Look_a_Unicorn
First Post
Thanks again for all the regular updates- makes your SH's very vibrant...
JollyDoc's Age of Worms!
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
And it's not even Christmas, yet!JollyDoc said:
Look_a_Unicorn
First Post
Ahha! One more reason to look forward to the weekend
JollyDoc
Explorer
R-Hero said:
It ain't over till the salamander sings...
AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED
As Grubber tended Grim’s wounds, Dwilt stepped to the portal, and then turned back to his team mates. “I’ll go first this time. Each of you follow me as quickly as possible. There’s no telling what’s on the other side of this thing.”
The former civilar then stepped into the black morass and disappeared. Upon emerging on the other side, Dwilt found himself in a sharply sloped hallway filled with rushing, screaming wind and smoke. Small, hollow projections lining the walls seemed to be making the noise, but it was obvious that air inside the passage was being pushed out at an unusual rate. Dwilt could not hear a thing over the howling wind, and the tiny particles of grit being blown into his eyes severely limited his visibility. Suddenly, a mass of darks smoke moved against the wind, shifting shape as it came closer. Cloudlike, roiling, it abruptly exploded into a demonic creature of smoke and wind, with large, bat wings, clawed tendrils, and a biting maw. Dwilt reeled back against a nearby wall as the thing slashed at him, swinging his chain blindly to ward off the fiend.
Just then, the portal began to ripple as Grim stepped through. No sooner had the dwarf completed the transition, than a second smoke demon appeared, catching the mineral warrior off-guard and putting him immediately on the defensive. Dwilt and Grim hacked and struck wildly at the creatures, the momentum of their melee carrying them further down the hall. The portal shimmered again, and Grubber appeared, only to be immediately assaulted by a third creature.
One by one the members of the League continued to cross over via the portal, oblivious to the life-or-death struggle their comrades waged on the other side. Each in turn was attacked as soon as they stepped free of the portal. Only Storm and Shay still remained in the Whispering Cairn, and at least ten of the hideous creatures now swarmed about the others. At one point Pyro found himself caught between two of the fiends…belkers he thought, evil creatures native to the Plane of Air. From what little he knew of them, they were reclusive by nature, having little interest in the affairs of others. He could not imagine what so many were doing in a single place. Perhaps the Wind Dukes used them as tomb guardians? Whatever the case, they certainly were not about to be reasoned with. To make matters worse, as Pyro prepared to bring his magic to bear against them, he found the words to his spells ripped from his lips by the scathing winds. Still in mephit form, he struggled to put some distance between himself and his attackers, but they were too fast. The wizard knew that if he didn’t think of something quickly, he was not going to last long. Finally, concentrating with all his will, he managed to scream out one arcane word, and vanished as the Teleportation spell took him. Only at the last moment did he even consider that he didn’t actually know how far away the Whispering Cairn was. Though it seemed like the portal had only transported them a few feet from their prior position, Pyro knew the distance was probably vast. His spell was only capable of transporting him nine-hundred miles. If the cairn was further than that, this was going to be a one-way trip.
Shay waited impatiently as Storm finally stepped through the portal. It was about time. He was sick of waiting, and eager to get out of the creepy tomb. However, just as he was reaching out to enter the portal himself, a very familiar looking mephit appeared out of thin air behind him, looking battered and bloody.
“Stop!” Pyro wheezed. “We’re under attack on the other side. I barely escaped with my life.”
“Where are the others?” Shay asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Still there,” Pyro said, “fighting off a swarm of elementals.”
“But not you,” Shay said accusingly. “Here you are, safe and sound, while our friends may be dieing as we speak.” The rogue shook his head in disgust, and then turned towards the portal again. “And they call me craven.”
Just as Pyro had warned, battle raged around Shay as he passed through the conduit. Immediately to his right, Storm was being assailed by a large, demonic looking creature. The others seemed to be holding their own, and several of the monsters lay unmoving on the floor of the passage. Shay immediately drew his rapier, and began stabbing at Storm’s attacker. As the belker turned towards its new opponent, Storm did the only thing she could, since she could not focus enough to cast her spells. She drew out her crossbow, loaded it, and began firing.
