In Rememberance

We last left off with two party members dead and no healing for any future encounters, meaning those who are damaged stay damaged. Unsurprisingly this was a problem. Even so the brave adventurers continue on valiantly on their quest for the bow.

The next real encounter is inside of a room containing an enormous device on the floor. Once the engineer steps out to investigate, the mechanism is reveled to be an enormous fan, and like any good dungeon this is not the only obstacle in this room, which includes two pissed off sphinx, who can actually maneuver inside the windy environment.

The three comrades then charge ahead, but with extremely limited success due to the strange environment. Luckily with the timely arrival of two strangers (New PC's) heralded by a quick incarnate zooming onto the scene accompanied by a cat on his back.

The battle is still difficult, though the party had closed in on to the sphinx, boxing them in and denying them their maneuverability.Once they can actually get a hit in it's a matter of a few blows to bring them down, and the factotum is given a chance to show off his new skills, grappling hooking to the ground and disabling the fan, with the engineer feather falling everyone safely to the ground.

With that done the party can move on. Next a small puzzle presented a problem, a button connected to a timer which dealt damage to whoever pushed it. There were of course barriers blocking the door backwards and forwards.

The solution is simply to let the time run out, but given the atmosphere and circumstances this was less than obvious. Eventually the solution was puzzled out, but not after they had already bashed through a wall to get to the other side of the door, thus passing the puzzle in a slightly different way.

Finally the party found the ranger they had been pursuing for some time, who then promptly shot many arrows at them. He also provided a unique challenge by being on a 50 ft. high platform, adding to the difficulty of getting to him.

Now the incarnate managed to actually jump up and get him while running his max speed, and the factotum's (cat's) grappling hook helped the totemist and engineer, while the shaper's eagle strike beat everyone to the punch, or claw as the case may be. The shaper then babooned the shit out of the archer, while the rest of the party preceded to make nice little meaty chunks of him, to everyone's great satisfaction.

The entire time however the party had been avoiding the elephant in the room, a genie. The genie had been standing, floating, in the middle of the room the entire time, and had challenged the party to a fair contest, which if they won they could get the acquire the bow.

The first of these fair contests was the genie fighting with the totemist, one on one, with a wall of fire preventing others from getting in, as well as damaging the totemist, and healing the djinn, who also happened to be an efreet. The continuous assault from the totemist proved to not be quite enough, with the genie driving him back to the point of unconsciousness, and past, though he still refused to yield because of his furious claws.

Luckily an adventorous incarnate managed to leap into the fray and to heal the totemist, as well as rescue him. The next fight was between the shaper and the genie, with the shaper changed into a polar bear. This was a much more even fight, with the shaper falling just as he delivered the final blow to the genie, who disintegrated into smoke.

No one had officially won a contest so far however, so the incarnate challenged him to a race, which surprisingly he accepted. Even with him transformed into a cheetah, and actively hurting the incarnate during the race it was not quite enough, and he conceded defeat, granting the party one wish and also delivering the legendary bow to them.

With much deliberation the wish was eventually decided upon to give them large quantities of gold, and they got as they wished, thought the gold was stolen, and the owner of this was in all likelihood watching and waiting to make his move.

Moving on to the finale they were granted the bow, and took their leave. They decided to head to the kobold, and see if he could discern anymore about the bow, given his immense knowledge. There is one more obstacle on the way though, a now gnoll who had been killed once before by them, and once before by an ogre. They would not have him come back this time though, once he was dead they would burn and crush and maim his bones to the point of no return.

I'd like to take this moment now to discuss a tragic loss. Someone who had been with the party for many months, who slept with the party, who was always trusted on to deliver that ever important finishing blow. He was truly, the greatest of them all, and without him it is doubtful whether the party can go on. His name was Thrusty, and he will always be remembered for his great contributions to the rape and pillage of so many people and places, before being tragically destroyed by a cruel and insensitive greatsword.

And so the party arrived at the kobold, though first completely and utterly destroying the bones of an old PC. While visiting however, they learned little information, and when asking him for a teleport were mistaken in a belief that it would always succeed. With a botched reading the party ended up in the town they started in, where one of them is wanted for murder.

Not much more was accomplished, though the incarnate was arrested for reckless destruction of property, and a breakout attempt was subsequently started, though not completed, as that will have to be left until next time.

The Final Countdown

We continue on the quest to evade the centipede tumbling blindly down some stairs in frantic panic. The next room however is completely and dark, and all the party can here is the continued rumblings of the centipede, when suddenly ... Pop! About a dozen glowing lights suddenly flash on.

These lights are more than they appear though, and all the balls fire energy rays at the party, missing dismally. Unfortunately for the party the cats are not so unlucky. Flying cats of doom spit acid at the party, doing moderate damage and adding a sense of urgency to the situation, though no more then the centipede was already providing.

So like any intelligent party the group sprints straight ahead, unaware of dangers lurking below, as the party healer who happened to be first falls down a pit. Luckily he has wings, sot he situation on a whole is nowhere near as bad as it could be. But with his handy wings the situation is soon rectified, and the peaceful march away can continue.

Of course, by peaceful march I mean full on sprint away from the flying cats. Who spit acid. And the centipede larger than most houses. Compared to some past excursions, it is peaceful, though on the whole, not as much as it could have been. But running jumping and tumbling the party arrives on the other side, and with only minor acid burns!

With that the done the party runs headlong into the next room, given relatively little choice with the beast behind them. In this room there are merely two towering behemoth abominations, nothing that hadn't been faced before, though the last time the party met them they were nearly TPK'd, they weren't that worried.

With much more experience on their shoulders and the firepower of a large tank they handle the creatures relatively easily, with the first beast driven down for the count with only a few jabs from a spear and some cuts from an axe, and the second knocked to the ground, though not dead, soon after. Then on to the next room the party rushes, keenly aware of their pursurer.

The next room contains their true object of desire, the goal of their current quest, and the mastermind behind the whole damn plot, Dr. Satan, real name Ptolemy. Accompanying him as always are his Marrasualt guards, deadly giants wielding enormous scimitars.

The guards put up quite a fight, first exhausting the party through howling screams, then tearing them apart with their enormous weapons. This was too much for the healer, who poisoned from previous encounters with the centipede collapses to the ground.

Thus begins the time of desperation for the party, reeling in the heat of the moment, with a centipede at their backs it seemed there was little chance to survive. Then a plucky young kobold sorcerer sneaked behind the guards in the form of a dragon, and did major damage to the good doctor, though eventually he was brought down himself.

This was enough of a morale boost for the party though, as a tired knight emerges victorious, rushing past the injured guards and delivering the final blow to the man who gave him life, in some small form of irony. This was not the end of Ptolemy though, as he sinks into a portal now opened, and leaves these parting words, "I'll be back".

And what kind of villain would he be had he not left a parting gift, that of explosives embedded in the ceiling, causing rocks to crash down and everyone to die.

Just kidding, the ceiling was not completely destroyed, just damage and with rocks falling and an approaching centipede the party prepared for a finalish battle. With resources almost exhausted this battle was close, with everyone within single digits of health if not less, but with the brave sacrifice of the dragon shaman, and the end of the original party the 'good guys' emerged victorious, and descended on the platform to unknown depths, unsure of what will now happen.