A death and an arm.

Over the past couple days we have had some interesting adventures, I will begin where the last entry left off. I continue my quest for knowledge, but unfortunately the island we were on seemed curiously absent of it, with no arcane casters of any kind. Luckily our activities had not attracted any unwanted attention, despite some minor arson, though it was justified according to the others in the party. We now had a choice, to kill a so called 'evil' man or to kill the relatively undefended dwarf who issued the request. The dwarf could be no better for accusing him of such a silly thing, and with a much easier, and less bloody path, we had chosen to murder the dwarf.

After some scouting we had determined that the best way would be for the warlock face to go and climb up the building, and to infiltrate it from the roof. We had also ascertained a sample of the dwarf's handwriting, and faked a suicide note, thus implicating everyone but us in his murder. He simply fell out a window after the warlock had done something to him, I am unsure of what, though he seems to fire some sort of arcane energy, weaker than my own but still of note. With this done we were able to claim the reward from the aristocrat, who we would eventually betray.

He delivered a fair sum for the murder, and showed us his ships, and the crews on them. Unfortunately the plan to take the flagship was impeded by the 20 or so men aboard, a difficult fight especially given the aptitude or lack of it shown by certain members. Instead we burned them down. I constructed another timed explosive device, and we delivered them to the ships as supplies, then sailed off as they detonated. Unfortunately this did not bring down all of their ships, just one of the three, adding some time pressure to our adventures on the next few islands, until we are sure we are rid of them.

Over the course of the journey I spent much of it with my tools, creating scrolls and alchemical items, still exploring this new art. The warrior as well spent much time crafting, making several small daggers, a small token but not entirely useless. Once we arrived though I was disappointed to see a lack of life, and though the island was claimed to be uninhabited, my raven saw a shack in the middle of the land that claimed otherwise. We set off in pursuit of what the aristocrat was looking for, and why he might investigate such a desolate place.

As we tramped out through the miserable land we were ambushed by some bandits with bows, who did quite a number on us, given we had expected no human presence. They were frightened of me though, and rightfully so. The rest of the party was able to dispatch them, though mostly due to our nature lover's crocodile, who at home in its natural territory excelled in combat. Unfortunately the warrior fell due to losing to a much physically weaker warrior, something which bears further examination when there is time.

With those defeated we could easily hazard a guess of what the shack would contain, and though it did contain an arcane caster, he was a sorcerer, without any physical evidence of spells I could learn nothing of value. The bandits that were with him proved to be some trouble, but in part due to a new spell I had picked up, summoning a slippery surface, they were defeated. The sorcerer however fled and we were forced to pursue.

All was not good with this victory however, as the warrior yet again showed his incompetence, though luckily it only affected himself. He had managed to cut off his arm with his axe. I almost felt something for him there lying on the ground, but given it was entirely his own fault it was difficult to empathize with him. Despite this seemingly disabling setback he still managed to push on ignoring all blood loss and pain to power through the shack, charging forwards foolishly, being hit by a bucket for his troubles.

Luckily we did find the false scholar, hiding in his room rummaging for one thing or another. He was guarded by three archers, but they were easily dealt with when the crocodile launched itself at their faces, ending them quickly. Now the one armed warrior was the one to get the finishing blow on the false scholar, delivering it with his own arm used as a bludgeoning weapon, barbaric but seemingly effective.

With that we took all the bandit's gold, a fair amount, and set off for the next island which is said to have real arcane casters, who I may learn from. They are apparently researching a frost covered mountain, which may prove to be of some interest, maybe the cold can preserve things for eternity.

Dawn of a new day

Throughout my tenure with this crew of 'adventurers' I had believed them to be largely competent, over the past few days I have learned this is largely not the case. I enlarged the warrior type, and he collapsed into a heap, missing as many blows as he hit. The foolish druid managed to get his crocodile to attack its own self, and the warlock had climbed his way up to the roof and proceeded to do little to nothing in the fight. The only semi-competent one is the priest, an inquisitor from one religion or another.

I began the day by setting out for this new town, which seemed to be in great need of help. There were four tasks and the townsfolk seemed helpless to accomplish even the simplest of them. We decided, or rather I decided, that we should head over and help the tavern owner, so perhaps we could get a good nights rest for once. That is what I miss most about Gol, he would always get the best rooms in the best taverns, now I am forced to scavenge like a beggar, though the people in the town pay fairly well. Upon arriving at the tavern we met an elven barmaid who the animals subsequently drooled over, typical. She requested us to go out to the forest and deliver some boars for the feast.

