warlock (who works for the Zhentarim, theonly other faction I remember.) On our way to find the missing wizard, we raninto a bunch of Kobolds who attacked us, but one Kobold --with distinctivewooden legs and one arm-- was trapped inside a cart by his own people and gaveus some assistance. When we finally found the wizard he was in the process ofsummoning something that turned out to be a Water Weird, which subsequently atethe whole party, ending the first session.

We woke up a week later inside an infirmary, which we soondiscovered was in an underwater city—the water weird didn’t just eat us, ittransported us basically to another dimension far away from Faerun. Seeing usas adventurers, one of the triton soldiers from the town we woke up in took us upto the surface to the port town of Audio Bay. (I might be spelling it wrong,sorry, I don’t have good notes this far back.) There, a dwarven merchant namedJonah gave us a quest to track down some missing gear that was stolen from him,a quest which lead us to a well with a Zhentarim symbol on it (surprisingly,since none of our factions exist in this dimension) and inside said well, weencountered a “dungeon” of a dubious nature filled with hobgoblins and bugbearsin leather armor and chain shirts. (Yes it was a kink dungeon, no I don’t wantto remember much about it. XD) After thoroughly stomping everyone involved, aminiscule orc calling himself “Bob” entered the room, shouting at us forhurting his people (whom he then revived with no effort at all.) We told him ofour mission and he agreed to let us take the stolen weapons back, along withgifting us a mysterious box filled with magic coins and a magical shield to ourpaladin. It wasn’t until later that we discovered that “Bob” was actually thegod of slaughter, not until after Zareem managed to roll a natural 100 and hithim with an eldritch blast.

As we left the dungeon, we were greeted by a pack of strangelooking wolves and a tall, blond man in a black coat who asked us to give himthe weapons we’d retrieved. He wouldn’t accept “no” for an answer, nor did wehave much time to try convincing him that we’d been assigned to collect thembefore our hair-trigger warlock decided to cast Charm Person on this newcomer.Unfortunately, the man was carrying a Staff of Charming and nullified the spellbefore it could affect him, before wildshaping into an earth elemental andproceeding to do his best to squash us. It wasn’t until Zareem and Zuradarmanaged to capture one of the “wolves” who turned out to be another druid thatthe man relented, changing back and calling off his friends. He admitted hisactions were hasty and together we traveled back to Jonah’s store with thestolen weapons, where it was revealed that the weapons were a special orderfrom the druid himself, Edan. In return for the weapons, Edan financed someupgrades for our group through the organization he works for (including a sweetring for Jemima which changes her vicious mockery from a d4 to a d6.)

The next day saw Edan taking us to an open air market on thedocks to shop around for supplies, before taking us to a tavern and treating usto lunch. (It was a pretty low-key session though there was a lot ofnon-story-important horseplay.) At the tavern we ran into the druids we’dfought the day before as well as a familiar face: Hanzi, the Kobold with thewooden limbs. While we ate, Edan mentioned that the druids, Hanzi and himselfwere all from Faerun originally and offered to let us join the organizationthey were working with when they went back to their base at the end of themonth. Shortly afterwards (after Jemima spent some time performing for thetavern patrons) Edan left the tavern, citing a “call” from his celestial parent(which Jemima immediately recognized, due to her own bardic master having beenan Aasimar as well.) Before they could pursue, the party was given a quest toinvestigate something in the tavern’s cellar, which turned out to be a wholeton of giant spiders (and a lot of screaming from Jemima) as well as a mimicwhich had taken the place of a box intended for Jonah.

As we returned to Jonah’s shop with his shipment, a heavystorm had started rolling in off the ocean, and after checking in with Jonah(and asking him if anyone would have been trying to kill him by sending him amimic) we headed out to the courtyard to find Edan standing by a scorched areawhere several lightning strikes had taken place. One of the lightning strikesleft behind a glowing orb that turned into a box which he quickly pocketed andrefused to tell us what it was, but we learned some troubling information aboutthe how though the portal we’d come through was a common occurrence, somethinghad interfered with it and kept his organization from closing it on time. Afterthings nearly came to blows between him, Zareem, Zuradar and Gineye, we allheaded off to prepare for whatever the next day would bring and eventuallysleep.

The next day was stormy again, but we set out with Edan anda few others to the docks, hoping to stave off whatever horrible thing wasapproaching the town from the portal in the ocean. Almost immediately, Edanflew off towards a monster out in the ocean, leaving us to deal with a largenumber of minor water elementals who did a good deal of damage before welearned we could destroy them by damaging the summoning circles they came from.Meanwhile, Gineye (with his Special Eyes) noticed “Bob” and several cloakedfigures watching the proceedings from the air nearby. As we defeated theelementals, a massive bolt of lighting shot from the storm over the ocean,right into the monster Edan was fighting, killing it and throwing Edan’slifeless body onto the docks nearby. Jemima tried in vain to use Healing Wordto revive him, only to be shut down by someone sending her a clear mentalmessage that she was wasting her time. Soon afterwards we found ourselvesfacing the same Wizard we’d been sent to find, who had merged himself with thewater weird. The battle was short and fairly one-sided as we all charged himbefore he could do much, eventually leading him to attack Lei one-on-one.Nobody’s entirely sure what happened but the wizard disappeared and Lei learnedhe could shoot a beam of radiant energy from his mouth.

That concluded, the realization of what happened to Edan hithome as a few of us tried to go over to him, only to be stopped by two of thecloaked figures Gineye had seen. One, a massive bugbear went to solemnlycollect the body, while the other (a skeletal form we couldn’t see well) tooksome glowing orb from Edan’s head before leaving. We’d managed to save thecity, but we’d lost a friend in the process. The next week was spent helpingthe city rebuild from the attack, though for Jemima it was a week of privatemourning and a grim realization that the fairy tale heroics she’d dreamed ofwere only a fantasy in the face of harsh reality. Then, we were called in toJonah’s again, only to find “Bob” sitting there, along with a large box and thedruids we’d met earlier. He gave us a mission we couldn’t really reject—travelwith Jonah and the druids to take the mysterious box to a town calledSylvenstand, checking in with a few towns along the way. When asked why hechose our group to do this, he admitted that we’d been specially requested, orrather Jemima had been requested for this job and it followed that everyoneelse would come too. In addition, Jemima was given three gifts—the owl-headedStaff of Charming that Edan had used, his bag of holding, and Bob’s holy symbolon her wrist as a sign of protection. And so, the group set off cross-countryto Sylvenstand in an enchanted cart with a box they weren’t allowed to touch(or let anyone else touch either, save for one contact they were told to meet.)

Their first destination was Flatol, where they were sent toinvestigate some reports of some strange goings on. This lead the party toinvestigate a crypt, one decorated with symbols and writing praising Orcus, andinside we found the necromancer that we’d been sent to find who almostimmediately trapped us into seeing our worst fears, but before anyone couldreally dwell on them, the Necromancer himself was murdered by the thingconjured up by Hanzi’s fear: a terrifying shadowy cleric. The battle thatensued was brutal, with us trying to defend against the cleric’s powerfulattacks or healing each other as best we could, but in the end the nightmarecleric was defeated. However, the cost of fighting him turned out to be Lei’slife, for the killing blow on the cleric sent our unconscious paladin into hisfinal death saves (Thanks, Zareem for not moving your Shatter spell somewhereelse.) However, instead of outright dying, a glow surrounded him, bringing himback but without his hard shell and with a much longer tail. The coins we’dreceived from “Bob” on our first meeting with him had each bonded with one ofus and this was the first time they’d revealed their powers: saving the bearerfrom death but bringing them back with a change or two.

We ushered our now semi-naked Tortle back to the cart andprepared to move on (though not until after a horrifying lunch in which ourTiefling nearly petrified several people with some of the dishes he’d made and did actually petrify himself for a shorttime.) Then, we moved on to Glens, the next town on our journey. TheNecromancer we’d run into had gone to Flatol from Glens and we were informedthat another necromancer had been in town as well, along with a frighteningbounty hunter who was hunting him down. Our search for clues turned up little,but as we all went to meet up in the town square, a huge hulking barbarianleaped down into our midst, wielding a massive axe. We weren’t much of a matchfor him, until Lei managed to grapple him, giving Gineye a chance to use a boltof petrification he’d picked up earlier. The Barbarian failed his save hard,turning to stone before our eyes, but as Gineye removed his hood, a familiarface stared back—Edan’s, thoughframed by dark hair instead of blond. Needless to say, Jemima didn’t take itwell, and we carefully moved the petrified man back to the cart to be restored.Before we left, however, the axe the barbarian had been using decided to attachitself to Gineye, revealing itself to be not only cursed but sentient as well.

