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"Out of the Frying Pan"- Book III: Fanning the Embers
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<blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 847142" data-attributes="member: 11"><p><strong>First Installment. . .</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>Session #40</strong></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Part One: In which the “dead land” is discovered.</span></p><p></p><p>Ratchis looked up at the sun, thinking that it might be nearly exactly one day since the undead creature had drawn his life force from him, making him feel a bit cold, and a bit jittery. He could feel the reverberations of the loss as if his very spirit were fighting off the infection of darkness. The friar of Nephthys knew that soon the battle would come to its climax and called for his goddess’ divine <em>guidance</em> to guide him through that difficult moment, and suddenly it was past, and he felt his strength and faith rise in him again (1).</p><p></p><p>The half-orc was a ways away from the rest of the group, looking for tracks when this happened, as he wanted to be alone for the struggle. He noted the way the lieutenant-turned-wight’s track veered to the east. It did not seem to jive with the way he figured the hidden gnomish community must be (2), but it was possible that the demon-gnomes had a lair elsewhere that they could find and surprise their foes. However, the zombies that had been turned the day before seemed to go in a more northerly direction.</p><p></p><p>Ratchis came out of the brush, where the others waited. The dwarves all looked ever-vigilant, the memory of their first battle at this very site with evil gnomish necromancer fresh in their mind. The rest of the party stood encircled by the dwarves, not quite as vigilant.</p><p></p><p>“Martin,” Kazrack asked Martin, scratching his chin in contemplation of the what he was certain to be an up-coming battle with more half-demon gnomes. “If you knew someone was coming to attack you in your home, what magical preparations would you set? Uh, I mean, if your were, uh… you know, that powerful.”</p><p></p><p>Martin smirked. “I would snares and sentries of some kind, and traps…”</p><p></p><p>“Gnomes are said to be mechanically inclined,” Kazrack replied. “It is possible we may run into those kinds of things as well. We need a way to set them off ahead of us.”</p><p></p><p>No one had any suggestions, and nor did Kazrack seem to really need any to continue his audible inner dialogue, addressing others almost as if out of habit, as he bounced from topic to topic. “And we need to coordinate better in combat. We need to not just rush in, and go in opposite directions to go our own thing. We need to support each other. Glory is good, but…”</p><p></p><p>“Survival is better,” Martin finished for him.</p><p></p><p>“Cowardice is a sin,” Belear commented.</p><p></p><p>Ratchis interrupted by explaining how the tracks diverged.</p><p></p><p>“Do we follow the zombies or this thing you keep referring to as a wight?” Derek asked, leaning on his bow. His new battleaxe was strapped to his back, and its bright polished head, shone brightly in the dying light come through the canopy of budding trees. (3)</p><p></p><p>“I think the wight is more important,” Kazrack said.</p><p></p><p>It was agreed and the large party made their way down an earthen embankment to the west, led by Ratchis who remained a good eighty to one hundred feet ahead at all times. Before leaving, Kazrack cast <em>Status</em> on the half-orc tracker.</p><p></p><p>As they marched the first few miles, the trees grew scarcer and the forest floor became more thorny and brown, as the green gave way to budding golden heather that was gray in great splotches. </p><p></p><p>“We’re not going towards the gnome village anymore,” Thomas chittered in Martin’s head. The watch-mage reached up and scratched under his familiar’s fuzzy little chin. The squirrel’s red fur bristled with delight. He dug his claws into Martin’s green robe-covered shoulder.</p><p></p><p>“Can you talk to the animals here and find out if they’ve seen any gnomes or undead, or anything else funny?” Martin queried with his thoughts alone, projecting them to the tree-rodent.</p><p></p><p>“Actually, the animals aren’t the same here. These animals are dumb,” Thomas replied, and then moved to correct himself. “I mean, not as in smart, but as in they can’t talk.” (4)</p><p></p><p>Martin nodded in understanding, knowing that Thomas would simply sense his understanding without having to fully express it in thought. He and his familiar were bonded and what one felt the other felt. However, he was impressed by Thomas’ increasing vocabulary when he did have to express abstract ideas. As an expression of his own personality, Martin the Green was strangely proud of his squirrel companion. (5)</p><p></p><p>The landscape grew more fractured, as the party now marched up and down and around great scrub-covered swellings in the earth. They were not quite hills, but too large to step over and they rose on to a large plateau at the horizon. Coming over one of these, Jeremy paused and turned back to look at the line of 15 men and dwarves. He shielded his eyes with one hand, resting his left on the hilt of his long sword. He had to brush his growing blonde out of the way, the skin of his neck was caked with dirt from the road, but he still had a youthful handsomeness that shone through the golden stubble on his face. </p><p></p><p>Beorth walked past him and paused, and turned to see the descending sun as well.