The melee dragged on for several long minutes, but ultimately, the belkers were killed to a creature, and the League members took a moment to catch their breath and regroup. Storm was the most badly wounded, and Hawk laid his hands gently on her injuries, holy energy flowing from him and healing the worst of her hurts. After a few moments, a much hailer-looking Pyro poked his head back through the portal.
“All clear?” the mephit shouted into the howling wind. Abruptly, his words were choked off as Grim seized him by the throat and yanked him through.
________________________________________________________
The wind-filled passageway ended after about fifty feet, and the chamber beyond it was blissfully quiet. The tall room looked like some sort of temple. Carved stone pillars reached up to the ceiling in elegant lines, but strange clusters of spikes stuck up from the floor in two distinct areas, like barricades. Near sets of doors to the north, south and east stood carved stone images of tall, elongated humanoid forms. A series of small openings, each about one inch in diameter, festooned the walls between these forms. Beneath the openings were small basins, each about the size of an apple. Strange undulations made the doors and nearby walls seem more like a curtain than a level surface. Twisting runes wound over the walls. The floor was carved with channels, as if to transport water, but nothing now flowed there.
Cautiously, Shay held up one hand, motioning for the others to wait. He had a feeling for these sorts of things, and at that moment, it was warning him of danger. Slowly, he stepped into the temple, looking warily at the spiky barricade to his right. Kneeling down in front of it, he began running his fingers lightly over the flagstones. Ah…there it was, just as he suspected…a pressure sensitive stone. Unfortunately, even the minute amount of pressure he had placed on it by touching it caused the trigger to depress. Instantly, a blast of hurricane-like wind struck the rogue, hurling him against the barbed spikes of the barrier, ripping a hundred tiny gashes into his skin. Just as quickly as it started, the wind vanished, and Shay dropped painfully to the floor.
“Watch your step here,” he moaned. “It’s a trap.”
Grubber tended Shay’s wounds, and the rogue resolved to venture into the chamber a second time, only this time, Grim accompanied him, ready to seize the skinny human and drag him out of harm’s way if necessary. Slowly, the pair made their way around the perimeter of the large hall. Shay found two more pressure plates on opposite sides of the second barricade, but managed to avoid triggering both, though it was beyond even his skill to disarm the traps. Before each set of doors in the room was another trap of sorts. When triggered (as Shay found out unintentionally), the small basins lining the walls near the door would generate a plume of white fog-like vapor, which would then run up along and meld with the bas-relief carvings on the wall, generating a fluid image. The first one was of a regal-appearing Wind Duke engaged in battle against multiple creatures of chaos. Unfortunately, the vapors themselves were poisonous. Shay managed to avoid their effects by Grim’s timely intervention. The dwarf’s own sturdy constitution seemed to render him immune to the gas. Two other images were displayed around the other doors: one of the same Wind Duke forming some sort of alliance with a large, armored behemoth, and the other of the Wind Duke holding a large square seal in one hand, and a long rod or staff in the other, as if displaying them to the viewer.
Shay informed the rest of his team mates where it was safe to walk within the chamber, and they crossed to the doors directly across from them, in the east wall. Beyond was a short passage terminating at another set of double-doors, with identical sets in the walls to the right and left. The eastern and southern doors proved to be false, opening only onto blank walls. On the other side of the northern doors, however, was a long hall containing twin sets of pillars leading to another set of double doors at the far end. The columns were made of marble blocks shaped like drums. Not all of them had aged quite the same, and their colors ranged from gray to white to tan.
Vladius, Giovanni and Storm remained in the temple chamber while the others stood in the hall outside the columned chamber. Once again, Grim and Shay were elected to scout ahead, with Grim walking down the right hand side of the hall, and Shay taking the left. No sooner had the mineral warrior stepped into the room, than a rumbling sounded from the pillar next to him, and the entire structure collapsed towards him. Grim quickly raised his tower shield above his head, deflecting most of the falling rubble. Across the room, he heard another of the pillars collapse and saw Shay duck and roll deftly out of the way of the debris.
