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Raiders of the Overreach
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8010907" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 25: THE LONG ROAD HOME</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 8</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 2/fighter 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 8</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 8</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 8</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 11 June 2020</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>"Well, this sucks," griped Cramer.</p><p></p><p>"What, the fact that we just handed over a dangerous weapon that will allow the Mortal Queen to pretty much destroy Greenvale with the Tarrasque, or the fact that we now get to head on back to Greenvale and warn them?" asked Utred.</p><p></p><p>"Both," grumbled Cramer, pulling out his map and consulting it. "Looks like a good week's worth of travel, too," he muttered. "There's a mountain range between us and them."</p><p></p><p>"You could always hunt up the Mage of the Ruins," pointed out a helpful passerby who had heard Cramer's grumbling. "He could probably <em>teleport</em> you to wherever you wanted to go."</p><p></p><p>Cramer's eyebrows rose in interest. "And where is this 'Mage of the Ruins,' may I ask?" he inquired. The man told him he hung about the ruins of Baraxis, the Fallen Kingdom. "His name's <strong>Ordrick</strong> - he's been hanging about there for years now."</p><p></p><p>"Doing what?" asked Khari.</p><p></p><p>"I dunno - wizard stuff, I guess. But he came in here, oh, about two years ago, I guess - bought some supplies and stuff and then <em>teleported</em> away, quick as you please."</p><p></p><p>Cramer was examining the map. "Baraxis is only about two days away," he said. "Beats a week trudging through the mountains."</p><p></p><p>"That works for me," replied Marlo, although in her case either way wouldn't particularly be a hardship for her, as she'd become accustomed to being dragged around by the ankle while keeping an aerial lookout courtesy of her <em>boots of levitation</em>. "Jhasspok?"</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok looked to the human sorcerer, surprised to be included in the decisions. "I don't care," he replied. "Either way is fine." He didn't really know enough about the strange surface world to be able to put much consideration into such things; as it was, he was trying to recall what a "mountain" was. He somewhat recalled Utred having explained it to him and he was pretty sure it was either a big pile of dirt and rocks covered with snow at the top or else the place with all the burning sand that hurt the bottoms of his feet. Whatever they were, they didn't have either of them in the Underdark where the lizardfolk had spent all of his life until recently.</p><p></p><p>"Baraxis it is, then." Cramer got his bearings and the group started off on foot; Marlo walked alongside the others while they were still in the frost giant town, so as not to make a spectacle of herself by being towed along like a balloon on a string. Only once they were out among themselves on the open road did she tie one end of Utred's rope around her ankle and <em>levitate</em> up to a considerable height where she could stay alert for danger while the dwarven barbarian did all of her walking for her.</p><p></p><p>Several hours into their first day of westward travel along what had once been a bustling road and had in recent years become little more than a small path, Jhasspok, in the lead, saw some movement over behind a clump of bushes. About the same time Marlo started calling a warning from above, the lizardfolk saw a humanoid figure with skin as green as his own (although without any scales that Jhasspok could see) rise up from a crouching position and start ambling over their way from the left side. This was a strange-looking creature: proportionally as much taller than Jhasspok as the lizardfolk was taller than Cramer, it had a ridiculously long, pointed nose (or possibly a "beak" if this was some sort of sky fish - but no, it didn't look like it had feathers, either) and wore only a brief breech-cloth of untanned hide. It carried some sort of round, reddish object the size of a small boulder under its arm as it started gibbering in an unknown language.</p><p></p><p>"This might be a thing we need to fight," observed Jhasspok, looking to the dwarves for confirmation.</p><p></p><p>"It's a troll!" yelled Utred, unsheathing his <em>Elderwood flaming longsword</em> and rushing at the beast, dropping the end of the rope as he did so. Cramer cast a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell on himself and advanced behind the dwarf, hoping to keep most of the group covered under the protection of his spell.</p><p></p><p>Utred stopped about halfway toward the advancing troll and planted his feet, ready to strike him as soon as he got within range. The troll didn't slow his advance but tossed the object he'd been carrying over at the dwarven barbarian. The "boulder" turned out to be some sort of miniature beholder, with a large central eye and six eyestalks growing from a head whose only other feature was a mouth filled with sharp teeth. While Utred's attention was momentarily distracted by the gauth, the troll reached out with a gangly arm and sent a set of sharp claws ripping across Utred's face. That got Utred seeing red - quite literally - and he roared out a scream of rage and defiance, striking the troll with his green-flamed blade. The troll's flesh blistered at the touch of the flames and he cried out in pain as well.