</p><p></p><p>Jeremy sighed, “Whatever you did, it really worked. That wight ran all day and night to get away from you.”</p><p></p><p>The Neergaardian turned back towards the direction they were marching and began again.</p><p></p><p>Beorth followed. “It fears my god’s power.” </p><p></p><p>Jeremy shuddered, as if the shadow of the memory of his death passed over him momentarily. (6)</p><p></p><p>-------</p><p></p><p>A few more hours past, and soon Ra’s Glory’s light was dying in burnt orange sunset behind them as they mounted a final embankment, a rough ridge like a split hill that obscured the land beyond. It seemed to run for miles both north and south across their path in the gathering gloom.</p><p></p><p>Ratchis was the first to see it, and he gasped. He reached down and helped up Kazrack, as Jeremy and Derek lithely clambered up.</p><p></p><p>“Osiris have mercy,” Beorth said when he saw what lay beyond, and the dwarves helped each other up to stare silently at the sight.</p><p></p><p>Before them was a black and barren land of ash and standing columns of stone. It seemed to go far as they could see. The ridge seemed to be the edge of a great rent in the ground, as if some huge and burning thing had slammed into the ground here. Beyond the ridge the earth was covered in a powder fine black ash, and the randomly interspersed were cylinders of black and gray rock, that varied in diameter from one foot to five feet, and some seemed to taper, but none was any shorter than seven feet high, but some reached fifteen or more feet up. The many columns created a labyrinth of shadowed alleyways that scattered in all directions.</p><p></p><p>Kazrack leaned over and whispered to Belear, “Could this be Dralmohir?” (7)</p><p></p><p>Belear shook his head, “We are far too westward for this to be that accursed place, and also if this were it I am afraid we would have already been beset by more of the walking dead than we could handle.”</p><p></p><p>“What is this foul place?” Golnar asked aloud.</p><p></p><p>“It looks like a place where undead might be found,” Tolnar said, with awe and a bit of fear in his voice.</p><p></p><p>“I can’t wait to get some payback on them,” Jolnar said, rubbing his shoulder with one hand where a zombie had slammed him.</p><p></p><p>The three dwarven brothers’ voices carried out across the dead land, as no other sound emanated from the place, not a bird chirp, not a insect buzz, not even the wind seemed to emerge.</p><p></p><p>Ratchis shushed them.</p><p></p><p>“Tolnar, keep your voice down,” Kazrack hissed at the dwarves who were not all that much younger than he. </p><p></p><p>“They could wake the dead,” Beorth quipped uncharacteristically. Jeremy gave him a quizzical look.</p><p></p><p>“Shall we make camp here on one of these little hills and tackle this place in the morning?” Martin asked.</p><p></p><p>“No, we should keep going. The undead creature has too much of a lead on us already and he has no need of rest,’ Beorth said, regaining his composure.</p><p></p><p>“But the sun is going down,” Derek said.</p><p></p><p>“We have no need of the sun,” Captain Adalar said. “Let us press on.”</p><p></p><p>Ratchis nodded, and Jeremy shrugged his shoulders.</p><p></p><p>“It’s decided,” Kazrack said, stepping down into the ashen land, a thick cloud of dust rose up obscuring the thin waxing moon.</p><p></p><p>------------------------------------</p><p></p><p><strong>Notes:</strong></p><p></p><p>(1) <strong>DM’s Note</strong>: I allowed an intelligence check against DC 18 to determine when the 24 hours have passed since the initial energy drain, allowing for helpful spells (such as <em>Guidance</em>, which I ruled will also help with level checks) to be cast in time to help. <em>Energy Drain</em> itself represents the siphoning off all or part of a person’s life-force and replacing it with a bit of material from the negative energy plane, causing the spirit to battle with this force for dominance; either healing the lost portion or giving in to the infecting darkness.</p><p></p><p>(2) The party was originally on their way to help free a gnomish community from the yoke of evil half-fiend gnomes. However, despite having live there for months at one time, they are not sure of its exact location.</p><p></p><p>(3) Derek was given the half-fiend gnome, Mokad’s, captured masterwork battleaxe to use.</p><p></p><p>(4) Thomas displayed the ability to converse with other small animals living near the gnomish community when the party was last here.</p><p></p><p>(5) In Aquerra, familiars are created from a physical manifestation of the spell-caster’s personality. A familiar, often expresses it in similar, but exaggerated ways as its master, and its developing intelligence mirrors that of the master as well.