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.

The Bell Tolls Twice

Last time the second party left off they had just encountered some druids just outside of the kobold's lair in the basement of a house. They were subsequently dealt with so there was only one more thing to do. Deal with the blacksmith, in the kindest way possible.

This is where the amazing assassin attempts again to show off his skills. After his failure to immediately kill a cleric he needed a confidence booster. So he strolls right up to the blacksmith, invisible courtesy of the wizard and performs a sneak attack instantly killing the dwarf. Oh, no, no he doesn't. He stabs him once, misses, and doesn't even kill him with that attack.

The blacksmith responds to this unkindly, and beats his initiative and smashes him with a hammer, rightly deserved. The party wizard then comes to sort this out, but the rogue will have none of this, and stabs the blacksmith again, this time actually bringing him down. The party totemist, the only original member of the party that hated the blacksmith so much then does some unmentionable things to him.

So the party sets off, having accomplished everything they needed to. On the way to the location of the bow, they encounter two strange gentleman mounted on bears, who attack them without provocation. Bear cavalry is proven to be quite a formidable force, doing good damage to the party, though a summoned ape combined with a transformed ranger swiftly deal with one, though the other does a few ride by attacks before finally being brought down by the totemist and his leaping.

Without too much more trouble they arrive at the place where the bow should be, and find two doors, and two large gentleman, one wielding a bow, the other a sword, who are apparently beginning a race to the bow. They run in, and the doors close. After a little bit of scouting the party decides the best option is to smash the door, and go after the sword wielding of the pair.

Smashing through the door takes some time, but with the rogue's handy dandy admantine dagger it is eventually destroyed. They then rush ahead, and see a pit. A very deep pit, with a door on the other side, and a corpse at the bottom. Everyone can easily jump across, except for the engineer, who has to take off his armor to have a hope, and then fails his jump check falling all the way to the bottom, though using his insight to slow his fall significantly.

After getting back up with some help from friends with ropes, everyone arrives into the next room, which has a steady drip of water, something the engineer is utterly terrified of. After the party is entirely in the room, the drip becomes more of a rush, and it appears that the ceiling is buckling. With this unfortunate predicament the ranger and wizard run to the door opposite the one they came in on, and the rest of the party tries to smash down the previous door.

Then an enormous abberation collapses downwards, but the party assassin actually kills something for once, planting an arrow directly through its brain. The water continues rushing, but luckily the party is strong, and smash their way through both doors, continuing on through the dungeon.

 They are subsequently attacked by the man from before, wielding the enormous bow. After shooting them a few times, he runs off through the next door. they decide to follow him, breaking their way through the small partition separating them from where he was, and go charging forward.

Here they encounter a minesweeper room, with the mines being traps. Through a very long and animal sacrificing process they eventually uncover where most of the traps are, and acquire some very nice loot. Then things go bad.

Every other chest in the room was fine, why wouldn't this one be, thought the party rogue. This one was a mimic, a very sticky mimic, who got stuck to the rogue. The party didn't help things either, getting stuck or actually attacking him, the finishing blow was dealt by the engineer who threw a javelin straight through the rogue into the mimic, pinning his corpse to it.

This was not the only life claimed however, as there were a few other monsters in this room, including one tricksy earth monster, a xorn. This thing can float through walls like their air, or water or something, and had attacked the wizard previously. This time the wizard was weakened, and decided to attack head on with a dagger, instead of using spells like he should have.

This resulted in his head being bit off, and spit out. Finally the party found the lever, pulled it, and disabled all the traps. They also destroyed all the few remaining creatures, and then got ready to enter the next room, next session.

Some Sort of Monstrous Menagerie

Back to the first party again, we combine two sessions into one for the ultimate fusion. In this first session the party once again adventurers out unwittingly into danger, demons are slain, and some devious deals are done.

Onto the session, the first thing that happens is an assassin of sorts. The party bard hears things inside his head, and unlike all those other times, he's not crazy. He is told to come outside or the store he loves so much will be destroyed. So he strolls out, with the now invisible dragon shaman stepping behind him.

Instantly he is shot by two large arrows, taking a large amount of damage and still not quite sure where the shots came from. Everyone then tumbles out, looking this way and that for the source of the arrows, but no one can find them. This time 4 arrows find their way towards the party, and finally the little kobold sorcerer spots some sort of monster wielding two bows just above them.

So the dragon shaman flys up, gets an attack, or a miss as the case was, and becomes a very disenchanted pincushion, no longer happy with the idea of being the meatshield. The real MVP of the fight was the sorcerer, who shot a couple of rays at the demon, knocking its dex down to next to nothing, resulting in many more misses.

The demon however then summons another of his kind, resulting in a very desperate party, with everyone low on health even with the healers healing. Luckily the knight finally finished his ascension to the platform where the demons stood, and did an enormous amount of damage to the weakened one, almost completely obliterating it. With this the other demon teleported away, never to be heard from again.

Then the bard goes with the healer to go and convince the church of Pelor to assist them with their assault on Dr. Satan's lair. This goes well with a little help from glibness, and a magnificent quantity of bullshit. So then everyone goes to rest, to let them think it over.