</p><p></p><p>The gauth's central eye was aimed in Utred's direction but the furious barbarian overcame the stunning ray without even being conscious he was doing so. Two eye-rays blasted out a <em>scorching ray</em> and an <em>inflict moderate wounds</em> beam, both striking true and causing the dwarf some pain, quite possibly - at the moment, Utred wasn't even aware of the new wounds, all of his focus on slaying the troll before him.</p><p></p><p>Khari activated the power of his magic warhammer and earth glided down into the ground, popping up quite literally at the troll's feet and bringing the head of his weapon crashing into the warty-skinned troll's knee before he even knew the dwarven fighter was there.</p><p></p><p>Lowering herself back down from the sky, Marlo targeted the gauth with an <em>empowered magic missile</em> spell, thinking anything that looked that much like a beholder had best be taken out as quickly as possible. Jhasspok charged at the gauth as well, but his wasn't a calculated decision; the gauth was just closer to him. He brought his battleaxe swinging to the side of the floating gauth, his blade cutting through the thing's hide but also swatting it aside like a piñata.</p><p></p><p>Spinning in place, the gauth's central ray caught Jhasspok in its arc but failed to freeze the lizardfolk in place. A <em>scorching ray</em> went sizzling at the reptile while Utred was hit with another <em>inflict moderate wounds</em> beam from the same eyestalk that had targeted him before. Two other beams struck Khari, but the <em>sleep</em> ray failed to have any effect upon the Hammerslammer dwarf and the <em>paralysis</em> ray fared no better.</p><p></p><p>Cramer cast another spell and a <em>spiritual quarterstaff</em> popped into existence, striking the gauth on the top of its body and dipping it down a foot or so from its aerial position. The gnome ran closer to the dwarves to encompass them in his <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell, for he knew from local lore that trolls reeked of evil. Utred's flaming blade stabbed into the troll's torso again, the slit in his belly sealing up almost immediately but the scorch marks along the edge of the wound remaining. The troll slashed out at Utred with both sets of claws, only one set getting a grasp and piercing the dwarf's flesh.</p><p></p><p>Seeing the effectiveness of flames against the troll (and recalling tales from his youth that fire and acid were the best weapons against these giant beasts), Khari swapped his warhammer for his own <em>keen flaming burst longsword</em>, the feel of the weapon not as familiar in his hands but the flames doing quite well against the troll's warty flesh. Marlo noted the effectiveness of fire as well and finished the troll off with a well-placed <em>empowered scorching ray</em>. It fell to the ground, its flesh sizzling, and the dwarves each touched their flaming weapons to the burned corpse, charring it enough that the beast would not rise again after having regenerated the worst of its wounds - too many burns and the thing would stay dead.</p><p></p><p>That left only the gauth and Jhasspok brought it down shortly thereafter with an overhead swing of his battleaxe, followed by a snapping of the spherical creature in the lizardfolk's powerful jaws. It died while partially in Jhasspok's mouth and he pulled it out cautiously, expecting it to try something. But no, it was quite dead and the lizardfolk's own reptilian eyes widened in delight once he realized this was a downed foe with six delicious smaller eyes and a much larger central eye, all his for the eating! (He offered to share with the others, but they refused.) "Ssss ssss ssss ssss ssss ssss!" laughed the lizardfolk at their silliness, passing up delicacies like these!</p><p></p><p>Backtracking to the troll's hiding place behind the bushes, Marlo discovered a large bag containing its possessions, including a quite impressive pile of coins and gems. These were distributed among the five arena slaves, who decided to follow Jhasspok's lead and take a meal before moving on; they opted for other fare, however, leaving the lizardfolk to enjoy his ocular repast.</p><p></p><p>The night passed uneventfully in the <em>ironsilk tent</em> and the next morning the five were off again, certain they'd reach the outskirts of the Fallen Kingdom before evening. After a full day on foot, they discovered the outer wall of a castle city spread out before them. The wall had seen better days: one section was little more than a pile of rubble and the portcullis that had once prevented access to the kingdom had long ago been pulled away and thrown aside (likely, if the stories were true, by a band of frost giants who had plundered the unprotected city when its soldiers marched off to attack Greenvale). But through the opening in the wall that the portcullis had once protected, and along the road which led into the city, the heroes could see some sort of construct marching their way toward the open gate. A round tower stood on either side of the gate, each rising 30 feet in height, five feet above the height of the stone wall itself.