A cleric who was currently traveling with us managed torestore the barbarian, and a conversation later revealed that he was not, infact, Edan. He introduced himself as Ivan the Lucky, a bounty hunter who hadbeen chasing down the necromancers we had run into, and he’d been working longenough to have a solid reputation, so the chances of him being Edan withamnesia or something was extremely low. However, we couldn’t let him leave asone of the jobs in our contracts was to investigate the grisly murders in Glensand there was a good likelihood he was involved somehow. So, with Ivan in towwe headed off to the next town, Crance, which was currently embroiled in arebellion of some kind. However, we had to stop there to meet up with acontact, and since we weren’t given a description of the contact we had tocross our fingers and hope we found him. A couple of men in a tavern claimed tobe the people we were looking for and agreed to come back to the wagon inexchange for some help with a situation they were in. It was only after givingthem the information we had and letting them inspect the box (which thankfullythey didn’t tamper with) that we found out they were not, in fact, our contact,but a mysterious half-orc in town might be. They were with the resistanceagainst the tyrannical government in the area and they directed us to a guardshack where the half-orc and some of their own people were being held.

Our group headed over there and found the guards to besurprisingly easy to defeat, and in the cells were a group of heavily injuredresistance fighters and one massive, angry owlbear. The half-orc however wasnowhere to be seen, until we headed to a room in the back. There, we found himstanding over the corpse of the head guard, pulling a knife out of thestill-warm body. The distinctive red teardrop tattoo on his face marked him asthe person we were searching for, since it matched the mark Jemima had receivedfrom “Bob” at the start of our quest. The half-orc, Grug, followed us back tothe cart to properly inspect the box and pay us for the tasks we’d alreadycompleted, but took an immediate dislike to the currently sleeping Ivan. Heexplained that Ivan was Edan’s Alternate—somewhat but not quite the same personborn in another dimension, though many differences in environment and home lifecan lead to wildly different characteristics, jobs and lives. He then warned usto keep Ivan away from the box, stating that it was dangerous to have himaround when Edan was in such a “weakened state.” Yet again, Jemima freaked out,demanding to know what he meant by that before Zareem completely stopped theconversation by boasting about how Bob approved of him b/c Zareem had managedto hit him. In a fit of rage, Grug dragged Ivan’s sleeping body away andunleashed a bunch of monsters on us, since pissing off a paladin by boastingthat you’d hit his god is probably the worst idea ever.

Once the monsters were defeated we raced outside after Grugand Ivan, finding Ivan yet again possessed by Gineye’s axe as he’d been thefirst time we fought him. After getting the axe back from Ivan (which sent thelarge barbarian back to sleep) we turned our attention to Grug and the animatedswords he was currently attacking our cart with. A few near deaths later, ourfight was interrupted by Grug vanishing and “Bob” appearing in his place,demanding to know what was going on. Thankfully we were in our rights to defendourselves and “Bob” admitted that Grug was overzealous and a huge problem forhim, but he was obligated to keep the half-orc around due to Grug’s familyconnections. Still, Bob fixed our wagon for us and decided to travel with us toSylvenstand, stating that he couldn’t just teleport there due to the nature ofthe place. A few days of travel later, we reached the woods surroundingSylvenstand, a dark frightening forest that seemed to twist and move around,confusing travelers who dared venture into it.

Which is when we ran into the dinosaurs. About halfway intothe forest we were stopped by a dead end and a voice demanding to know why wewere there. When we explained our mission, the voice told us we could only passafter it had “tested our mettle” upon which an allosaurus and a swarm ofdeinonychus showed up. The battle was surprisingly long, made worse by thearrows being shot from an unknown source deep in the woods. However, thedinosaurs eventually backed down, but not until after Jemima heard a veryfamiliar male voice saying the phrase “You can do better” before their woundswere healed. The fight over, we trooped back inside the cart, following theAllosaurus (named Sharp) to the secret town of Sylvenstand.

When we arrived, Jonah took the mysterious box away, whileour group accompanied by “Bob” went to a building built into the massive treein the center of town. Before we could turn in our quest, we checked in with aman at the front desk by the name of Eldon. It was he who finally explainedwhat exactly it was we had been transporting all this time—Edan’s body,magically preserved and warded to prevent decay so that a reviving ritual couldbe performed once his soul was reclaimed. Then, we were ushered upstairs intothe massive tree to an enormous room where a humanoid figure seemingly made ofwood or possibly completely encased in wooden armor sat. Seeing as it wastechnically her quest, Jemima was chosen to speak for the party, turning in theletter they were sent with as well as being given a bag of coin to be dividedamongst the team later. Lei’s divine sense however, picked up the massive amounts of divine energy comingfrom the figure in front of them, as well as noticing the oak leaf symbol onthe man’s chest. Though the contract said we’d been sent to report in to a mannamed Tay’rados, there was little question that the true originator of thequest was none other than Silvanus, the god of nature and druids himself.

After some impromptu shopping at a small bazaar in town, weheaded off to the temple district to meet with one Captain Taylor who wassupposed to be able to help Zareem with a mysterious mark he bore on his chest.Captain Taylor agreed to help on the condition that we spar with him, anexperience none of us were quite prepared for, as he turned out to be anextremely high-level paladin who was pulling his punches. Midway through thefight, having taken a decent amount of damage, Taylor grabbed Jemima beforereaching an arm into her bag of holding, coming up with a purple coin that she’dnever seen before (she’d been getting small trinkets including a bag of dragonbone from Edan’s bag over time, but never seen that coin in all her searching.)Again, Edan’s voice chimed in with the phrase “You can do better” as Taylor’swounds began to heal. In an almost uncharacteristic display of kindness, Zareemhelped her get the coin back and to keep Taylor from taking it again, Jemimadropped it down the front of her shirt with a glare. Then, taking the staff ofcharming she’d inherited from Edan, she stormed over and slapped him deadbetween the eyes, shouting at him “How dareyou touch my things?” only for Taylor to shout back “How dare you take mybrother’s things?” When the fight finally ended, she confronted him about thosewords, discovering that Taylor (who is, in fact, the real Tay’rados and thenext in line to take over for Silvanus) wasn’t kidding about Edan being hisbrother, and the coin he’d taken was an Ioun stone that Edan had obtainedduring one of his many travels. The voice she’d been hearing was simply theHealing Word spell he’d kept inside it being activated.

After our sparring match ended, Tay invited us to join himat the local tavern for drinks to celebrate Edan’s approaching revival, thoughnot before we returned to the large tree building to answer a few questionsabout the wizard we’d fought back in Audio Bay. That was where, after the armorthe wizard had worn attached itself to Lei, that the wizard hadn’t justdisappeared that day, he’d been stowing along in Lei’s brain the whole timewithout anyone knowing. He hasn’t shown his hand yet, but the eventual effectsof this are unknown. Then we trooped off to the tavern, Lei and Zareemintending to party and have a good time, Zuradar and Gineye picking a fightwith a time-manipulating satyr who’d magic’d away some of our gear earlier (wegot it back thankfully) and Jemima meeting a nice man who gave her a book oncreating a Guard Drake from dragonscale (which she conveniently had thanks tothe bag of bones and scales in Edan’s bag of holding.) The party lasted allnight, though most were passed out before it got too late, particularly Zuradarwho was the first out after he failed to seduce an elf lady two times in a rowand left to drink until he couldn’t remember anything.

The next few days were less eventful, mostly everyone havinga bit of downtime and resting up, preparing for the next phase of the revivaloperation: retrieving Edan’s soul from wherever it had ended up. The owlbearthat we’d encountered in Crance had been put into a crystal by Grug fortransport, and thanks to Eldon, it was healed (though it had to be magicallyde-aged to save it) and given to Zuradar as a companion under the name Pip.When the time came for the expedition to set out, Jemima made sure our team wasinvited, since she desperately wanted to be able to save Edan. The expeditionwould leave Sylvenstand through a portal that had been set up over the last fewdays, though the endpoint was unknown until the portal was actually opened,bringing with it a group of dimensional “police” who wanted to know why we hadopened a portal onto a plane known as “Lunacy.” Tay seemed visibly distressedat the mention of that location, but in the end we were permitted to pass,providing he didn’t come with us (astipulation he didn’t challenge at all.) Armed with a glass jar with a locatingspell cast on it, we headed off into Lunacy.