</p><p></p><p>(6) Jeremy was killed by a garbage monster (otyugh) in Session #12, and brought back from the dead in Session #23.</p><p></p><p>(7) <em>Dralmohir</em> is 4the name for a broken land in Derome-Delem overrun by the undead. It was once a prosperous mountain community of dwarves that was cursed, and the mountain torn asunder, exploding into furious volcano and collapsing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="el-remmen, post: 847142, member: 11"] [b]First Installment. . .[/b] [b]Session #40[/b] [size=3]Part One: In which the “dead land” is discovered.[/size] Ratchis looked up at the sun, thinking that it might be nearly exactly one day since the undead creature had drawn his life force from him, making him feel a bit cold, and a bit jittery. He could feel the reverberations of the loss as if his very spirit were fighting off the infection of darkness. The friar of Nephthys knew that soon the battle would come to its climax and called for his goddess’ divine [I]guidance[/I] to guide him through that difficult moment, and suddenly it was past, and he felt his strength and faith rise in him again (1). The half-orc was a ways away from the rest of the group, looking for tracks when this happened, as he wanted to be alone for the struggle. He noted the way the lieutenant-turned-wight’s track veered to the east. It did not seem to jive with the way he figured the hidden gnomish community must be (2), but it was possible that the demon-gnomes had a lair elsewhere that they could find and surprise their foes. However, the zombies that had been turned the day before seemed to go in a more northerly direction. Ratchis came out of the brush, where the others waited. The dwarves all looked ever-vigilant, the memory of their first battle at this very site with evil gnomish necromancer fresh in their mind. The rest of the party stood encircled by the dwarves, not quite as vigilant. “Martin,” Kazrack asked Martin, scratching his chin in contemplation of the what he was certain to be an up-coming battle with more half-demon gnomes. “If you knew someone was coming to attack you in your home, what magical preparations would you set? Uh, I mean, if your were, uh… you know, that powerful.” Martin smirked. “I would snares and sentries of some kind, and traps…” “Gnomes are said to be mechanically inclined,” Kazrack replied. “It is possible we may run into those kinds of things as well. We need a way to set them off ahead of us.” No one had any suggestions, and nor did Kazrack seem to really need any to continue his audible inner dialogue, addressing others almost as if out of habit, as he bounced from topic to topic. “And we need to coordinate better in combat. We need to not just rush in, and go in opposite directions to go our own thing. We need to support each other. Glory is good, but…” “Survival is better,” Martin finished for him. “Cowardice is a sin,” Belear commented. Ratchis interrupted by explaining how the tracks diverged. “Do we follow the zombies or this thing you keep referring to as a wight?” Derek asked, leaning on his bow. His new battleaxe was strapped to his back, and its bright polished head, shone brightly in the dying light come through the canopy of budding trees. (3) “I think the wight is more important,” Kazrack said. It was agreed and the large party made their way down an earthen embankment to the west, led by Ratchis who remained a good eighty to one hundred feet ahead at all times. Before leaving, Kazrack cast [I]Status[/I] on the half-orc tracker. As they marched the first few miles, the trees grew scarcer and the forest floor became more thorny and brown, as the green gave way to budding golden heather that was gray in great splotches. “We’re not going towards the gnome village anymore,” Thomas chittered in Martin’s head. The watch-mage reached up and scratched under his familiar’s fuzzy little chin. The squirrel’s red fur bristled with delight. He dug his claws into Martin’s green robe-covered shoulder. “Can you talk to the animals here and find out if they’ve seen any gnomes or undead, or anything else funny?” Martin queried with his thoughts alone, projecting them to the tree-rodent. “Actually, the animals aren’t the same here. These animals are dumb,” Thomas replied, and then moved to correct himself. “I mean, not as in smart, but as in they can’t talk.” (4) Martin nodded in understanding, knowing that Thomas would simply sense his understanding without having to fully express it in thought. He and his familiar were bonded and what one felt the other felt. However, he was impressed by Thomas’ increasing vocabulary when he did have to express abstract ideas. As an expression of his own personality, Martin the Green was strangely proud of his squirrel companion. (5) The landscape grew more fractured, as the party now marched up and down and around great scrub-covered swellings in the earth. They were not quite hills, but too large to step over and they rose on to a large plateau at the horizon. Coming over one of these, Jeremy paused and turned back to look at