</p><p></p><p>Khari rushed over to the side of the tower, hoping to hide along one side of the gate and ambush the construct as it approached. He noticed a glint of metal on the ground beneath the gate, which itself looked to be a large patch of mud. Somebody, it seemed, had dropped something metallic in the mud - but the dwarf decided he needed to concentrate on the impending combat at hand, for the construct was making its inexorable way towards the other heroes, stomping forward in a bee-line.</p><p></p><p>Cramer cast a <em>detect evil</em> spell on his eyes and moved forward, hoping to be able to detect the construct's motives. He did get a better look at the humanoid figure, though: it was made of about equal parts stone, wood, and metal, half again as tall as a human. With a sudden shock of recognition, the gnome realized they were likely up against a shield guardian, which meant it was a devoted servant to the protection of whoever wore the amulet controlling it...and Cramer would put money on the fact that Ordrick probably was the thing's master. "Let's try not to harm the shield guardian," he called to the others, thinking getting Ordrick to agree to help them get to Greenvale quickly would be made much more difficult if they destroyed his loyal guardian.</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok ran forward in a sprint but he wasn't headed toward the gateway; rather, he sprinted toward the pile of loose rubble where there was a missing chunk of the wall. He scrambled up the broken stones, crawling up to the top of the stone wall and approached the nearest tower at top speed. Utred followed in the lizardfolk's wake; the burly dwarven barbarian could run as fast as the reptilian slave when he wanted to.</p><p></p><p>Marlo cast an <em>invisibility</em> spell upon herself, fading from view and hopefully excluding herself as a potential target in the unblinking eyes of the approaching shield guardian. But then an attack came from an unexpected direction: the pool of mud splurched forward, forming a pseudopod and striking an astonished Khari with it. The muddy appendage left a moist layer of slime on the dwarven fighter's skin, which burned like acid. Looking down, he saw the slime had gotten onto his armor as well but was doing it no harm - only living flesh was affected, it seemed.</p><p></p><p>Not wanting to have to deal with oozing menaces, Khari activated the power of his warhammer and earth glided beneath the ochre ooze and below the stone wall to pop back up on the inside of the Fallen Kingdom. He raced towards the shield guardian, determined to cut it off before it could attack his companions; Cramer might not want them to harm it but by the same token Khari wasn't about to let it hurt his friends. He swung at the construct, his warhammer striking true.</p><p></p><p>Cramer cast a <em>spiritual weapon</em> spell, causing the familiar quarterstaff of force to materialize in thin air and slam down at the ochre ooze. Its liquid body parted and reformed around the point of impact, making it difficult to determine if the blow had done it any harm at all. At the same time, the shield guardian swung a massive fist at Khari, attacking the dwarf who had just attacked it.</p><p></p><p>Up on the stone wall, Jhasspok decided not to bother with the door - which could be locked, for all he knew, or the room inside the tower occupied by potential enemies - and leaped up the wall, pulling himself up onto the tower's roof, racing across it, and leaping back down on the other side of the wall, putting him directly above the ochre ooze. He pulled his <em>flaming spear</em> from its place strapped to the inside of his <em>glamered shield</em>, currently made to look like his old one, which had been made from the hardened shell of a large turtle.</p><p></p><p>Utred, however, scrambled back down the rubble and retraced his steps back towards the others, realizing nearly all of the weapons he wielded were better suited to hand-to-hand combat. He pulled his <em>life-flame whip</em> from where it sat coiled at his belt, deciding to give this new weapon a try - if nothing else, he could attack it from far enough away that he could likely stay out of reach of the slow-moving ooze. Marlo cast an <em>empowered scorching ray</em> at the ochre blob, her spell hitting it and burning away part of its protoplasmic mass. She called out to the others what she could recall of shield guardians: "Whoever wears the amulet attuned to the shield guardian can control it! I'll bet anything it's that metal thing in the middle of the ooze!" Marlo couldn't be certain, but she could hypothesize the construct's former master being engulfed by the ochre ooze and the control amulet now technically being "worn" by the blobby, mindless mass of protoplasm; in such a case the shield guardian would do its best to protect the ooze despite it not giving it any specific commands.</p><p></p><p>"We need to take out the ooze!" called Cramer. "Don't attack the shield guardian! If we can get the amulet we can control it ourselves!"