“This whole place is a death trap,” the dwarf muttered as he brushed dust off his armor.
“Everything ok down there?” Pyro called as he peered down the darkened corridor.
“Just Shay and Grim having a little fun!” Dwilt answered.
“That’s exactly the reason I stay back here, where it’s safe,” the wizard said quietly to Storm and Havok.
At that moment, a flicker of movement caught the corner of Pyro’s vision. As he turned towards it, he saw of mass of shadows directly behind him seem to roil and churn of their own volition. Materializing out of the darkness was one of the biggest spiders he’d ever seen! Before the wizard could do more than gasp, the huge arachnid had seized him in one of its fore claws.
Grubber and Dwilt turned towards the sounds of the shouting coming from the temple chamber.
“Time to stop fooling around in there,” he barked at Shay and Grim, who had just extricated himself from yet another rubble pile of a collapsed column. “We’ve got company!”
The two then charged back towards their comrades, Grubber in the lead. When the goliath saw the spider, he didn’t even break stride, instead raising his hammer, and lunging ahead. At the last moment, the spider scuttled to one side with amazing agility, and Grubber’s maul struck only stone. For his part, Dwilt had the insane idea that he might be able to trip the arachnid. Whirling his chain above his head, he snapped it around one of the spider’s legs, and pulled with all his might. He might as well have been trying to pull a Tarasque. The spider pulled back, almost gently, yet Dwilt was yanked off his feet, falling prone at the monster’s feet.
Storm quickly moved away from the spider’s impressive reach. Pragmatic she may have been, but never cowardly. Chanting as she moved, she conjured a viscous orb of green acid in her hand, and hurled it at the arachnid. The creature shrieked as the caustic fluid ate into its carapace.
Havok knew that if he did not act, Pyro was as good as dead. Grim and Hawk were on the way, but they wouldn’t make it in time if the spider simply decided to decapitate the wizard. In desperation, the warlock darted forward and grabbed Pyro’s flailing hand. Closing his eyes, he pictured the hallway outside the columned room, and when he opened them again, he and the mage stood side by side, safely away from the melee.
“Seems I might owe you one,” Pyro rasped.
“One?” Havok laughed, “You apparently haven’t been keeping count. We’ll discuss my retainer later.”
By this time, Grim and Hawk had reached the chamber, and both of them immediately rushed the spider. However, as Hawk got within reach, he was abruptly snatched into the air by a massive claw. Grim kept going, brutally ripping at the monster’s hide with his axe. The spider hissed and spat, dropping Hawk to the floor as it backed away from its attacker. The civilar rolled to his feet, and he and the dwarf closed the distance with the arachnid, pressing their advantage. Abruptly, darkness swirled around the beast, and as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.
Dwilt climbed painfully to his feet. “If your friend Ondabar came through here,” he said to Vladius, “he must be an archmage. I fear we may not like what we find when we finally discover his location.”
The doors at the opposite end of the columned hall were another dead-end, as was the northern door in the temple chamber. The southern door, however, led to a long hallway, which bisected another about thirty feet down. The intersection was lit by six flickering orange and yellow lanterns, which floated around a central statue of grey stone. The statue depicted an androgynous Wind Duke wearing robes that seemed to be stirred by a breeze. The figure may have been a symbol of justice or war, for it held a glittering sword outstretched in one hand and carried a balance in the other.
Once more, the team had formed up behind Grim, and he began leading the way down the corridor. He had gone no more than ten paces, when a deafening burst of sound swept through the passage.
______________________________________________________________
Antyress Redpike, the Earl of Coalchester, was bored…bored beyond imagining. He had spent nearly a century in this room, staring at the same four walls with nothing to do for entertainment, and no one to talk to save for Smoughed and Scrisped, who were not the best conversationalists. The salamander’s clan had been bound by ancient elemental vows ages ago to serve the Wind Dukes as tomb guardians, and Antyress’ tenure was only half over. Bored, he thought again. Bored, bored, bored. That was when he heard the triggering of the Dictum.