the line of 15 men and dwarves. He shielded his eyes with one hand, resting his left on the hilt of his long sword. He had to brush his growing blonde out of the way, the skin of his neck was caked with dirt from the road, but he still had a youthful handsomeness that shone through the golden stubble on his face. Beorth walked past him and paused, and turned to see the descending sun as well. Jeremy sighed, “Whatever you did, it really worked. That wight ran all day and night to get away from you.” The Neergaardian turned back towards the direction they were marching and began again. Beorth followed. “It fears my god’s power.” Jeremy shuddered, as if the shadow of the memory of his death passed over him momentarily. (6) ------- A few more hours past, and soon Ra’s Glory’s light was dying in burnt orange sunset behind them as they mounted a final embankment, a rough ridge like a split hill that obscured the land beyond. It seemed to run for miles both north and south across their path in the gathering gloom. Ratchis was the first to see it, and he gasped. He reached down and helped up Kazrack, as Jeremy and Derek lithely clambered up. “Osiris have mercy,” Beorth said when he saw what lay beyond, and the dwarves helped each other up to stare silently at the sight. Before them was a black and barren land of ash and standing columns of stone. It seemed to go far as they could see. The ridge seemed to be the edge of a great rent in the ground, as if some huge and burning thing had slammed into the ground here. Beyond the ridge the earth was covered in a powder fine black ash, and the randomly interspersed were cylinders of black and gray rock, that varied in diameter from one foot to five feet, and some seemed to taper, but none was any shorter than seven feet high, but some reached fifteen or more feet up. The many columns created a labyrinth of shadowed alleyways that scattered in all directions. Kazrack leaned over and whispered to Belear, “Could this be Dralmohir?” (7) Belear shook his head, “We are far too westward for this to be that accursed place, and also if this were it I am afraid we would have already been beset by more of the walking dead than we could handle.” “What is this foul place?” Golnar asked aloud. “It looks like a place where undead might be found,” Tolnar said, with awe and a bit of fear in his voice. “I can’t wait to get some payback on them,” Jolnar said, rubbing his shoulder with one hand where a zombie had slammed him. The three dwarven brothers’ voices carried out across the dead land, as no other sound emanated from the place, not a bird chirp, not a insect buzz, not even the wind seemed to emerge. Ratchis shushed them. “Tolnar, keep your voice down,” Kazrack hissed at the dwarves who were not all that much younger than he. “They could wake the dead,” Beorth quipped uncharacteristically. Jeremy gave him a quizzical look. “Shall we make camp here on one of these little hills and tackle this place in the morning?” Martin asked. “No, we should keep going. The undead creature has too much of a lead on us already and he has no need of rest,’ Beorth said, regaining his composure. “But the sun is going down,” Derek said. “We have no need of the sun,” Captain Adalar said. “Let us press on.” Ratchis nodded, and Jeremy shrugged his shoulders. “It’s decided,” Kazrack said, stepping down into the ashen land, a thick cloud of dust rose up obscuring the thin waxing moon. ------------------------------------ [b]Notes:[/b] (1) [b]DM’s Note[/b]: I allowed an intelligence check against DC 18 to determine when the 24 hours have passed since the initial energy drain, allowing for helpful spells (such as [I]Guidance[/I], which I ruled will also help with level checks) to be cast in time to help. [I]Energy Drain[/I] itself represents the siphoning off all or part of a person’s life-force and replacing it with a bit of material from the negative energy plane, causing the spirit to battle with this force for dominance; either healing the lost portion or giving in to the infecting darkness. (2) The party was originally on their way to help free a gnomish community from the yoke of evil half-fiend gnomes. However, despite having live there for months at one time, they are not sure of its exact location. (3) Derek was given the half-fiend gnome, Mokad’s, captured masterwork battleaxe to use. (4) Thomas displayed the ability to converse with other small animals living near the gnomish community when the party was last here. (5) In Aquerra, familiars are created from a physical manifestation of the spell-caster’s personality. A familiar, often expresses it in similar, but exaggerated ways as its master, and its developing intelligence mirrors that of the master as well. (6) Jeremy was killed by a garbage monster (otyugh) in Session #12, and brought back from the dead in Session #23. (7) [i]Dralmohir[/i] is 4the name for a broken land in Derome-Delem overrun by the undead. It was once a prosperous mountain community of dwarves that was cursed, and the mountain torn asunder, exploding into furious volcano and collapsing. [/QUOTE]
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