</p><p></p><p>The ooze surged forward toward Marlo, slapping at her with an acidic tentacle while Utred slashed his fiery whip at the thing in passing. Khari charged the ochre ooze, passing through the open gateway to do so and noting there was no actual mud in the road; what he'd taken for mud had been the creature's own body. He brought his warhammer crashing down upon the formless mass, redistributing its structure and possibly causing it some harm - again, it was difficult to tell. The shield guardian followed in the dwarf's wake, bringing a powerful fist crashing down upon Khari's shoulder and causing him to cry out in pain.</p><p></p><p>Leery of the ooze's attacks, Cramer cast a <em>resist acid</em> spell on himself while watching his <em>spiritual quarterstaff</em> continue its attacks upon the ochre blob. But up on the wall, Jhasspok looked down at the scene of combat below him. The ooze had slithered away, but the shield guardian was now directly below the lizardfolk. Keeping in mind what Cramer had said, Jhasspok set aside his <em>flaming spear</em> and pulled out the weapon he kept folded up at his hip and rarely used: his fishing net. He dropped it expertly upon the top of the shield guardian, then grabbed up his spear and leaped over the side of the wall, landing upon the construct's shoulder and bounding down to the ground from there. He spun in place, ready to fend off the construct with his spear if it attacked.</p><p></p><p>Utred whipped the ochre ooze again while it attacked Khari with an acidic pseudopod. But then Khari finally slew the creature with his warhammer; apparently crushing it had been having some sort of effect after all, for its already almost-liquid body lost almost all cohesion and it trickled away into wet puddles on the ground. Cramer quickly splashed through the puddles and scooped up the amulet. Then, shaking off the slime as best he could, he dropped the necklace over his head and faced the shield guardian. "Cease all attacks!" he told it and the construct stepped forward to stand by its new master, the fishing net still draped over its head and shoulders like a shroud.</p><p></p><p>"So do you think this guardian was Ordrick's?" asked Khari, wiping the ooze from the head of his hammer. "We come all this way for nothing?"</p><p></p><p>"I wouldn't be so sure," Marlo mused. "The acid only seems to affect flesh; if Ordrick had been consumed you'd think there would be bones inside the ooze as well, plus, you know, his clothes."</p><p></p><p>"Let's look around," suggested Cramer, while Jhasspok retrieved and refolded his fishing net. He hoped one day to be able to return to his simple life as a fisher, maybe when all of this running around and preparing to fight drow armies was at an end. Before starting the search himself, Cramer began providing healing spells to those who needed them.</p><p></p><p>"Ordrick?" called Marlo, cupping her hands. "Are you around? We'd like to talk to you, if we might!"</p><p></p><p>Eventually, they found an elderly figure in tattered green robes cowering in the corner of one of the abandoned buildings. He was the first person they'd found inside Baraxis and he looked fearfully up at the group with watery eyes. "Don't hurt me," he wheedled.</p><p></p><p>"We have no wish to hurt you," Cramer replied in his most soothing voice. "Are you Ordrick? We only wish to talk to you, that's all."</p><p></p><p>The others approached. Ordrick calmed down a bit, only to look fearful once again when Jhasspok approached and stared down at the man. "It's okay, he's friendly," Marlo assured the old man.</p><p></p><p>"You should heal him," Jhasspok suggested to Cramer. "He's hurt."</p><p></p><p>The gnome cleric looked over at the elderly man's body, not seeing any obvious wounds. "Are you hurt?" he asked him.</p><p></p><p>Ordrick shook his head but Jhasspok persisted. "Those wounds on his face," he said, pointing with a clawed finger. Embarrassed, Marlo slapped the lizardfolk's hand down and hissed at him, "He's not hurt - those are just wrinkles!" Jhasspok frowned in confusion; how could those deep lines carved into his face not hurt? He'd never seen anybody with these "wrinkles" before - none of the drow in Overreach seemed to have them, nor did any of the slaves he'd ever seen. It was probably some weird mammal thing, he decided.</p><p></p><p>The shield guardian ambled up, keeping Cramer within view and Ordrick recognized it at once. "My guardian!" he said, the crazed look on his face starting to go away and some lucidity returning. "You've recovered him!" His rheumy gaze swiveled over to the control amulet around Cramer's neck. "You must have gotten this from that ooze," he reasoned.</p><p></p><p>"We did indeed," Cramer said, pulling the amulet from around his neck and handing it over to Ordrick. "How did you come to lose it to an ooze in the first place?"</p><p></p><p>"I, uh, sort of accidentally threw it away," Ordrick admitted. "My brain plays tricks on me sometimes; I thought the necklace was trying to strangle me. It ended up in the ooze's body, and that was all it took for the shield guardian to switch its loyalty."</p><p></p><p>"So you're Ordrick?" Cramer pressed.