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Lylandra's War of the Burning Sky continued
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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7316550" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong>Deceptive Nightmares</strong></p><p></p><p>Lord Gorquith, the Seaquenians and Clan Millorn all decide to go sleep in the secure shelter of Jorrina and they put special emphasis on keeping the rebel leader safe as they know that there are still Ragesians out there somewhere. The Clan and the party agree to take turns on standing watch for the night. </p><p></p><p>During one of the first watches, two gnomes come running back to the shelter, bringing news of turmoil at the main entrance. The three heroes decide to take a look at what's going on there and find the earth elemental fighting undead intruders. They call out to the earth elemental that his Lord is safe within Korstull and that he may retreat. This causes the undead to hammer against the massive door and Oller takes the opportunity to bombard them with his holy water grenades through the arrow slits. Cuin, Torrent and Tinuviel help him get rid of the undead.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, they hear combat noises coming from the stables area. Fearing for Gorquith's fate, they rush back to their shelter and find a chaotic scenery. Jorrina Grellfin and some of the Clan Millorn guards are desperately fighting a fully grown Vrock and two incorporeal undead they identify as tragedies. Grellfin is in a smity mood, as expected, but the fight seems too much for even the valorous paladin. </p><p></p><p>Oller and the trio are quick to join the battle, when Tinuviel suddenly switches targets and stabs one of the Millorn clansmen. When he realizes what he just did, Tinuviel is frozen in shock and insists that he was sure he'd hit the demon. Grellfin knocks out one of his own as well and neither of them can really explain what is happening. Cuin'halar, afraid to actually harm one of his friends, blindfolds himself and lets Tinuviel guide him towards the right target. This tactic seems to work and so they are able to kill off Kyzu-Nior, the Vrock Griiat summoned to kill them. </p><p></p><p>Still even a Vrock is usually not able to make allies turn against each other and so this strange occurrence stays a mystery. After they barely save the two stabbed gnomes, Jorrina runs off to look for her missing clansmen who ran off in fear. Fortunately, she finds Zooten and Verane hiding inside the shelter while Earnest ran off to one of the stables. </p><p></p><p><em>Note: I just had to make this one big fight to keep my party challenged. And yes, I totally used Deception's powers to let the good guys hit each others. Fortunately, no one suspected one of the gnomes to be the real culprit and they instead took this one on Griiat. Deception loathes his brother Empathy with a passion and so he decided to make his life as miserable as possible. And what better way to do that than to make him hurt innocents? (Well, turns out that his second gambit hit Tinu much harder in the end, but more of that later)</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>After they are sure that there are no more enemies around, the party tells Lord Gorquith the story of his faithful earth elemental. The Lord thanks his guardian for his service and dismisses him as he doesn't wish to keep him bound to Korstull forever. Then they resume their rest.</p><p></p><p>During his sleep, Tinuviel dreams of Crystin who appears floating in front of him. She tells him of a vision that might happen very soon: She saw him, Cuin'halar and Torrent ride a comet which landed in a vast field where they were surrounded by other people led by a newlywed couple. She tries to go more into detail, but then simply vanishes. Tinuviel then sees a vision of Shalosha and Magdus being wed in a splendorous ceremony. Everything seems fine until the bridal kiss when Magdus becomes more and more passionate until he tears away Shalosha's beautiful wedding dress and ravishes her. During this scene, she desperately calls to Tinuviel for help who is unable to move at all. </p><p></p><p>The elf awakes in shock and tells Cuin'halar everything he just witnessed in his vision. Full of barely contained anger he mumbles that he's totally going to kill Magdus should he ever come close to his cousin. Cuin tries to calm him down and reminds Tinuviel of the often very symbolic meaning of visions. He adds that he might just have a bad dream as well, so no need to get murderous. </p><p></p><p>They switch watch and Cuin encounters a strange dream as well. He remembers his soul being ripped out by the Feaster, but this time, the horrific being tear away his golden wings. His soul returns to his body and he feels relief and peace. The war comes to an end and he and Lady Timor start a happy family together. But then one day he goes off to Ycengled to look after his people. This is when he sees a person shrouded in a dark cloak slaughter all the remaining Taranesti. Once he killed the last of them, the person reveals himself to be Tinuviel before finally stabbing Cuin as well. </p><p></p><p><em>Note: I admit it, that was kind of cruel. So what happened was that Deception, who was very close to them all the time, just manipulated their dream and turned their fears and paranoia against them. In Tinu's case I used his latent feelings for Shalosha (his player told me that he loved her despite his