We set out for the trees, and without too much effort found a boar lying, apparently sleeping, in the grass. After some concentrated shots from the rest of them it still was not killed, just the beginnings of the day of failure that would happen. The boar was not alone however, and its few companions attempted to assault us from the sides. They were all quickly dealt with, in no small part because of my fearsome presence, though one of them seemed strangely resistant to it. After that I made sure we could deal with the rest by enlarging the resident warrior, and a few hits later and we had 6 succulent boar corpses ready for presentation.

Upon delivery the lady was most gratified, and though intimidated by the group and me, had not more money to give, so we were delivered a barrel of ale, which may come in handy later. We then set off and decided to deal with some disheartened shopkeepers, one in particular who requested we go deal with a man who had been buying up a large amount of property around the town, of course the shopkeep was a weak-minded fool, as so many of them are, so we were able to dupe him out of a small sum of gold. We went and saw the man, the aristocrat, who had been purchasing so many buildings, and decided that it would be better to work with him rather than against him. He drew up a fake document which we gave to the shopkeep, and he declared it enough and payed us for our services, we then offered to guard his shop from any potential arsonists.

Before this though, and we had some time, we escorted a doctor to go and collect some herbs. The druid here showed himself to not be completely incompetent, showing some initiative by calming some wild skunks who were hanging around the herbs patch, and collecting them himself. This was a minor diversion but we gained some useful healing devices, though they are mundane.

Little did he know that we had been payed to burn his shop to the ground, though not before helping ourselves to some useful equipment. No one around town cared anyway, an it was definitely not our fault, we were seen in the tavern at the time the place burned down, due to a clever little device I had rigged up, a delayed explosive of some sort. After this we prepared to go see the mayor, who had been complaining about one thing or another, and it turned out this time it was ants all throughout some abandoned gold mines. Unfortunately as is the case with mindless vermin, they have no sense of fear, so would not be affected by my significant talents.

This was where the party showed their true capabilities, with the warrior successfully missing a great deal, and me with my crossbow as the major damage dealer to the ant mother. The ants were surprising ineffective as well, damaging themselves and collapsing down even with no apparent cause, perhaps I overestimated the potential of these mindless creatures. Even with their terrible combat skills the ants managed to knock both the druid's pet and the warrior unconscious, so I was forced to finish the large ant off with a dash of acid into its vulnerable parts. With that done we were able to collect some of the gold from the mines which I'm sure will help in my research in how to become immortal.

With that done we returned to the mayor for another substantial monetary reward, though as we were leaving his son offered us a large reward if we were to kill the aristocrat who had been buying up the town. The reason given for this was that he is 'evil' and thus has to die, which is ridiculous by any logic. After seeing the aristocrat about it we were tasked to kill the boy for simply making such threats, and would be given a sizable reward for it. We were also offered the ability to sail with his 'fleet' which consists of only 3 ships, a pitiful number as I have ever seen. Instead we plan to burn them all down, and to escape from that place with his map, and hopefully to learn more about the islands featured on it, and attain as much wealth as we can find.

Another Fitting Conclusion

The prison warden was in fact a strong muscle man, who managed to cripple the totemist’s legs, as well as to do serious damage to the party as a whole. Interestingly the totemist actually pulled out his crossbow to shoot the man, missed, so threw his crossbow, missed again and then promptly gave up, simply too far to actually attack. The party was strong enough to haul him out of there, and with some help from a friendly saber tooth tiger and the engineer’s slow flying abilities they made it out safely.

So yet again the party is ejected from pleasant society and sent out to an unknown world. They didn’t even have time to spend all their ill gotten gains. What a shame. After leaving the city in a hurry they ran into significant trouble with some local wildlife, including a long respected party member meeting his ultimate fate, as well as a recently acquired factotum coming to an unfortunate end.

Before the party quite left the city they had to go to a tavern, because sometimes you just need a drink after a prison break. Some peculiar choices regarding healing after the escape were made, namely the complete lack of it, making what should have been an easy battle into something significantly more difficult. The previous owner of the party’s gold had finally caught up to them, and sent a few demons to deal with them.

These particular demons actually reflect some damage dealt to them back upon anyone in the area, resulting in mass casualties from the patrons of the tavern, as well as fairly large casualties from the party itself. The shapeshifter extraordinaire decided it was best to deal as much damage as possible to these creatures in as brief amount of time, despite his severely weakened team-mates objecting quite a lot.

In the end he came close to killing everyone else, but only killed the engineer and factotum, who were the victims of not having quite enough health, unlike the totemist who had just enough. With the party’s numbers down to 3 they decided it was best to leave the town they were wanted in, and headed towards their employer, the man who sent them after the bow. They were not the only ones sent out that day though, as a bard and his Warblade compatriot were sent off as well, by the crime lord still not known to the party.