</p><p></p><p>"I am indeed," replied the wizard. "One-time advisor to the King of Baraxis." His face fell as he recalled the role he'd played in the fall of the kingdom. With a heavy sigh, he said, "I recommended the king send our forces to attack Greenvale," he admitted. "I even provided a means for our soldiers to magically fly through the air - it was all very brilliant, or so I believed. And it was - up until those damned elves shot them down with <em>dispel magic</em> spells; there was our entire army plummeting from the skies to their deaths! And, of course, then frost giants came down from their own lands to wipe out our kingdom once it had been left more or less defenseless...." Ordrick's gaze went blank as he relived the unpleasant memories of his past.</p><p></p><p>"All of that is in the past," suggested Cramer. "We must look to the future! In fact, we have come to warn the local areas of an impending attack by drow forces, rising up from the Underdark! We would appreciate it if you could <em>teleport</em> us to Greenvale, so we could warn them as well." This, Cramer knew, was a quite inaccurate telling of the true state of affairs, but he really didn't want to get into the realities of the Greenvale elves being sunborn drow...all he really wanted was to get this doddering old fool to get them a shortcut to Greenvale.</p><p></p><p>"If you think about it, it would be a way to make up for the loss of your own kingdom, to help us to warn the other local kingdoms of a dangerous threat to them," suggested Marlo. "We wouldn't want the drow taking over other kingdoms like the frost giants overtook Baraxis."</p><p></p><p>"No, no, we wouldn't," agreed Ordrick, "Not at all. You just want me to <em>teleport</em> you to the gates of Greenvale? I don't need to come with you inside, do I? I could just drop you off and then go my own way?"</p><p></p><p>"That would be perfectly acceptable, and greatly appreciated," Marlo replied, giving the old man her warmest smile.</p><p></p><p>It did the trick. "Very well," Ordrick agreed. "After all, you did get me my shield guardian back."</p><p></p><p>He motioned for the group to gather around him and they hurried to do so. Then, with the voicing of a few arcane syllables, they all <em>teleported</em> to the front of a familiar set of gates before the Pantheon Wall of Greenvale. "Okay then bye!" called Ordrick frantically before <em>teleporting</em> away again, no doubt fearing he'd be recognized and restrained by the elves whose city he'd once helped attack - at the cost of his own kingdom.</p><p></p><p>"Weird guy," Utred commented as the group advanced to the city gate.</p><p></p><p>Once inside, the group reported in to the Greenvale officials and explained about the relic they'd been forced to gather for the Mortal Queen. "I'm afraid, while we've managed to garner support from the Kingdoms of Elderwood, Kravyrn, Revin, and Dracovania and got the frost giants to agree not to attack, all of that has been overshadowed by the threat we've brought to your land," Marlo mourned.</p><p></p><p>"All is not yet lost," reassured Greenvale's highest official: T'puuli Tine, the half-celestial drider who ran Greenvale in the absence of Matron Ky'hulcressen, whose duties forced her to spend most of her time in the Overreach. "The Mortal Queen apparently does not yet know how to control this relic or the Tarrasque. That gives us time - we will research what we can about this 'Vengeance of the Gods' and see what we can learn about it. Perhaps there is a way to overcome it, or negate it - if nothing else, perhaps we can find a way to steal it away from her or destroy it before it can be used."</p><p></p><p>"You are very understanding," Marlo replied, her heart lightened somewhat.</p><p></p><p>"We, of all people, know what it is like to be forced to do the bidding of a Matron Mother. Now go; you have been out in the field for some time on our behalf - it is time you slept in a comfortable bed, had some good food, and perhaps restocked some of your own goods or upgraded your armor and weapons. Go about these tasks for the rest of the day; we will meet again tomorrow and make our next plans."</p><p></p><p>That sounded like a very good idea to the five arena slaves.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>This adventure was basically two short fights against two foes each, with each pairing made up of creatures you probably wouldn't expect to find together. I was especially amused by how the "ochre ooze" (Logan merged an ochre jelly and a gray ooze, taking the bits he wanted from each) ended up with a shield guardian protecting it.</p><p></p><p>And we leveled up to 9th at the end! Jhasspok took his 4th level of fighter, specifically so he could get the Weapon Specialization (battleaxe) feat that requires 4 levels of fighter as a prerequisite (he also took Cleave as his bonus fighter feat), so I'll probably need to throw some barbarian levels his way for a bit to try to even them out. And back in a city large enough to have armorers and weaponcrafters and magic shops allowed us to spend some of the hard-earned coin we'd been gathering in recent adventures. Cramer had an <em>Elderwood flaming heavy mace</em> crafted for himself, while Khari and Jhasspok each added an additional +1 to their primary weapons. Utred sold his <em>+2 heavy steel shield</em> and used the money from that to help pay for a <em>+1 animated tower shield</em>, then picked up a <em>+1 greataxe</em> because apparently he didn't have enough weapons on hand just yet. Jhasspok bought the equivalent of a <em>+1 amulet of mighty fists</em>, but in his case it's a necklace of predators' teeth - in any case, it adds a +1 to attack and damage rolls using natural weapons (meaning claws and teeth in his case).