relationship with Torrent) and crossbred them with his very own adolescent fears of what might happen to her in the Ragesian camp. </em></p><p></p><p><em>For Cuin, I mixed his longing to be special on the one hand and his growing feelings for Lady Timor on the other and mixed it with his worst fear: The total annihilation of the Taranesti. As he's in most cases the more calm and reasonable of the two elves and tries to talk Tinu out of his murderous intents, I found it kind of fitting to have him turn assassin without Cuin's guidance. Plus, this gave me an option to foreshadow the “corpse in Ycengled” spook of adventure 7. </em></p><p></p><p>Cuin wakes up and discusses what he just dreamed about with Tinuviel. He stresses out that he doesn't think he'd ever betray him or turn against his people. Tinuviel agrees, psionically links their minds and says “I feel like this is Deception's work. He's toying with our minds. We should be very, very cautious.”.</p><p></p><p>Once they finished their rest, Thorkrid sends a messenger who says that the pressure is at the required level. However, something at the mechanism is still amiss, so they need a bit more time to fix it and Thorkrid would appreciate any kind of help so he can become master of Korstull soon. The group agrees and so they send some of Clan Millorn's “mechanics” to help out the gnolls. </p><p></p><p>Shortly after, they hear noises coming from the entrance as a seemingly clumsy ragesian scout enters the castle to take a peek inside. The group quickly overwhelms the lone soldier and demands to know where she came from. The terrified scout explains that she's one of Magdus' soldiers who was ordered to report what's going on inside the castle. The trio demands to know where her friends are as she surely wouldn't have come all alone and the soldier tells them where her comrades can be found (she demanded that they'd kill neither of them though). They pick up the Rags and tie them up, then leave them in the foyer as they know that the soon to be expected First Army will surely release them. </p><p></p><p><em>Note: They insisted that there had to be more than one scout as “normal” Rags are no reckless jackasses and I could agree to their reasoning. Hence the three Ragesians. </em></p><p></p><p>Now they know that time is running short. They discuss their next steps with Clan Millorn and Lord Gorquith and while neither of the two parties wishes to be caught by the First Army, they also agree that running into Griiat and his army in what might be a mish-mash of the Astral Plane and the Elemental Plane of Fire might not be the best idea. So they agree that Grellfin helps them out again while Jorrina prepares to hide the rest in an invisible sphere should the Ragesians enter the castle before their fight with Griiat is over (or in case they were defeated)</p><p></p><p><em>Note: So I changed the “DM's contingency plan” a bit. Should they fail to defeat Griiat, there would still be a Ragesian army plus Shalosha and her elite bodyguards to rescue them in time.</em> </p><p></p><p>Thanks to Lord Gorquith, they now have a map of the upper floor of Korstull, including possible traps like the arrow slits in the Watch Hall. So as soon as the lift mechanism is completely repaired, they enter the elevator and use the corresponding code in the correct sequence. The team of four is reasonably impressed by the elaborate death trap, especially the last wall of force. On their way up they prepare a good amount of buff spells as they know that they'd most likely be in the Astral Plane where time loses its meaning. </p><p></p><p><em>Note: Cuin and his ridiculous planar knowledge checks. Gabal would have been proud. We had a short debate on what “timeless” would all imply as “no aging” etc could be interpreted that nothing with a time-based duration would expire, including buffs. As I knew this would probably be the only time they'd fight on the Astral, I agreed to their interpretation and buffed everyone on the opposing side with Griiat's buffs as well. Just don't do this with players who hate math games.</em></p><p></p><p>They pass the silvery rift to the Astral plane and reach the upper floor of Korstull without any hindrance. Then the elevator door opens and Cuin immediately uses a wall of stone to shut off the arrow slits, and then casts a wall of force to cut off the Elite Quarters before going against the Dark Pyre soldiers one by one. </p><p></p><p>Once they are sure that they won't face any nasty surprises from behind, Tinuviel offers to invisibly sneak into the Dance Hall, take a peek and return with more information. He's a bit surprised when he's cut off from the rest of his team as soon as he enters the hall. Walls of fire appear at every entrance, a large double door is opened and a ghostly Inquisitor appears to greet the fool who dares to enter his playground and who will soon become fuel for the Dark Pyre. </p><p></p><p>“Oh sh*t, they can see me!” he shouts towards his friends who immediately rush through the wall of fire to come to Tinu's aid. They too see the Inquisitor, his hell cat companion and a seeming army of undead who seem to defy gravity. And then, right behind Griiat, they see the Dark Pyre. And inside of its flames, like they are frozen in time, they see three elvish looking figures. Cuin'halar takes a look around and his heart falters for a second when he sees what's hovering above them all: The skeleton of the gold dragon Syana. </p><p></p><p><em>Note: They really feared that Syana might have