“The Word of Law,” he said almost in disbelief. How long had it been since tomb raiders had actually entered this place? Certainly not during his time here. Well, well, he thought gleefully, clapping his hands, a diversion after all!
“Smoughed, Scrisped,” he said to the towering elementals. “Go and greet our guests. Tell them I would like to speak with them.”
_______________________________________________________
Grim, Shay, Dwilt, Grubber, and Vladius were still reeling from the effects of the Dictum. The spell had rendered them all deaf, and slowed their reaction time to the point where it was an effort just to move. At that moment, a towering, walking column of flame appeared at the intersection, peering around the corner at the League. Storm, still in the temple room, saw it first, recognized the fire elemental for what it was. Thinking quickly, she created a storm of ice and sleet around the creature, and its hide began to hiss and steam where the hail stones struck it.
Hawk had not been affected by the Dictum, and he wasted no time in moving past his afflicted friends, straight towards the elemental while it was distracted by the ice storm. Unsure if mere weapons of steel would affect such a creature, he nevertheless plunged his sword into the flaming behemoth, unleashing a surge of electricity through the blade as he did so. To his surprise and satisfaction, the elemental reeled and roared in pain.
Grubber, though deaf, was not affected by the slowing effect of the Dictum, due to his Grumbar-granted power to always move unhindered as long as his feet touched the earth. Rushing to Hawk’s aid, he suddenly found himself flat on his back as his feet slipped on a slick spot on the floor. As he struggled to regain his feet, the elemental smashed one of its tree-trunk sized arms down upon him. When the flaming appendage struck him, the goliath was horrified to see that his clothes caught fire!
________________________________________________________
This was no good, Redpike hissed in frustration. He had wanted to talk with these intruders, toy with them a bit before it came to blows. Ah, but with these adventurer types it was always sword first, words later. So be it then. “Kill them all,” he ordered the elementals in their native tongue. Then acting on his own instructions, he summoned a small, flaming ball into his right hand, and tossed it into the intersection.
________________________________________________________
The fireball erupted like an inferno around Hawk, Grubber and Grim, scorching their skin and hair. Havok, seeing the danger his friends were in, sent a pulsating green blast of eldritch energy at the fire elemental, momentarily turning its flaming form from crimson to emerald.
Just then, a second fire elemental appeared in the hallway, stepping past its cohort and blocking off the other side of the intersection. Hawk swung at the creature as it passed, but it countered with a hammer-blow of its own, setting the civilar’s cloak and tabard aflame.
Pyro cursed the luck they were having. Not only did they have to face not one, but two huge fire elementals, but they had to do it deafened and with their main fighting force crippled. Quickly, the wizard began calling to mind the words of a spell, but he found that in his deafened state, he had trouble correctly pronouncing the delicate inflections. Luckily, he was close enough, and the Force Ball he lobbed into the intersection erupted with very satisfying results as the first elemental went down.
Grubber attempted to regain his feet once again, but again he was struck, this time by the second elemental. As the goliath collapsed to the floor this time, he did not rise again. Grim glanced over at his friend and saw his chest moving. The priest yet lived…for the moment. However, as a second fireball engulfed the hallway, it was clear to the mineral warrior that his friend was beyond any hope of aid.
Havok couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Grubber was down, probably dead. Grim and Dwilt were all but incapacitated. Whoever was controlling the elementals had them right where he wanted them. Once more the warlock unleashed his eldritch fire. Behind him, Storm lobbed a crackling sphere of electricity. Both energies struck the elemental simultaneously, sending green lightning cascading through its body.
The elemental thrashed and swatted at the fire which surged through it. Enraged, it lashed out at Hawk. The civilar batted aside its first blow, but on the next strike, the behemoth seized him in a powerful fiery grip, lifting him bodily from the floor. In vain Hawk struggled to break free of the grapple, all the while with Grim hammering at the elemental from below. Suddenly, another blast of green fire blasted a hole through the elemental’s head, and it collapsed to the floor in a smoldering pile of ash.