</p><p></p><p>And Vicki had some secret discussions with Logan off in the family room while the rest of us calculated the cost of our purchases; apparently Marlo is up to something the rest of us don't know about. Interesting, considering our characters don't know about that <em>Book of Uboros</em> she's got hidden from us or that she's sworn to worship the Dying One....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8010907, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 25: THE LONG ROAD HOME[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 8[/INDENT] [INDENT] Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 2/fighter 3[/INDENT] [INDENT] Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 8[/INDENT] [INDENT] Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 8[/INDENT] [INDENT] Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 8[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 11 June 2020 - - - "Well, this sucks," griped Cramer. "What, the fact that we just handed over a dangerous weapon that will allow the Mortal Queen to pretty much destroy Greenvale with the Tarrasque, or the fact that we now get to head on back to Greenvale and warn them?" asked Utred. "Both," grumbled Cramer, pulling out his map and consulting it. "Looks like a good week's worth of travel, too," he muttered. "There's a mountain range between us and them." "You could always hunt up the Mage of the Ruins," pointed out a helpful passerby who had heard Cramer's grumbling. "He could probably [I]teleport[/I] you to wherever you wanted to go." Cramer's eyebrows rose in interest. "And where is this 'Mage of the Ruins,' may I ask?" he inquired. The man told him he hung about the ruins of Baraxis, the Fallen Kingdom. "His name's [B]Ordrick[/B] - he's been hanging about there for years now." "Doing what?" asked Khari. "I dunno - wizard stuff, I guess. But he came in here, oh, about two years ago, I guess - bought some supplies and stuff and then [I]teleported[/I] away, quick as you please." Cramer was examining the map. "Baraxis is only about two days away," he said. "Beats a week trudging through the mountains." "That works for me," replied Marlo, although in her case either way wouldn't particularly be a hardship for her, as she'd become accustomed to being dragged around by the ankle while keeping an aerial lookout courtesy of her [I]boots of levitation[/I]. "Jhasspok?" Jhasspok looked to the human sorcerer, surprised to be included in the decisions. "I don't care," he replied. "Either way is fine." He didn't really know enough about the strange surface world to be able to put much consideration into such things; as it was, he was trying to recall what a "mountain" was. He somewhat recalled Utred having explained it to him and he was pretty sure it was either a big pile of dirt and rocks covered with snow at the top or else the place with all the burning sand that hurt the bottoms of his feet. Whatever they were, they didn't have either of them in the Underdark where the lizardfolk had spent all of his life until recently. "Baraxis it is, then." Cramer got his bearings and the group started off on foot; Marlo walked alongside the others while they were still in the frost giant town, so as not to make a spectacle of herself by being towed along like a balloon on a string. Only once they were out among themselves on the open road did she tie one end of Utred's rope around her ankle and [I]levitate[/I] up to a considerable height where she could stay alert for danger while the dwarven barbarian did all of her walking for her. Several hours into their first day of westward travel along what had once been a bustling road and had in recent years become little more than a small path, Jhasspok, in the lead, saw some movement over behind a clump of bushes. About the same time Marlo started calling a warning from above, the lizardfolk saw a humanoid figure with skin as green as his own (although without any scales that Jhasspok could see) rise up from a crouching position and start ambling over their way from the left side. This was a strange-looking creature: proportionally as much taller than Jhasspok as the lizardfolk was taller than Cramer, it had a ridiculously long, pointed nose (or possibly a "beak" if this was some sort of sky fish - but no, it didn't look like it had feathers, either) and wore only a brief breech-cloth of untanned hide. It carried some sort of round, reddish object the size of a small boulder under its arm as it started gibbering in an unknown language. "This might be a thing we need to fight," observed Jhasspok, looking to the dwarves for confirmation. "It's a troll!" yelled Utred, unsheathing his [I]Elderwood flaming longsword[/I] and rushing at the beast, dropping the end of the rope as he did so. Cramer cast a [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell on himself and advanced behind the dwarf, hoping to keep most of the group covered under the protection of his spell. Utred stopped about halfway toward the advancing troll and planted his feet, ready to strike him as soon as he got within range. The troll