been turned into a drakolich or a skeletal dragon by Griiat and were so grateful that she was “only” hanging up there. Still a heart-wrenching situation for Cuin, who knew that Syana was not only the guardian of Ycengled, but also his mother's mentor and friend. </em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7316550, member: 6816692"] [b]Deceptive Nightmares[/b] Lord Gorquith, the Seaquenians and Clan Millorn all decide to go sleep in the secure shelter of Jorrina and they put special emphasis on keeping the rebel leader safe as they know that there are still Ragesians out there somewhere. The Clan and the party agree to take turns on standing watch for the night. During one of the first watches, two gnomes come running back to the shelter, bringing news of turmoil at the main entrance. The three heroes decide to take a look at what's going on there and find the earth elemental fighting undead intruders. They call out to the earth elemental that his Lord is safe within Korstull and that he may retreat. This causes the undead to hammer against the massive door and Oller takes the opportunity to bombard them with his holy water grenades through the arrow slits. Cuin, Torrent and Tinuviel help him get rid of the undead. Suddenly, they hear combat noises coming from the stables area. Fearing for Gorquith's fate, they rush back to their shelter and find a chaotic scenery. Jorrina Grellfin and some of the Clan Millorn guards are desperately fighting a fully grown Vrock and two incorporeal undead they identify as tragedies. Grellfin is in a smity mood, as expected, but the fight seems too much for even the valorous paladin. Oller and the trio are quick to join the battle, when Tinuviel suddenly switches targets and stabs one of the Millorn clansmen. When he realizes what he just did, Tinuviel is frozen in shock and insists that he was sure he'd hit the demon. Grellfin knocks out one of his own as well and neither of them can really explain what is happening. Cuin'halar, afraid to actually harm one of his friends, blindfolds himself and lets Tinuviel guide him towards the right target. This tactic seems to work and so they are able to kill off Kyzu-Nior, the Vrock Griiat summoned to kill them. Still even a Vrock is usually not able to make allies turn against each other and so this strange occurrence stays a mystery. After they barely save the two stabbed gnomes, Jorrina runs off to look for her missing clansmen who ran off in fear. Fortunately, she finds Zooten and Verane hiding inside the shelter while Earnest ran off to one of the stables. [I]Note: I just had to make this one big fight to keep my party challenged. And yes, I totally used Deception's powers to let the good guys hit each others. Fortunately, no one suspected one of the gnomes to be the real culprit and they instead took this one on Griiat. Deception loathes his brother Empathy with a passion and so he decided to make his life as miserable as possible. And what better way to do that than to make him hurt innocents? (Well, turns out that his second gambit hit Tinu much harder in the end, but more of that later) [/I] After they are sure that there are no more enemies around, the party tells Lord Gorquith the story of his faithful earth elemental. The Lord thanks his guardian for his service and dismisses him as he doesn't wish to keep him bound to Korstull forever. Then they resume their rest. During his sleep, Tinuviel dreams of Crystin who appears floating in front of him. She tells him of a vision that might happen very soon: She saw him, Cuin'halar and Torrent ride a comet which landed in a vast field where they were surrounded by other people led by a newlywed couple. She tries to go more into detail, but then simply vanishes. Tinuviel then sees a vision of Shalosha and Magdus being wed in a splendorous ceremony. Everything seems fine until the bridal kiss when Magdus becomes more and more passionate until he tears away Shalosha's beautiful wedding dress and ravishes her. During this scene, she desperately calls to Tinuviel for help who is unable to move at all. The elf awakes in shock and tells Cuin'halar everything he just witnessed in his vision. Full of barely contained anger he mumbles that he's totally going to kill Magdus should he ever come close to his cousin. Cuin tries to calm him down and reminds Tinuviel of the often very symbolic meaning of visions. He adds that he might just have a bad dream as well, so no need to get murderous. They switch watch and Cuin encounters a strange dream as well. He remembers his soul being ripped out by the Feaster, but this time, the horrific being tear away his golden wings. His soul returns to his body and he feels relief and peace. The war comes to an end and he and Lady Timor start a happy family together. But then one day he goes off to Ycengled to look after his people. This is when he sees a person shrouded in a dark cloak slaughter all the remaining Taranesti. Once he killed the last of them, the person reveals himself to be Tinuviel before finally stabbing Cuin as well. [I]Note: I admit it, that was kind of cruel. So what happened was that Deception, who was very close to them all the time, just manipulated their dream and turned their fears and paranoia against them. In Tinu's case I used his latent feelings for Shalosha (his player told me that he loved her despite his relationship with Torrent) and crossbred them with his very own adolescent fears of what might happen to her in the Ragesian camp. [/I] [I]For Cuin, I mixed his longing to be special on the one hand and his growing feelings for Lady Timor on the other and mixed it with his worst fear: The total annihilation of the Taranesti. As he's in most cases the more calm and reasonable of the two elves and tries to talk Tinu out of his murderous intents, I found it kind of fitting to have him turn assassin without Cuin's guidance. Plus, this gave me an option to foreshadow the “corpse in Ycengled” spook of adventure 7. [/I] Cuin wakes up and discusses what he just dreamed about with Tinuviel. He stresses out that he doesn't think he'd ever betray him or turn against his people. Tinuviel agrees, psionically links their minds and says “I feel like this is Deception's work. He's toying with our minds. We should be very, very cautious.”