The jar lead us through marshy woods until we came upon ascene of grisly carnage. Two hags had been torn apart along with a shambling moundor two, and as we approached we saw the one who had caused such destruction: acreature seemingly formed of wood with a featureless wooden mask. Immediatelythe jar Jemima was holding began to glow and vibrate, but just as quickly thecreature melted away into the ground, causing the jar to go dark again. Afterwe were set upon by another hag (and discovered that the damaged Weave on thisplane made casting spells a risky chance that often triggered wild magic tohappen) we continued on, the trail having been picked up again by the jar.After some walking we came upon a small tavern, the inside of which was emptysave for a lone barkeep in fancy eveningwear. He offered to give us informationor magic trinkets, and explained that the creature we had encountered, the“Beastmaster” was keeping him trapped. Our whole party was sure it was a trap,with the notable exception of Zareem, who made an agreement to smuggle a blackshard out of the plane in exchange for a magic sword and an axe.

Thoroughly disgusted at our companion, we continued on untilwe came to another clearing. As Zareem dashed across the grass towards a gate,the ground turned into more shambling mounds which proceeded to attack theparty. Midway through the fight, a large bear with a wooden mask lumbered in,attacking the mounds with us. However, once the mounds were destroyed, the bearturned towards us instead. Jemima had already put together that the jarresponding to both the Beastmaster (whose mask looked shockingly likeSilvanus’s) and the Bear (one of Edan’s common wildshape forms) were somehowconnected to Edan’s soul and she was reluctant to fight until being remindedthat druids change back from their wildshape forms after losing all their HP.When the bear finally fell, it morphed back into Edan, before dissolving intodust with a cry of distress, causing part of the jar to light up. This spurredthe party forward, towards the next location. There they ran across Eldonagain, who had followed them into the plane. He was badly wounded butsurrounded by corpses, including one giant spider wearing a wooden mask.Another piece of the jar lit up as Jemima approached it.

Then, Gineye managed to spot something across a nearbylake—on an island in the center, strapped to a cross-like structure, was Edan,or at least his soul. Coming from his body were five tendrils, two of whichwere rapidly dissolving. Using the teleportation that he had gotten from a wildmagic surge, Gineye teleported over to the island and summoned his axe, usingthe soul-collecting power of the axe to free Edan by having him slice off thetendrils. Edan’s soul disappeared, along with the fragments in the jar and theBeastmaster across the lake, but as soon as he’d done that, a massive shapeappeared in the distance. Sensing danger, Gineye returned, driving us all torun with Eldon in tow, back to the portal we’d come through.

The giant creature, which revealed itself to be a Terrasque,chased us all the way to the portal, eventually parking itself right on theother side of the portal but very much within striking range should we try toescape. Then, it revealed itself to be the same person Zareem had made a dealwith--the one who had marked him with the symbol of Vecna—itself an old andpowerful Primordial. It offered to let us pass as long as we kept the guardsbusy enough for it to escape, since the plane was rapidly dissolving around usas the weave unraveled. We agreed, while secretly planning to alert the guardsonce we were through, and escaped through the portal. The dimensional “police”were on hand to help, and drove back the massive claw that came through, butdespite our efforts, a tiny portion of the creature broke off and disappeared.Still, we had what we had journeyed for and after relinquishing the axe to Silvanus,so that he could extract the soul, we nervously awaited the revival itself. Wewere graciously allowed to be present for it, and the process went surprisinglysmoothly for all the trouble we put in. Upon waking up, groggy and disoriented,Edan asked for his bag which Jemima unquestioningly returned. However, insteadof keeping it, he simply took out the wooden box from the month prior andopened it, revealing a deactivated Void card from the Deck of Many Things. Witha glare he turned to Silvanus, telling his father to try harder the next timehe wanted to kill him before storming out of the room (just in time for Gineyeto return from searching the town for a saxophone in order to serenade Jemima’sreunion with the man she was clearly crushing on.) Gineye’s return lead to anembarrassment-fueled brawl, culminating with the party members involved (sansZuradar and Zareem who had left to talk to Jonah again) waking up the next dayin the infirmary.

When the party reunited in the tavern the next day theyfound out about a list of jobs open to them, now that they had been acceptedinto Mantle, the organization based in Sylvenstand. The party was very excitedover an upcoming tournament (though Jemima had her eyes more on the Bardcollege which nobody even looked at twice) but Gineye demanded they go to thecapitol city Paplus first, upon seeing not only the capture of the resistanceleader they’d encountered in Crance, but also a name he recognized—Lord Darius,a man he’d known before we first met up who seemed to be somehow connected tothe scars Gineye hides under a porcelain mask. As we geared up to go, we askedEdan if he wanted to come along, which he agreed to do, as he wanted to get asfar away from Sylvenstand and his family as possible.

The furthest we could travel by portal was to Paplus’sneighboring town StoneHelm, a two day’s walk from Paplus. Once the journey byportal was completed, Edan took his leave, stating he would be taking the jobat the Bards college there, though the party (save for a heartbroken Jemima)were too busy making plans for marching order and cooking arrangements to evennotice. A days walk later, they set up camp, dividing the nighttime watch intoshifts. During the second shift, after Jemima had bedded down for the night atthe end of her watch, a group of drow appeared, demanding Zuradar tell them thename of the halfling in the nearby bedroll, and at her last name ofAppleblossom the drow attacked, easily subduing the sleepy party and cartingthem off.

We awoke in darkness, with our arms and legs bound, with theexception of Zuradar who had been inadvertently untied by his owlbear Pip, andZareem who instead found himself in a nice room as if he’d been invited as aguest instead of kidnapped. It wasn’t long before the drow returned, removingtheir blindfolds and walking them out of their cells to a large central roomwhere they saw Jemima trussed up and suspended over a fire, and a hooded man atthe end of the room. The man demanded Gineye be brought forward and demandedhim to take off his mask or risk Jemima’s life. Grudgingly, Gineye complied andthe man removed his own hood, revealing the face of a man Gineye had worked withbefore during a similar rebellion back in Faerun, Tiberius. Like many of the peoplethey’d met, Tai had found his way to this world as well and joined the currentrebellion due to his own curiosity at how similar it was to the one in theirown world, even down to the blonde lady behaving shockingly like Gineye himselfhad done. A betrayal from within their ranks had gotten her caught by LordDarius’s forces, and the traitor in question happened to be the reason theywere captured in the first place—they were searching for a young halfling manwith the last name of Appleblossom who was known to use polymorph spells withthe aid of an enchanted broom. Alternates again, the party realized as theygrouped back up.

As we had found our way not only to Paplus but the rebellionwe were supposed to aid, we found ourselves tasked with helping them take downsome high-priority targets. Namely, we were sent to investigate a guard house(since trying to talk a gnomish inventor into helping us without copiousviolence was sadly not anywhere close to our forte.) Inside we found no guardsat all, but instead a massive iron golem guarding the place which we wereforced to fight after the attempts to bluff our way past it failed. With sometricky maneuvering (and a hand grenade), Gineye managed to deactivate the golemand we entered the captain’s office. Our suspicions were on high alert when theguard captain’s voice didn’t quite seem to match his body, but before theErinyes possessing him could do anything, Gineye petrified the captain with acrossbow bolt, then shattered the resulting stone form to prevent the Erinyesdoing more harm.

By the time we returned, the other team had safely securedthe inventor who was currently very clearly possessed himself. After a gooddeal of fooling around and failed attempts at exorcism using the Command spell,Lei realized that as a paladin, he could perform the exorcism himself. With theinventor finally free of possession, he demanded we shut down the factory thathad been making the golems and mechanical enforcers for Lord Darius, butinsisted that we not harm Darius when the time comes for he was in fact, a goodman. The revelation that the revenge Gineye sought would be deflected by yetanother Alternate did not go over well.