This bard infiltrated the party through a few successful bluff checks, not difficult given the collective wisdom of the party is effectively negative, and then they were off together, ready for adventures of all kinds. The bard was very successful in his attempts at subversion, and at the first opportunity gave the large satchel of the money to a devil employed by his employer. This caused notable derision amongst the party, but a Warblade’s chain quickly put a stop to that, effective as it was at putting people down when its owner rolled well.

The party still continue their journey expecting a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but unfortunately all they would get is more pain and suffering. Not that they weren’t used to it, with so much personal and professional death happening around them all the time it had really become routine. There were several escapades on this journey, mostly involving bodily harm to a variety of wild life, but nothing of spectacular importance.

In the end they ended up at their destination, though it looked a little different than the last time they were there, given that the keeper had been grounded, or destroyed, so the huge animal lay slowly decomposing because a gentle repose just didn’t cover something the size of Chicago. Here they searched for their employer but all to no avail, in the end they decided to head back down towards the dragon egg just to see what would happen. That was when shit went down.

The dragon did not wake up no, so they weren’t completely screwed, but a different dragon teamed with some kobolds was still a significant threat. In the end the party was stuck between a rock and a hard place, with a dragon pelting mind bullets at them from the top of a ladder, kobolds descending quickly, and gnomes on the other side who looked none too friendly.

The bard was able to garner a truce, though with some difficulty given that the resident baboon rapist had bitten a few in two, but he was subsequently slaughtered by the bard as a show of good faith, one PC down. A wall of fire here proved difficult as it so often is, and even a brave man can be devoured by kobolds when there are enough of them. The Totemist here climbed up the ladder, clawing and throwing down numerous kobold corpses, though taken plenty of battle damage himself. In the end it was something not quite in his control that caused his death, but fateful gravity, killer of so many everyday.

He fell quite some way, nearly all down the ladder having killed dozens of kobolds, ripping them to pieces but it just wasn’t enough, because a dragon simply has too many tricks up its metaphorical sleeves. The truce with the gnomes however worked spectacularly and a battle plan was set up with a pincer formation. Unfortunately the enlarge person wand had broken again, just as it had done the three previous days. In the Warblade’s insanity he ripped apart a few gnomes in the hope the blood god would give him strength, but it did not, and simply resulted in a few pissed off gnomes.

The battle worked out in the party’s favour, with one of their new members having infiltrated the kobold’s ranks, and erupted to eat a few of them. He was truly the master of the forbidden feast, with a bag full of arms and a taste for flesh of any kind, as a part raven man. The gnomes took heavy losses, but just when things looked most dire and the dragon was advancing on the slowly dying party a miracle dropped through the sky.

First a strange gentleman calling himself Saxton Hale dropped through, creating a gap for the new party member who spoke only Gol-Ka, and who would subsequently be known as Penis-Man due to his introduction about home and a picture of a penis. Saxton Hale defeated the dragon with his bare hands, and then ran off never to be seen again, as is his way. Now in the after battle mop up the party is left tired and unsure of what to do next, but is quickly commissioned for some murder, as is their typical plan.

The party was recruited by a local leader of the church of Helio, the god of law and order, to go and investigate some necromantic happenings down below the city. This leader is actually a devil in disguise, who is planning for them to be murdered in this task, but they don’t know that quite yet. So they investigate the necromancer, who is actually building a nice little city for him and his undead buddies, but they can’t let that happen, because all undead are evil, so they begin the fight to end all fights, one way or another, but probably in TPK.

The conclusion to one party's partial story

Finally the platform arrives on the heart as before, and they see the god struggling, as if he is waking up, and if he does, it means the end of everything they hold dear, mostly their shop. Unfortunately in the way is something that appears to be an apparition of death, at least he sports the appearance, with a black cloak, scythe, and skeletal claw.

The party has to convince him that the world is worth saving, and that the world ending is not actually for the best. He argues that once the god wakes, everyone will be dead, so he won’t have to claim anymore after. Though this is true, the party still seeks to live, and argues ferociously with the thing that they are best at, words.

To the surprise of everyone this works, they convince this mysterious skeleton that the world is worth saving, that the god needs to be destroyed, and that they should be the ones to do it. So he disappears, and they are left alone with the god. The bard decides he should be the one to do it, and with a mighty stab he pierces the god’s heart, resulting in an enormous explosion of blue light, then nothing.

Then there is a huge crashing, and tumbling. Everyone falls down, and the entire dog appears to shake, and move. What has happened is that the controller of all of these animals has been killed. The cities that everyone had lived on are now collapsing, and everything will change.

So that is the story of a party of adventurers, doing the things they do best, looting, killing and stealing, and in the end doing the right thing, if for the wrong reasons. As for what happens afterwards, well, they make it out of the cave alive, and set out for a new world of discovery and demons, of delirium and desire, of Dungeons and Dragons.

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.