Next day, everyone wakes up, things seem to be a bit worse, with chaos in the streets and several buildings on fire in the distance. Being the heroic heroes they are the party rushes towards the disturbance, and finds a small group of outnumbered clerics trying to fight off a larger number of Dr. Satan's mutants. One breaks off from the group, and offers to help along with his companion, and they all set off for the probably final assault on the underground.

First they encounter a huge centipede zombie, who is easily dealt with, but his two friends offer more problems. Everyone saves their bigger bangs for later, using only the bare-most of resources, and they set off down a long winding staircase to Dr. Satan's lair. Eventually they arrive at a bend, hearing loud noises from the left the bard goes to investigate.

Here he finds an enormous ogre, but with his newly learned spell charm monster he manages to convince him to be friends, after only one smack of the ogre's club. Unfortunately they have bigger problems to worry about, literally, as an enormous centipede rushes down from the ceiling, crushing the ogre completely, it then takes a big old bite out of the bard, leaving him on the border between death and life.

The healer runs up, heals him, and they all begin running at top speed. The sorcerer drops a web, but it doesn't hold him for long, as the centipede smashes and crawls its way slowly towards them.

In the next room they find several orc guards, again dealt with quickly, especially with the added time pressure of the centipede pressing in. Running past the knight running ahead he falls into a pit trap with spikes. He is given a potion of fly, and helps to fly all of them out of there as quickly as possible. With that dealt with they sprint into the next room, hearing some loud thrashing from just behind them.

Alas, a wizard. The wizard creates a large noxious cloud which the party stumbles out of, unable to fight the guards who mercilessly attack them. At this point they are not that interested in fighting, and instead run off towards the next door they see, another trap door.

Instead of opening it the dragon shaman breathes fire, burning it to cinders, and they see the centipede burst through the little hallway, and devour two of the guards, with the wizard subsequently going invisible. Down the stairs they go, and we finish up the session there.

A Forestfull of Mantises

The second party now on an epic quest to do absolutely nothing. First things first, they meet up with a strangely charismatic warforged who offers to sell a thunderstone to the party totemist. This is then shat right back at him, and the totemist skips off merrily. Great first impression and all. Luckily the rogue is there to smooth things over, and with a little convincing he goes to meet the rest of the party, including the engineer who was forging his full plate very slowly.

Struck by lack of things to do, they retreat back to the tavern. Luckily they run into a holy man carrying an enormous sword who threatens them asking for the location of the dragon egg. He then takes the rouge hostage with permission from the the party, and they agree to meet tomorrow to figure out where they are going.

The trip down is fairly uneventful, running into no beasties, and in fact running into no kobolds. What they do find is a mass of gnomes who claim to have slaughtered the kobolds, the paladin then begins praying in front of the egg, and the party runs off while his back is turned. They run all the way back to town, but encounter a small cloaked figure flanked by two very much larger figures. They are asked by him to go and find the dragonslayer bow, and to kill the dragon egg below.

Conflicting opinions on exactly what to do next but in the end they decide they will definitely find the bow, though not necessarily kill the dragon with it. The engineer is still working on his full plate, so they have to wait a few more days before they can leave the city, and go ask a particularly knowledgeable kobold about the bow.

In the mean time the new warforged party member goes and sells his wares to passers by and tavern people netting a fairly decent amount of money, which he promptly goes off and spends on scrolls. By this time the session is coming to its conclusion, and so we pick up next week with the journey through the forest.

Everyone has bought all their equipment, and is prepared to set out for the dangerous journey to the town. Before they leave they bought maps of the area, as well as the town and the continent. And so they decide to take the quickest way off the city, and dive off with feather fall prepared for when they just about reach the ground.

This works perfectly fine, except for maybe indicating insanity to any watchers. So they set off towards the town, and have a fairly uneventful travel for the first maybe 4 hours. Then there is a dire bear. RAWR!. The enormous bear takes a swat at the party engineer, dealing enormous damage.

Luckily the party is fairly ready for this, and deal out an enormous amount of damage before the bear has a chance to respond, and then the mauling starts. The rogue had a brilliant plan, run up and stab the beast, but after his first attack was quickly knocked down for his insolence.

The summoned beasts from the warforged wizard are also subsequently dealt with, though not without significant damage done to the bear. Eventually the totemist brings it down with a great pounce tearing right through it's head. Its claws are subsequently made into gauntlets for him.

The travels conclude with a praying mantis encounter, in which the rogue is again lifted off and brought closer to death than he would ever like to be. Eventually however the party arrives a the town, and finds it nearly completely destroyed, plants having taken over much of the surroundings and few buildings left standing.

A short discussion with the only remaining guard reveals there are a few families left, him, and the blacksmith. The blacksmith especially peaks there interest because he was not the nicest of fellows and they had been planning his torture for many weeks now.

But the target of their search was to be found, and they discovered the approximate location of the bow, as well as a little bit more information about the dragon. They learned it was one of an ancient species of dragons long wiped out, Regulator dragons. They leveled up then, and the session ended.