So, we set off towards the golem factory with Gineye leadingthe charge, revenge still smoldering behind his mask. When we arrived, thefactory seemed deserted, but when the guard dogs that came out of a few nearbykennels turned into hellhounds, and an ice devil dropped in from above, werealized we were in trouble. The battle, though brief, was tough, painful andlikely made worse by the absence of help from Zareem (who spent all of his timeattempting to get one of the hellhounds to trust him in an attempt to keep it.)Meanwhile, the ice devil managed to get inside the mental world Gineye used toconverse with the spirit of his axe and begin to corrupt it, leading to Gineyebeing unable to get back in. In a desperate bid to regain control, he demandedLei kill him, hoping that the soul trapping powers of the axe would give him aback door and a chance to find “Axey” again before his coin revived him. With aheavy heart, Lei and Zuradar complied, using their own weapons to kill theircompanion.

Gineye fell, then disappeared, reappearing shortly afterwardsacross the room, but something was very much different. Instead of the cheerymask he wore, there was a more sinister one with a jagged smile and a sinisterred glow from his eyes. As it had several times before, the axe had taken overGineye’s unconscious body, puppeteering it into using all of its abilities toattack his friends. Hoping to somehow break its control, Lei, Jemima andZuradar threw themselves into combat while Zareem continued to ignore the fightand attempted to gain favor with the hellhound in the corner. Even aftercalling for help, Zareem didn’t join the fight, stopping only to retrieve anice spear that had fallen from the ice devil’s body and throwing it into a furnace,completing the job of destroying the factory that they had been given.

Meanwhile, inside his head, Gineye was locked in a battlewith a being that resembled a corrupted version of the mostly benevolent spirtwho had helped him for the last several weeks. Assuming (probably correctly,though no confirmation has been given on this point) that this was in fact thepower source of the axe, built from the many slaughtered souls trapped insideit, and having corrupted the actual “Axey,” he sought to free her from thecorruption. A few times her consciousness seemed to flicker, as if his attemptswere getting through, but he was running out of ideas. In one last desperate move,he pulled her into a hug, and when that didn’t work, he used the power of theaxe to summon two spears, stabbing them both through her back and into his ownchest, aiming for the coin around his heart.

Back in the real world, the spear tips manifested out ofGineye’s body before they and he vanished again, leaving only the axe behind.The party barricaded the factory and then rested, worried about their friendbut too battered and tired to leave (save Zareem who had done basically nothingthe whole fight.) As they were ending their rest, a figure began to crawl outof the axe nearby, eventually solidifying into Gineye, though mysteriouslywearing the dress his spirit friend had worn. Naturally the team had questionsbut Gineye was evasive and wanted to move on, stopping only to shoo Jemima awayafter noticing that her poking his leg was causing no sensation of touch.

Their mission complete and their party gathered, theyventured forth to return to the rebellion’s hideout, only to find the doorwelded shut and a trail of blood leading them towards the other door and an unconsciousTai. Thankfully his injuries were minimal, but Tai’s story was grim: during thetime they were away, the hideout had been attacked by the robotic enforcersthat Lord Darius was using, but during that time they had made contact with adivination wizard by the name of Monty who was also a transplant from Faerun,one willing to aid them in their cause. Monty had given them a tip, telling thatthe leader of the rebellion was going to be publicly executed the next day, whichhappened to be only hours away now. Together they went to the town square, nowfitted with a gallows and a horde of people gathered to watch the execution.

Something was very much off, however, as the party hid amongthe crowd, waiting for their chance to strike. The man introduced as LordDarius was a far cry older than the man Gineye had known, and something feltvery wrong about the whole scenario. Those feelings were proven right whenGineye was attacked by one of the masked enforcers and the cloak was knockedoff of the “prisoner,” revealing yet another masked enforcer. The crowd ran asour heroes found themselves surrounded by more of the metallic men. Having dispatchedhis own attacker, Gineye used his axe to create a rope and swung over to thebox with the elderly Lord Darius, soon after followed by Lei using his ownmisty step ability to teleport over.

Inside the box, while the old man may have been recognizedas Lord Darius to the crowd, behind him, hidden from the audience, sat a muchyounger man with a stony expression on his face. The same Lord Darius who hadscarred Gineye’s face. Gineye readied one of the many small powder keg grenadeshe owned, but before he could exact his revenge, the two figures flanking theyounger Darius revealed themselves—one, an arch devil and the other, a demonlord. The demon quickly whisked Darius away, while the arch devil took off intothe city, leaving a swath of destruction in his wake. Before long, our heroesfound themselves in the midst of a holy war, with hordes of demonic forcespreviously hidden in the town, rising up to fight an onslaught of paladins, clerics,and other warriors blessed by divine forces.

Flanked by Zuradar, Gineye ran after the arch devil that hadfled from the observation box, but quickly ran into a group of paladins andclerics who were also pursing the same target. Two of the group, marked by thesymbol of the Raven Queen, immediately took offense at Gineye’s existence, callinghim a “filthy undead” as one attempted to smite him with a lightning bolt. AsGineye protested the inhumane treatment (while the gaping hole in his chestproved their accusations correct) a paladin marked with the symbol of “Bob,”the god of slaughter they had met previous, came over and uppercut the one who castthe lightning bolt (said storm cleric looking shockingly like Zareem.) Thepaladin of Bob revealed soon himself to be in fact Grug, released from thepunishment he had been given by Bob, who urged them to leave before somethingworse happened.

The older Lord had been retrieved from the observation boxby the time Gineye and Zareem returned, but as they returned so did the archdevilwho Gineye had failed to catch before. Introducing himself as Bael, he demandedthe old man be turned over. The party refused, attempting to stop him throughcombat, but their efforts proved futile as he simply walked over and took whathe wanted, before disappearing. Through the use of a haste spell and his own paladinskills, Lei was able to track Bael’s movement back to the Lord’s castle, but itwas decided that the party should rest before continuing on. After a short rest(in which Jemima hounded Gineye for a while in regards to his new undeadstatus, one he couldn’t really deny when the gaping hole in his chest magicallypatched itself up) they trooped off to the castle, preparing for a confrontation.

Lord Darius was inside when they entered, Gineye fullyprepared to take him down one-on-one, were it not for the young noble killinghis older counterpart in front of the bard. Remembering the request from thegnome earlier, Gineye used a new spell, revivify, to revive him before whiskingthe old man outside to protect him. Then, as he returned, finally ready for hisrevenge, that moment was stolen from him as a dark shape appeared behind theyoung Darius, taunting the party before snapping his neck and summoning shadowsto attack our heroes. After having fought them once thanks to Grug, the partyknew how to deal with these shadows and the fight was brief, but by the timethey finished the shadowy creature had left, leaving behind the empty husk thatwas once Gineye’s most hated foe.

Gineye was all set to use his magic to revive or preservethe body, but the arrival of a man through a dimensional door stopped him. Itwas Monty, the diviner they’d been told about, who was more than happy to usehis magic to prove that even if Gineye preserved the body, there was no soulleft to revive him. However, Monty was able to speed them along on their waytowards finding the rebellion’s missing leader, as he directed them towards a dungeonarea that his scrying couldn’t see into—which must be the place as he couldfind her nowhere else.

Inside the dungeon lay a maze of traps, pitfalls andsentient doors who kept their rooms locked with riddles. Inside the very last doorin the maze was a set of stairs leading down to a large room, where a strange,sinister ritual was taking place. A number of cultists surrounded summoning circles,two of whom were wreathed in flame, the one in the middle conjuring up a domeof solid darkness. As stealthily as they could, the party slid closer, Gineyemanaging to make it all the way to a door on one side of the room where he cameacross a terrifying sight: the same exact cell in which he had been tortured.

Unleashing the full power of the axe, he demolished the cultistsin a single hail of swords, which left the summoned fire elementals free toattack at will. Again, the fight was short, the most notable event was Jemimadoing her best to attack one of the elementals with the rapier she’d beencarrying all this time—while forgetting that without magical properties to it,the enchanted fire could easily melt it. Rest in peace, rapier, you were loved.Once the fires died down (literally) the team set about investigating the roomand the dome of darkness in the center of the room. Sadly, efforts to dispel itproved fruitless so the party turned their attention towards a mural on thewall, one depicting a multi-segmented circle, each with a crowned creature carvedinside. After close inspection—including noticing that one segment seemed todepict the same tarrasque they had unleashed upon the world previously—the partyguessed the mural was related somehow to the cult they had encountered, worshippingprimordials from the different planes (each of the elementals seemed to bedepicted, along with ones that looked celestial and infernal.) Finally, theygave one last attempt to dispel the dome, finally breaking the spell with awell-placed arrow, but instead of finding the leader inside as they’d hoped,all they saw was a shadowy creature who disappeared in seconds, followed by hermagical cloak which Zareem kept for himself.