“See to those burns,” Grim said to the civilar as he stumbled past, still deaf and disoriented, but committed to confronting the master of the elementals. As he rounded the corner, he saw his foe. The being had a muscular humanoid upper body with a hawkish face. Its lower body, however, was serpentine from the waist down and was covered in red and black scales. Flame-shaped spines sprouted from its back, arms and head, and a glowing, red-hot iron spear was gripped in its hands.
“You must flee,” the creature said. “I am the Earl of Coalchester, and I am compelled by foul magic to kill you. Leave now and I shall not follow. I can’t be held responsible for what might happen should you stay.”
“You want to see compelled,” Pyro snapped as he flitted to a position just above Grim’s shoulder. “Watch me compel you to turn into a cockroach!” As the wizard hurled the magic towards the salamander, Redpike actually flinched, but as the spell passed harmlessly around him, he grinned even broader.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he smirked. With a casual wave of his hand, the Earl of Coalchester conjured up a roaring wall of red flames catching Shay, Grim and Havok directly in its eruption. Dwilt, Storm and Hawk were caught on the other side of the fire wall, but the heat from it still scalded them, even from a distance twenty feet away.
“Two can play that game!” Pyro snarled, and flapping back several feet from the wall, he sent a helical cone of ice through the flames, where it snuffed out a large hole in the wall, and continued on to strike the salamander. Redpike howled as the ice burned his sensitive skin like the fire he wielded.
Enraged, the Earl slithered out of his chambers and into the hall, closing rapidly on the tomb robbers. Before Pyro could fly to the ceiling and out of harm’s way, the massive spear wielded by the salamander pierced him through the abdomen. In desperation, the mephit/wizard conjured a grease spell on the longspear, hoping to make the elemental lose his grip. Redpike merely laughed however, then lunged forward with his pike, impaling Pyro against the wall. When he withdrew the spear from the mage’s limp form, Pyro slid bonelessly to the floor, assuming his natural form as he went.
Suddenly, a length of spiked chain wrapped around Redpike’s spear shaft, and jerked at it, trying to rip it from his grasp. The salamander cursed, pulling the weapon back into his grip. Dwilt’s eyes went wide as the spear head rushed towards him, piercing him three times in the chest. Then everything went dark as a vicious slap from Redpike’s tail sent the paladin to the ground.
Hawk’s eyes went as cold as death. Shield up, and sword in hand he stalked towards the Earl. Redpike’s grinning jaw went slack as he saw the determination in the civilar. Quickly, he conjured another fire wall, sealing over the hole the wizard had made in the previous one, but to his utter amazement, the human walked right through, ignoring his pain, though it was obvious his skin had been blistered.
“From Hell’s gate I stab at thee!” Hawk hissed, and then he charged, driving his blade deep into Redpike’s gut, calling upon the divine might of Torm to smite his enemy. Again and again he struck until finally the Earl's spear slipped from his nerveless fingers as his guardianship finally came to and end.
Nice title JD, I like it!
Dwilt rolled a very impressive 41 on his disarm check which the bloody Noble Salamander matched!! He won due to his greater Str though.
So, here's the deal. I'm out of gaming for a week and was thinking about a new PC. I'm willing to take suggestions from readers -- live vicariously through Gfunk! Let me know what you want to see!
Dwilt rolled a very impressive 41 on his disarm check which the bloody Noble Salamander matched!! He won due to his greater Str though.
So, here's the deal. I'm out of gaming for a week and was thinking about a new PC. I'm willing to take suggestions from readers -- live vicariously through Gfunk! Let me know what you want to see!
Joachim
First Post
That's pretty funny. I was thinking about the kid from the new Justice League cartoons that can turn into different animals, but that works too.
Seriously, the whole time that we have played (8 years), we have seen one druid PC, and that one was not a great example. Consistently over at the Optimization boards at TSR, druids are perceived to be the most powerful class, but I have never been convinced. They have a nice spell list, but they seem to fall into that category of "jack of all trades, but master of none."
Seriously, the whole time that we have played (8 years), we have seen one druid PC, and that one was not a great example. Consistently over at the Optimization boards at TSR, druids are perceived to be the most powerful class, but I have never been convinced. They have a nice spell list, but they seem to fall into that category of "jack of all trades, but master of none."