. Once they finished their rest, Thorkrid sends a messenger who says that the pressure is at the required level. However, something at the mechanism is still amiss, so they need a bit more time to fix it and Thorkrid would appreciate any kind of help so he can become master of Korstull soon. The group agrees and so they send some of Clan Millorn's “mechanics” to help out the gnolls. Shortly after, they hear noises coming from the entrance as a seemingly clumsy ragesian scout enters the castle to take a peek inside. The group quickly overwhelms the lone soldier and demands to know where she came from. The terrified scout explains that she's one of Magdus' soldiers who was ordered to report what's going on inside the castle. The trio demands to know where her friends are as she surely wouldn't have come all alone and the soldier tells them where her comrades can be found (she demanded that they'd kill neither of them though). They pick up the Rags and tie them up, then leave them in the foyer as they know that the soon to be expected First Army will surely release them. [I]Note: They insisted that there had to be more than one scout as “normal” Rags are no reckless jackasses and I could agree to their reasoning. Hence the three Ragesians. [/I] Now they know that time is running short. They discuss their next steps with Clan Millorn and Lord Gorquith and while neither of the two parties wishes to be caught by the First Army, they also agree that running into Griiat and his army in what might be a mish-mash of the Astral Plane and the Elemental Plane of Fire might not be the best idea. So they agree that Grellfin helps them out again while Jorrina prepares to hide the rest in an invisible sphere should the Ragesians enter the castle before their fight with Griiat is over (or in case they were defeated) [I]Note: So I changed the “DM's contingency plan” a bit. Should they fail to defeat Griiat, there would still be a Ragesian army plus Shalosha and her elite bodyguards to rescue them in time.[/I] Thanks to Lord Gorquith, they now have a map of the upper floor of Korstull, including possible traps like the arrow slits in the Watch Hall. So as soon as the lift mechanism is completely repaired, they enter the elevator and use the corresponding code in the correct sequence. The team of four is reasonably impressed by the elaborate death trap, especially the last wall of force. On their way up they prepare a good amount of buff spells as they know that they'd most likely be in the Astral Plane where time loses its meaning. [I]Note: Cuin and his ridiculous planar knowledge checks. Gabal would have been proud. We had a short debate on what “timeless” would all imply as “no aging” etc could be interpreted that nothing with a time-based duration would expire, including buffs. As I knew this would probably be the only time they'd fight on the Astral, I agreed to their interpretation and buffed everyone on the opposing side with Griiat's buffs as well. Just don't do this with players who hate math games.[/I] They pass the silvery rift to the Astral plane and reach the upper floor of Korstull without any hindrance. Then the elevator door opens and Cuin immediately uses a wall of stone to shut off the arrow slits, and then casts a wall of force to cut off the Elite Quarters before going against the Dark Pyre soldiers one by one. Once they are sure that they won't face any nasty surprises from behind, Tinuviel offers to invisibly sneak into the Dance Hall, take a peek and return with more information. He's a bit surprised when he's cut off from the rest of his team as soon as he enters the hall. Walls of fire appear at every entrance, a large double door is opened and a ghostly Inquisitor appears to greet the fool who dares to enter his playground and who will soon become fuel for the Dark Pyre. “Oh sh*t, they can see me!” he shouts towards his friends who immediately rush through the wall of fire to come to Tinu's aid. They too see the Inquisitor, his hell cat companion and a seeming army of undead who seem to defy gravity. And then, right behind Griiat, they see the Dark Pyre. And inside of its flames, like they are frozen in time, they see three elvish looking figures. Cuin'halar takes a look around and his heart falters for a second when he sees what's hovering above them all: The skeleton of the gold dragon Syana. [I]Note: They really feared that Syana might have been turned into a drakolich or a skeletal dragon by Griiat and were so grateful that she was “only” hanging up there. Still a heart-wrenching situation for Cuin, who knew that Syana was not only the guardian of Ycengled, but also his mother's mentor and friend. [/I] [/QUOTE]
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