As they went to leave, who should they run into but Grug andthe same paladins and clerics from before? Gineye, remembering their reaction tohim, attempted to hide in the stairwell, but the storm cleric (who still lookedshockingly like Zareem) detected him with his own divine sense. As the partyrushed to protect him, Zareem himself squared up, drawing his sword anddemanding that the paladin face him instead. It only took one single mightyblow from the paladin’s mace to instantly kill the already injured Zareem. Therepresentatives of the Raven Queen left, telling the group to keep “theirundead” on a leash, as everyone tried to figure out what to do now. It was thenGineye posed an idea: someone should let him borrow a 3rd levelspell slot. His words were cryptic, but nobody had any third level slots leftafter the long day they’d had, so Gineye lowered it to a second level slot. TentativelyJemima offered him one of her second level slots, and Gineye in responseplunged his hand into his own heart, pulling out an axe and handing it to her,fading into the axe as his mask appeared on her face. From inside her mind, heused her body and magic to cast a spell to preserve Zareem’s body, before the groupset about a much longer rest.

About halfway through their rest, Zareem revived, his coinhaving activated—giving him permanent wings and a new set of powers. Gineye leftJemima’s mind and reformed in the physical world, and after a bit of foolingaround with him trying to mind-hop into Pip the owlbear’s mind that ended withGineye accidentally killing (and immediately reviving) the poor creature, the teamdecided it was time to move on. The war had died down across Paplus, and theirmission was over though at great cost. After delivering the news of the outcometo Tai, the team set off in search of a Gnoll paladin of Silvanus who they weretold had a scroll for them

What they found instead was a mysterious bar—the same barthey had encountered in Lunacy, still run by the extremely shady feeling manwho just so happened to sometimes be the primordial of Earth. Zareem andZuradar both asked to see what goods he was peddling today, leading to Zareemgaining a +1 chain shirt and Zuradar acquiring himself a +2 bow (for only twoof his hit dice, a total “bargain!”). Meanwhile, Jemima found the gnoll seatedat a table and retrieved the scroll from him. The man let them leave afterthat, noticing how uncomfortable the other three were, but with a reminder thatthey could find him if they only looked for him.

Outside the shady bar (which had mysteriously vanishedagain) they discovered that the scroll was a teleportation sigil, but one thatthey weren’t capable of activating. One person however, was, and it took only asingle utterance of Monty’s name for him to appear through a tear in reality,casting the spell that would take them off to the tournament.

After the chaos of a holy war and a rebellion all in thespan of less than a week, the gang was happy to have a chance to settle down andrelax. Once in the tournament building, they had to sign up, either in solo matchesor groups of 2, which lead to Zareem and Zuradar becoming a group (fittinglynamed Heaven and Hell), Lei and Jemima teaming up (as Swords and Chords) andGineye going solo (under the name “The Entirety of France.”) Then, with an hourto prepare, the teams wandered the building, discovering their old friend Jonahhaving set up a merchants stall there. Jemima immediately informed him of theloss of her rapier, relinquishing the melted remains. In return, he gave her asword he’d fashioned from some of the dragon bones she’d given him, a rapierelegantly combining master swordcraft with the sublime beauty of the naturalworld.

Geared up once more, the matches began. Zareem and Zuradarfound themselves heavily outmatched by a pair of orcs. After Zareemaccidentally hit the younger (and far more badly damaged) of the two with acritical hit poison spray, inadvertently killing the orc, the older and moreexperienced orc proceeded to knock both of them out. Jemima and Lei’s roundwent much smoother, against a lizardfolk and a man in a strange leather dusterwho carried what could only be referred to as guns. Despite the strange man’sapparent prowess with his weapons, he managed to score only one hit on Jemimabefore he was knocked unconscious himself, and the Lizardfolk surrendered soonafter.

Gineye’s match however was stranger still. His opponent wasa man who seemed to disappear shortly after the match started, stayinginvisible or hiding behind dust clouds the whole match, but doing significantdamage to Gineye in the process. Finally, angered, Gineye readied a crossbowbolt, striking as soon as he saw the man’s arm clearly. The petrification boltworked perfectly, petrifying the man and winning Gineye the match (though notbefore a contingency spell activated, using lesser restoration on the man whograciously conceded.)

After their match concluded, Gineye left to find his friendsin the infirmary (though only Zuradar and Zareem needed much attention.) In themidst of their conversation, the man he had just fought walked in, joining thediscussion of the fights he had witnessed. He introduced himself as James and extendedan offer to Gineye to meet him for breakfast at a specific tavern the nextmorning. Tired from their battles, the group headed out to an inn to rest. Itwas agreed that Gineye should go to the tavern to meet James the next day (sincethey might be more relaxed if it was just him) while the rest would return tothe tournament location to find out what was going on. The tournament itselfwouldn’t start for two days, and the actual matches were entirely team-based,but since Lei and Jemima both had passed their matches (as well as Gineye) theywere allowed to form a team and invite the two who had failed their matches aswell.

Gineye’s investigation only put him more on edge. Jamesseemed very eager to recruit him away from the others, even offering to “helphim leave” should Gineye need it, in a way that suggested assassination wouldbe involved. He also knew more than he should, particularly about the war inPaplus and how Gineye’s party had come through a portal in Paplus that shouldhave originated north of the town of Tance, the same as another group whoarrived recently (where, unknown to James, the hidden town of Sylvenstand waslocated.) Gineye played along as best he could, mocking his teammates and theirdecisions and offering to send a package later that day that might be useful toJames’ group. However, once he returned, he clearly wasn’t eager to join such ashady group, but instead had Lei send a package over to the tavern—one containingthe Axe Gineye had pulled from his own heart yet again. However, to his dismaynobody actually took the axe while he was there and in fact nobody was home forthe full day, leaving him to sneak out the next night with a pilfered spellbookand a sour mood.

Finally however, the day of the tournament arrived. The gangwas among the first to compete, finding themselves soon in a large arena packedwith thousands of onlookers. In the middle of the arena, a Kenku introducinghimself as Veo Elmwood was acting as the Emcee, introducing first our heroes asthe “NaCl Pain Delivery Service” and their opponents as “The Hands of Nature.” Theparty (and especially Jemima) were pleased to see Edan again, along with hisalternate Ivan, the ranger Alice (whom Zuradar had attempted and failed to seduceback in Sylvenstand) and Leafsong, the Gnoll paladin from earlier.

However, instead of a fighting competition as the party hadexpected, it was instead a series of games and tests of skill, each with a “firstto 3 points” system of one-on-one matches. The actual games were chosen by diceroll, with the first being a drinking contest. Gineye stepped up, certain hecould win with his undead constitution, even against his opponent Ivan, butonce again Ivan’s luck was on his side as he came back with three points toGineye’s two. Next, Jemima found herself face-to-face with Edan in a challengeof pure luck as they rolled dice, each hoping for a higher roll than theiropponent. Right at the last moment, when it looked as though Edan would scoreanother point for his team, Jemima caught a glow around Ivan’s hand for amoment as the dice flipped over onto a natural 1. Finally, it was Lei and Leafsong’sturn, a test of endurance as they were forced to withstand increasingly harderthrown rocks without crying out in pain. In the end however, Lei managed tohold out the longest, scoring another point for our heroes. And as we left themat the end of that session, they were preparing for the next round of combat: atrial by combat, forced by Ivan again using his luck to twist the die to his favor.

And there you are, thirty episodes summarized as best Icould, with deep apologies for not being able to condense it even further. Ihope you enjoy reading it, and feel free to check out our episodes on youtube!

#d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd #NaCl D&D #i'm so sorry about how long this took #turns out 8900 words takes several days to write #i could have been more succint i'm sure but i didn't want to miss anything #consider this a recap for anyone wanting to catch up?#again i'm sorry for the extreme length XD i'm more wordy than i think #venusvirago

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rockiesturnrose · 7 years

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D&D Diaries-October 17

So last night’s D&D session was an Event, the kind of Event that will be forever referenced, and a reminder of just how amazing this game can be?