didn't slow his advance but tossed the object he'd been carrying over at the dwarven barbarian. The "boulder" turned out to be some sort of miniature beholder, with a large central eye and six eyestalks growing from a head whose only other feature was a mouth filled with sharp teeth. While Utred's attention was momentarily distracted by the gauth, the troll reached out with a gangly arm and sent a set of sharp claws ripping across Utred's face. That got Utred seeing red - quite literally - and he roared out a scream of rage and defiance, striking the troll with his green-flamed blade. The troll's flesh blistered at the touch of the flames and he cried out in pain as well. The gauth's central eye was aimed in Utred's direction but the furious barbarian overcame the stunning ray without even being conscious he was doing so. Two eye-rays blasted out a [I]scorching ray[/I] and an [I]inflict moderate wounds[/I] beam, both striking true and causing the dwarf some pain, quite possibly - at the moment, Utred wasn't even aware of the new wounds, all of his focus on slaying the troll before him. Khari activated the power of his magic warhammer and earth glided down into the ground, popping up quite literally at the troll's feet and bringing the head of his weapon crashing into the warty-skinned troll's knee before he even knew the dwarven fighter was there. Lowering herself back down from the sky, Marlo targeted the gauth with an [I]empowered magic missile[/I] spell, thinking anything that looked that much like a beholder had best be taken out as quickly as possible. Jhasspok charged at the gauth as well, but his wasn't a calculated decision; the gauth was just closer to him. He brought his battleaxe swinging to the side of the floating gauth, his blade cutting through the thing's hide but also swatting it aside like a piñata. Spinning in place, the gauth's central ray caught Jhasspok in its arc but failed to freeze the lizardfolk in place. A [I]scorching ray[/I] went sizzling at the reptile while Utred was hit with another [I]inflict moderate wounds[/I] beam from the same eyestalk that had targeted him before. Two other beams struck Khari, but the [I]sleep[/I] ray failed to have any effect upon the Hammerslammer dwarf and the [I]paralysis[/I] ray fared no better. Cramer cast another spell and a [I]spiritual quarterstaff[/I] popped into existence, striking the gauth on the top of its body and dipping it down a foot or so from its aerial position. The gnome ran closer to the dwarves to encompass them in his [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell, for he knew from local lore that trolls reeked of evil. Utred's flaming blade stabbed into the troll's torso again, the slit in his belly sealing up almost immediately but the scorch marks along the edge of the wound remaining. The troll slashed out at Utred with both sets of claws, only one set getting a grasp and piercing the dwarf's flesh. Seeing the effectiveness of flames against the troll (and recalling tales from his youth that fire and acid were the best weapons against these giant beasts), Khari swapped his warhammer for his own [I]keen flaming burst longsword[/I], the feel of the weapon not as familiar in his hands but the flames doing quite well against the troll's warty flesh. Marlo noted the effectiveness of fire as well and finished the troll off with a well-placed [I]empowered scorching ray[/I]. It fell to the ground, its flesh sizzling, and the dwarves each touched their flaming weapons to the burned corpse, charring it enough that the beast would not rise again after having regenerated the worst of its wounds - too many burns and the thing would stay dead. That left only the gauth and Jhasspok brought it down shortly thereafter with an overhead swing of his battleaxe, followed by a snapping of the spherical creature in the lizardfolk's powerful jaws. It died while partially in Jhasspok's mouth and he pulled it out cautiously, expecting it to try something. But no, it was quite dead and the lizardfolk's own reptilian eyes widened in delight once he realized this was a downed foe with six delicious smaller eyes and a much larger central eye, all his for the eating! (He offered to share with the others, but they refused.) "Ssss ssss ssss ssss ssss ssss!" laughed the lizardfolk at their silliness, passing up delicacies like these! Backtracking to the troll's hiding place behind the bushes, Marlo discovered a large bag containing its possessions, including a quite impressive pile of coins and gems. These were distributed among the five arena slaves, who decided to follow Jhasspok's lead and take a meal before moving on; they opted for other fare, however, leaving the lizardfolk to enjoy his ocular repast. The night passed uneventfully in the [I]ironsilk tent[/I] and the next morning the five were off again, certain they'd reach the outskirts of the Fallen Kingdom before evening. After a full day on foot, they discovered the outer wall of a castle city spread out before them. The wall had seen better days: one section was little more than a pile of rubble and the portcullis that had once prevented access to the kingdom had long ago been pulled away and thrown aside (likely, if the stories were true, by a band of frost giants who had plundered the unprotected city when its soldiers marched off to