Since we’re essentially a drop-in campaign (though with 5 constant party members), we occasionally get new blood. This week, it was a baby!Rogue, arcane trickster specialization. Turned out to be a bit of a jerk, but he was also a full elf. Not unexpected, alas.

The other thing? Our healer was missing this week, again. I suspect it’s because he owes Keth money and doesn’t want to pay up. So we’re again relying on potions and just plain not dying.

So, it starts like this: our motley assortment of adventurers was tasked with transporting a mysterious package overseas. We had to take said package from guild HQ down to the docks to actually start the adventure. Doesn’t seem difficult, right? Well, the tanks didn’t think so.

See, our ranger put the package in her bag of holding to keep it safe. And our fighter thought ‘out of sight, out of mind! Package is safe, this will be a breeze!’ So he challenged the barbarian to a race down to the docks. And the barbarian, missing the Voice of Reason that is the healer, readily agreed to the fun. The two took off at high speed, leaving the rest of us (2 rogues, a wizard and a ranger) all alone.

Yeah, they broke the cardinal rule of D&D: DON’T SPLIT THE PARTY.

And that’s not the worst thing they did. No. They tore through a busy market, causing a bit of an uproar there. And then the fighter crashed into a produce stand, causing a huge disturbance. It involved the guards, we’ll get back to it because it is important.

More importantly: us squishies, meandering along at a slower pace, couldn’t get through the square because of the throng of people yelling at something we couldn’t see. So in order to get to the docks before our ship left, we took a side alley.

Turns out, some baddies were waiting for us to leave the crowd so they could steal the package. They dropped some boxes at the entrance of the alleyway, cutting us off. I’m a rogue, I need stealth and surprise. I had neither of these things.

The gnome wizard tried to intimidate the thugs, telling them that if ‘they wanted his package, they’d have to buy him dinner first.’ His charisma is 8—the thugs did not take kindly to him. In fact, they hit him first.

Fun thing about wizards? They aren’t frontline fighters. They aren’t meant to take hits. (To be fair, he was only near the front because he was trying to convince Keth that they should open this mysterious package.)

The wizard tried to hold his own, aiming a fireball at the crotch of the head thug (who was conveniently placed so it would hit all the other dudes too). All the baddies succeeded their saving throws, so they took a grand total of 8 damage. Yeah, the wizard rolled 8d6 and only got 16/48 possible damage. He rolled a lot of ones. It was sad.

So he got knocked out almost instantly. Someone healed him, he got up and tried to cast Hold Person, he failed, he got instantly knocked out again.

(all the while, I was glaring at the two tanks who were either staring at this farce in shock, or doubled over laughing. If the wizard got hit, I’d toss them a middle finger. Keth’s fury is righteous and long lived. I had words for the tanks.)

Wizard rolls a death saving throw, fails. Not good, but not terrible yet. He has two more. We could let him lie there for a bit. Few more rounds of combat, take out a mook or two

The next fun thing to happen? The wizard rolled a Nat 1 on his second death saving throw. The DM looked at him, completely mindboggled. “Okay. If someone heals you like, immediately, you won’t die.”

Thankfully, I went next. Not so thankfully, I had been set up perfectly for flanking and possibly ending this fight. But now I had to heal the wizard or we would legit lose him. Keth sees the wizard spasm and make some terrible sounds, so she decides she needs to heal this small dude she’s fond of. So I used my action to give him a greater healing potion. You know, pretty expensive, 4d4 plus 4 healing? I figured I’d give him at least a fighting chance.

I rolled 4 1s.

The entire table had a moment of stunned silence, then burst into laughter. The DM stopped the game to take a picture of this spectacular fail.

Whenever someone rolls spectacularly good or bad, the DM gives you a bonus or a penalty (like last campaign, our sorcerer had advantage on this climbing check and rolled 2 nat 20s. So now he can basically spider climb without having to roll). This photo-worthy dice fail deserved something. My permanent new bonus when healing? Everyone I administer a healing potion to gets an extra +1 HP. “That’s…not what I was expecting, but okay,” says I, starting to jot it down.

The DM smiles his terrible smirk. “There’s more,” he says. “Whenever you heal the tanks, they get -2 to whatever you roll.”

Cue more laughter from the table. Keth is so mad at these idiots, and probably will be for a while, that whenever she tries to heal them her absolute fury and loathing is felt in what is supposed to be a life giving substance. And even when she does cool down and they redeem themselves, there will always be that small part of her subconscious that’s still keenly aware that their foolishness almost got their wizard killed three times.

So the wizard gets healed. But by this point he’s just pissed off the head thug so much that the dude instantly attacks him. He’s unconscious again.

(That’s 3 times in 30 seconds, more or less. He wasn’t having a good morning)

Keth originally had plans to keep this last guy alive to ask what’s so important about this package, so I was just going to roll non-lethal damage. Turns out, sneak attack damage isn’t like…the most subtle of damages. Especially when you roll 17/18 possible sneak attack damage. Keth was a combination of very panicked and super pissed off that her assassin training took over and she just wasted the guy. “Oh, oops, meant to have my dagger pointing the other way. Oh, well.”

To top it off, these guys were so nondescript that we couldn’t even tell who sent them. So that was useless.

When the battle was finally over, the fighter’s player looked at us and was like ‘Hey, no, it’s good we’re not there! This would’ve been tougher!!’ The DM just looked at him and shook his head. Apparently, this battle was supposed to be super easy for our entire team. All it was supposed to do was let us know this package was so important that people were after it. He kind of expected the tanks to take care of the big guy while the rest of us picked off the tiny mooks. A 5 minute combat, tops. Not 30 minutes with our wizard getting knocked out three times.

Also, the barbarian, out of character, tried to mitigate my anger by pointing out he had given Keth 100 gold from selling some treasure no one knew he had, and that that should have garnered him some goodwill. Then there was an incredulous ‘you think the wizard’s life is worth 100 gold???’ followed by the squishies pointing out that the value of health potions poured down his throat was more than the 100 gold. The barbarian was thus shamed.

There was also a slightly hilarious moment when we looked at our poor wizard and decided maybe someone should carry him? Except Keth and the ranger are both weak as shit (8), so we looked at the other rogue, who has a whopping 12 points in strength. We labelled him the strongest among us and gave the gnome to him. The tanks only tuned in at the mention of ‘strongest’ and asked what number value that was. Then both started laughing because they’re at 18 and 19.

So how did the footrace turn out? Well, as mentioned, the fighter careened into a vegetable stall and got covered in tomatoes. He attempted to push the stall away and continue, but the town guard was instantly there. Somehow, amazingly, despite a 5 to a persuasion check, he convinced the guards to let him go if he just paid the fine (they crit failed against the persuasion). The merchant demanded 50 gold and made the fighter count it out one piece at a time. He was in such a rush he dropped the 49th piece and had to start again. If the guard hadn’t been there watching, he would not have payed such an exorbitant amount.

The DM’s original plan was for the disturbance that made us take a side alley be a planned thing, something the thugs had started when we left the guild. But because of the fighter’s shitty rolling, the disturbance ended up being caused by him. He was the reason we had to take an alley, and he was the reason we got ambushed. The thugs just took advantage of this handy distraction.

Of course, we squishies didn’t know that until we finally got the docks. The wizard, poor thing, was covered in blood. The fighter was covered in tomatoes. When he tried to ask what happened, Keth scooped up some of the tomatoes and shoved them in his mouth. She did this three times, every time he tried to talk, before storming away. She contemplated slapping the barbarian or kneeing him in the groin, before deciding he wasn’t even worth the effort.

Meanwhile, the ranger (who has the calmest head, apparently) told them what happened to us. The fighter put the pieces together and was like “Oh shit. Oh shit, you guys, I’m so sorry that was totally my fault.”

The wizard, battered, bloody and pissed off, heard this and whirled on the fighter. He cast firebolt at him and crit succeeded on the roll. The fighter, now smelling like burnt tomatoes and missing his beard and mustache, was left with 3 HP and much shame. Their strange détente is…I’m not sure where it is now. The fighter won’t doubt the wizard’s ability to start fires now, at least? The wizard might stay pissed off for a while.

So on the plus side, the idiots have gained some awareness. They have realized that we squishies require someone big with us at all times because none of us are good at sustained close quarters combat. We can’t take the same hits, we will die. We rely on being far away from the combat, or only being close for a maximum of 2 seconds. The barbarian, at least, was suddenly much more attentive of us. It remains to be seen if the fighter will be.

Also Keth learned that the barbarian considers cities ‘safe for adventurers.’ He bases this off the fact that civilians could do little damage to him, while he could do lots of damage to them. Keth was furious and pointed out that she’s an adventurer, more skilled than he is (level 5 vs his level 4 so you know), was raised in this city, and still doesn’t go traipsing about because cities aren’t safe for anyone. Who’s to say the person attacking you isn’t an adventurer themselves?

And then she stopped talking to both of them.

So we finally got on the ship, which was…an experience. The wizard and other rogue were both puking their guts out. The barbarian actually followed through on his awareness by gluing himself to their sides. Keth still glared at the both of them, though only the barbarian really noticed her ire.

Second day into a week long journey, and of course we get attacked. Same nondescript band of assorted humanoids, all after the package. This battle wasn’t necessarily as hilarious as the last one. We had both our tanks actually performing their jobs (the fighter got knocked out and kept asking me if that was redeeming enough. I just responded that he might want someone else to heal him). The wizard took no damage this time, to his relief. I put uncanny dodge to wonderful use. We managed to make short work of the entire pirate crew except one annoying gnome.

Actually there was one beautiful moment, where a guy attempted to stab the ranger, lost grip on his sword, and sent it flying through the air. As the ranger is watching it go by, he stabs her for laughing at him.

Keth also learned that when jumping fifteen feet down, she needs to be a bit more graceful or she’ll take some damage. She’s blaming it on preparing for the boat to suddenly rock and it staying pretty still. Being over prepared can sometimes hurt.

So there we all were, moving in for the disabling blow on the gnome pirate when a fucking ballista caught him in the stomach and sent him flying over the side of the ship. Cue all of us, staring in surprise, convinced that these guys were so well-organized they didn’t want any of their own taken alive. As the DM revealed, they nat 1ed hitting the barbarian and hit their own guy instead. It was painful.

Then the wizard noticed that the bad guy’s ship was trying to get away, so he sent a fireball at them. It took out everyone on the deck in a glorious blaze of fire. He got a bunch of XP for one shotting seven NPCs.

The tanks boarded the second ship to see if there was anything worth stealing. While headed down into the lower reaches, the fighter kept his halberd at the ready…and ended up spearing a crew member hiding down there. Spearing him so hard, in fact, the halberd got imbedded in the wall. And then he couldn’t dislodge the weapon. The barbarian, meanwhile, found a second guy and attempted to tackle him. Except he kept rolling really badly, and the guy managed to teleport away.

Meanwhile the newbie rogue demanded our crew give us payment for saving their lives. They tied a rope around his waist and dropped him off the side of the boat until he stopped being a jerk. Full elves, you know.

And then we ended the night standing around in -10 weather discussing concussions?? I love this group so much. I had reservations joining a drop-in group, but we all mesh so well together, everyone’s pretty reasonable, and everyone’s pretty consistent about showing up. It’s great. Even if not every week has an event worth writing about, it never fails to put me in a good mood.

#Kethila Nadroson #universe: Gryffonshield Guild

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goodcyndaquill · 7 years

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This is a written piece about the DnD campaign I have going on with @turianjournalist , @felxndaris, and a few other friends. To clear things up for anyone that wants to read it: Yevelda is a half-orc fighter, Maeve is a halfling bard, Emry is half-elf ranger, Torrin is a dragonborn druid, Eze is a gnome barbarian, Safaris is a tiefling rogue, Obsidian is Emry’s panther companion, and Billy is Torrin’s goat companion. So, if you read this thanks! If you don’t want to follow this content I will be tagging them as #DnD and #Mavelda every time.

Yevelda smiled as she walked with Maeve perched on her shoulder down the winding road. The weather was perfect for walking in between towns, providing a nice day for traveling for the party. Eze was sitting on top of Billy’s back smoking a joint and trying to get the goat to join her. Thankfully, Torrin was keeping a watchful eye on her actions. For the life of her Yevelda would never understand that gnome. She was beyond aggravating, always managing to hit on Yevelda’s last nerve, but still they kept her around. Eze was at least useful in a fight. Emry kept up a conversation with Obsidian as they traveled. They discussed the tree growth in the area and how healthy the grass appeared. After the hellscape of the big city, the ranger was excited to interact with nature again. Torrinn, the darling, was humming a bit under his breath as he walked alongside Billy and Eze. Yevelda couldn’t help but smile at the small dragonborn. Safaris trailed toward the rear of the group, lurking along without much conversation. She was a mysterious person, but she was loyal to their mission. Finding Kriv was easier said than done, but Safaris was willing to help in order to keep Torrin happy.

Yevelda had never felt this level of contentment before. She had been treated like a lesser being her entire life, and to have friends that depended on her was a new concept. The responsibility was frightening, yet added a sort of comfort to her day. She knew that every morning she was going to be met with the faces of her companions.

“It’s nice out, huh? Emry sure seems to be enjoying himself,” Yevelda said to Maeve.

“Yeah, not bad. I’m glad we are all out of that city,” they said in response.

“Definitely. I never thought I would have to go back. I’m just glad we got out without too much trouble. My past could have quickly caught up with us, and I didn’t want to put that on the group.”

“I understand that. There are a lot of bad memories in that city,” Maeve sighed and their body kind of drooped. Yevelda felt panic twinge through her chest at the distress Maeve seemed to be feeling. Out of everyone, Yevelda trusted in their friendship the most and knew that if worst came to worst she would always side with the halfling.

“Is there...I don’t know” Yevelda grumbled trying to put her words into a cohesive sentence, “Can I help? With anything?”

Maeve was silent for a second, “ I don’t…”

Their words were interrupted by a man standing in their path along the road, “Hello travelers!”

Yevelda tensed up at the introduction, feeling on edge with the sudden appearance. She knew that this was most likely a robbery, kidnapping, or assassination attempt. However, the last was the least likely given that an assassin would be an idiot to announce their presence.

“You are all very kind to donate to our fund today! I’ll need money, jewels, weapons, and any other valuables you may be carrying,” the man announced while holding out a bag of holding.

“Oh yeah! Let’s-” Eze began before being cut off by Emry and held back by Torrinn.

“You, sir, should not attempt to steal from us. This will end poorly for you,” Emry announced.

“Yeah, yeah you filthy noble. Come on prissy pants, put all your shit in the bag and none of you will get hurt,” The thief snarled.

“You think you could take all of us on? By yourself? Our gnome here would love to kill you right where you stand.” Emry rebuked. Yevelda strained to stop herself from rolling her eyes. The sad fact of the matter was that Emry wasn’t even lying.

“You might not be afraid of me alone but how about-,” the man whistled loudly, “15 of my men?”

“Hey, Fuckwit,” Yevelda gruffed while gently placing Maeve on the ground and stepping in front of them, “We are going to walk through here with all of our stuff and there isn’t a thing you can do to stop us. Your men don’t scare me.”

“Bold much, Half-Orc bitch?”

“Fuck you!” Maeve shouted trying to skirt around Yevelda, “Let’s go!”

“Maeve!” Yevelda barked before turning her attention back to the thieves, “As my companion here was trying to say you can either let us pass or face the consequences.”

The man bellowed out in laughter, and the group took that as a cue to draw their weapons. Yevelda quickly unhitched her warhammer and shield from her back. The familiar weight of the weapon brought a small sadistic smile to her face. She enjoyed the hefty weight of the hammer in her hand, and knew that these men would not be much of a challenge. They reminded her of a gang from her past that was quickly wiped out because they got too ambitious and tried to take from the wrong people. Thievery is a game of wits, and those as bold as this man wouldn’t last long in the real world of crime. Yevelda has seen people from all walks of life attempt this gig only to fail miserably. She was glad to teach this poser a lesson about stealing.

“One last chance, put your shit in the bag and no one will get hurt,” he demanded confidently.

“It’s your last chance to give up now before you all die,” Yevelda growled out, tusks jutting out further in a menacing look.

“Fine have it your way,” the man suddenly ducked and a flaming ball of fire flew straight over his head aimed at Emry.

In that instance the fight had begun. Yevelda watched as Eze went beserk, charging into the group of men with her hand axes held high. She tried to take out as many kneecaps as she could. Emry had dodged the fireball in time by rolling out of the way. He quickly came up to one knee and began firing shots off into the group of men. He ordered Obsidian to attack their leader. The panther lunged forward, only to be struck in the side with an icy blast from another magic user in their band. Emry cried out in horror as his beloved panther fell. Safaris was quick to rush in and scoop up the injured feline and pull him out of the fray. She moved with the grace of a dancer on the battlefield, dodging blows all while carrying the great beast. Once she laid the cat at Emry’s feet, she worked her way back into the fight. Daggers glinted in the sunlight as she struck out against the large human men attempting to pin her down. Each of their clumsy moves was countered by three of her own. In no time she had debilitated two of her attackers and was working on another. Torrinn had shifted into a timber wolf and was circling around the band of thieves quietly, trying to gain the element of surprise. He latched onto the shoulder of one of the archers in the back of the group. His screams rang out, echoing loudly through the trees. A smile cracked Yevelda’s face knowing that even sweet Torrin was fighting for all he was worth.

Yevelda knew that taking out the leader was the best plan of action for ensuring that the fighting ceased. If he died, his men may not feel like continuing the battle and that could cut down on injuries. Without Warren the group was more vulnerable, and getting injured now could spell death. Launching with a yell, Yevelda swung her hammer out in hopes of striking the leader in the head. Unfortunately, he was quick and deftly dodged out of the way. He pulled a rapier from his hip and squared up to fight. Yevelda let out a large huff of air reminiscent of a laugh. This puny man thought he could fight her with that dinky little weapon. The thief’s eyes glinted as his eyebrow quirked upwards.

“You underestimate my abilities, half breed,” he spat the insult like it was fire in her direction.

“Like I haven’t heard that before from my victims,” Yevelda added a growl to the end of her sentence.

The duo began to circle each other, trying to test the waters without jumping in. Yevelda knew that she had an advantage in strength and reach over the man, but he was much quicker than her. If he got under her swing, he could take jabs at her abdomen. But if she swung upwards he would have nowhere to dodge and get within her space. As they pair finished their appraisal of the other, Yevelda caught sight of Maeve firing bolts into crowds of thieves from a boulder they had perched upon. The sight of was a reminder of what could happen if Yevelda didn’t finish this fight fast. With a plan formed Yevelda faked to the left and swung her great hammer upwards toward the man’s chin on his left side. He had attempted to lunge at her right side with his sword, but that had only put him in a better position for her attack. Yevelda caught the thief under the chin with her mighty swing, snapping his head back and severing his neck from the spinal column. He dropped into a heap on the ground, his lifeless body folding in upon itself.

“I think you underestimated me,” Yevelda bellowed as she attached her shield to her back and grabbed the corpse, “Your leader is dead. Cease and desist.”

“NO!” a man that was lingering back in the group screamed. He quickly summoned a great ball of fire in his hands and flung it out towards Yevelda. Without her shield the fire would inflict massive damage. Frantically she dropped to ground, and tried to roll out of the way of the attack. Her somersault brought her back up to her feet in one fluid motion as she pulled a dagger from its holster on her thigh. With sheer force, Yevelda flung the blade at the magic user and impaled him through his breast bone. She could hear him choking on blood that quickly pooled in his throat and lungs.

“Anyone else?” She replied eerily calm.

“Yevelda!” Torrin shouted from behind her, “Maeve! They’re hurt.”

With that Yevelda turned her back on the enemy, a move that no fighter should ever make in the heat of battle. Torrin was cradling an unconscious Maeve in his arms. They were burned badly indicating that the fireball aimed at Yevelda had indeed met a mark. Suddenly red filled Yevelda’s vision. The world was drowned in blood and she was prepared to add to it. With speed that a person her size should never possess, Yevelda whipped around and faced the five remaining men. They were at fault for hurting Maeve. They were the reason Maeve was burned and in pain. With a blood-curtling scream, Yevelda charged the men with two axes in hand. Rage like she had never felt coursed through her veins, even when she had been tied down and beaten by the orc gang she had not felt this bloodlust. With vicious precision Yevelda cut through the enemies bodies as if they were butter. As she powered onward she could feel weight begin to drag her down, but nothing would stop her from obliterating the cause of Maeve’s pain.

“Yevelda! Stop!” Emry shouted as he clung to her back.

“Fucking hell,” Eze cursed as she was dragged behind Yevelda, hanging onto her leg for dear life.

“See reason Yevelda! That one is the healer! He could fix them!” Safaris reasoned as she tried to wrap her tail around Yevelda’s stomach. Their efforts were making little impact on the rampaging woman. The man was quivering in fear, knowing that the warrior was seconds away from slicing him in half like his companions mere seconds before. However, Torrin stepped in front of the man, clutching the dying Maeve to his chest.

“Yevelda, stop,” he whispered, standing directly in the path of destruction.

Abruptly all motion ceased, and Yevelda stood centimeters from Torrin and Maeve. Great puffs of air were forced from her lungs in an effort to maintain control over her emotions. Peering over the top of Torrin’s head, Yevelda could see the final member of the band of thieves. He had soiled himself in fear, and was currently slumped to the ground in obvious relief. He didn’t appear to be carrying anything other than a dagger and a bag of holding. A thief with so little was most likely support for the others in his group, meaning he was most likely a healer.

“Are you a fucking healer?” Yevelda said, still trying to push her rage and panic down deep in her chest.

At first the man winced at her voice, then slowly looked up.

“Fucking answer me!”

“Yes…” he meekly replied.

Yevelda reached out for Maeve, and Torrin didn’t hesitate a moment before handing them over. She cradled the halfling gently in her arms, the blood from the slaughtered men staining Maeve’s clothes.

“Fix Maeve, or I will end your pitiful life with my bare hands,” Yevelda threatened in a menacing whisper.

“Y-yes,” the man began digging in his bag of holding, “Set her down here.”

“It’s they,” she barked.

“R-r-right. Set them down here.”

Yevelda knelt down, protecting Maeve’s body with her own. She balanced their tiny body on her lap and awaited the healer’s instructions. All the while, Yevelda never took her eyes off of Maeve’s face. They looked so broken, with burn marks running across their chest. The fireball had hit them dead center, a hit Maeve could had deftly dodged if they had seen it coming. But, they hadn’t because the blast had been meant for Yevelda. If only she had taken the hit instead, Maeve wouldn’t be this close to death. Yevelda could still feel small, bird-like breaths, but they were fading out fast.

“I need you to open their mouth. This is a potion of superior healing, so it will hopefully be enough to save their life.”

Quickly following the command, Yevelda gently opened Maeve’s mouth and held it so the healer could pour the potion slowly down their throat. Once the vial was emptied, Yevelda sat still as a statue waiting for any sign of improvement.

“Please Maeve. You have to come back,” she whispered softly so that no one but Maeve could hear.

The halfling’s eyes began to flutter open and they saw Yevelda’s face covered in blood hovering over them. Tears shined in Yevelda’s eyes, and Maeve knew she was fighting back her feelings for the sake of the group. Yevelda was always like that, looking out for everyone but herself. Maeve gingerly reached up and wiped some of the blood off Yevelda’s cheek.

“You know this stuff stains right?” they said gruffly, their throat still sore.

A bright smile overtook Yevelda’s face and a few tears fell, “So I’ve been told. I should have cleaned up before welcoming you back, but I figured saving your life should come first.”

“Eh, I’ve seen you looking worse.”

“Well, you certainly have never looked better. Being alive suits you,” Yevelda hugged Maeve to her chest gently. She had never felt so relieved in her life, and that might account for the swift kiss she placed on Maeve’s hair.

The group let the two have their moment, knowing that it was more significant than either Yevelda or Maeve realized. Emry talked to the thief and let him go on his way after handing over several more healing potions. One of which Emry took to the injured Obsidian and administered immediately. Safaris, Eze, and Torrin began collecting weapons off of the ground and looting the bodies for valuables.

“When are those two going to figure it out already?” Eze whined.

“They have to get there on their own time,” Safaris said.

“I can’t wait till they do!” Torrin chimed in.

Yevelda straightened herself out of the kneeling position and gently placed Maeve atop her shoulders so they wouldn’t have to walk. She grabbed up her discarded weapons and turned to find the rest of the party waiting on her.

“What the hell are you all waiting for? Get a move on,” she commanded while rejoining them, glad to have the familiar weight of Maeve on her shoulders again.

#Mavelda #DnD #my campaign #Yevelda is my girl

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