attack Greenvale). But through the opening in the wall that the portcullis had once protected, and along the road which led into the city, the heroes could see some sort of construct marching their way toward the open gate. A round tower stood on either side of the gate, each rising 30 feet in height, five feet above the height of the stone wall itself. Khari rushed over to the side of the tower, hoping to hide along one side of the gate and ambush the construct as it approached. He noticed a glint of metal on the ground beneath the gate, which itself looked to be a large patch of mud. Somebody, it seemed, had dropped something metallic in the mud - but the dwarf decided he needed to concentrate on the impending combat at hand, for the construct was making its inexorable way towards the other heroes, stomping forward in a bee-line. Cramer cast a [I]detect evil[/I] spell on his eyes and moved forward, hoping to be able to detect the construct's motives. He did get a better look at the humanoid figure, though: it was made of about equal parts stone, wood, and metal, half again as tall as a human. With a sudden shock of recognition, the gnome realized they were likely up against a shield guardian, which meant it was a devoted servant to the protection of whoever wore the amulet controlling it...and Cramer would put money on the fact that Ordrick probably was the thing's master. "Let's try not to harm the shield guardian," he called to the others, thinking getting Ordrick to agree to help them get to Greenvale quickly would be made much more difficult if they destroyed his loyal guardian. Jhasspok ran forward in a sprint but he wasn't headed toward the gateway; rather, he sprinted toward the pile of loose rubble where there was a missing chunk of the wall. He scrambled up the broken stones, crawling up to the top of the stone wall and approached the nearest tower at top speed. Utred followed in the lizardfolk's wake; the burly dwarven barbarian could run as fast as the reptilian slave when he wanted to. Marlo cast an [I]invisibility[/I] spell upon herself, fading from view and hopefully excluding herself as a potential target in the unblinking eyes of the approaching shield guardian. But then an attack came from an unexpected direction: the pool of mud splurched forward, forming a pseudopod and striking an astonished Khari with it. The muddy appendage left a moist layer of slime on the dwarven fighter's skin, which burned like acid. Looking down, he saw the slime had gotten onto his armor as well but was doing it no harm - only living flesh was affected, it seemed. Not wanting to have to deal with oozing menaces, Khari activated the power of his warhammer and earth glided beneath the ochre ooze and below the stone wall to pop back up on the inside of the Fallen Kingdom. He raced towards the shield guardian, determined to cut it off before it could attack his companions; Cramer might not want them to harm it but by the same token Khari wasn't about to let it hurt his friends. He swung at the construct, his warhammer striking true. Cramer cast a [I]spiritual weapon[/I] spell, causing the familiar quarterstaff of force to materialize in thin air and slam down at the ochre ooze. Its liquid body parted and reformed around the point of impact, making it difficult to determine if the blow had done it any harm at all. At the same time, the shield guardian swung a massive fist at Khari, attacking the dwarf who had just attacked it. Up on the stone wall, Jhasspok decided not to bother with the door - which could be locked, for all he knew, or the room inside the tower occupied by potential enemies - and leaped up the wall, pulling himself up onto the tower's roof, racing across it, and leaping back down on the other side of the wall, putting him directly above the ochre ooze. He pulled his [I]flaming spear[/I] from its place strapped to the inside of his [I]glamered shield[/I], currently made to look like his old one, which had been made from the hardened shell of a large turtle. Utred, however, scrambled back down the rubble and retraced his steps back towards the others, realizing nearly all of the weapons he wielded were better suited to hand-to-hand combat. He pulled his [I]life-flame whip[/I] from where it sat coiled at his belt, deciding to give this new weapon a try - if nothing else, he could attack it from far enough away that he could likely stay out of reach of the slow-moving ooze. Marlo cast an [I]empowered scorching ray[/I] at the ochre blob, her spell hitting it and burning away part of its protoplasmic mass. She called out to the others what she could recall of shield guardians: "Whoever wears the amulet attuned to the shield guardian can control it! I'll bet anything it's that metal thing in the middle of the ooze!" Marlo couldn't be certain, but she could hypothesize the construct's former master being engulfed by the ochre ooze and the control amulet now technically being "worn" by the blobby, mindless mass of protoplasm; in such a case the shield guardian would do its best to protect the ooze despite it not giving it any specific commands. "We need to take out the ooze!" called Cramer. "Don't attack the shield guardian! If we can get the amulet we can control it ourselves!" The ooze surged forward toward Marlo, slapping at her with an acidic tentacle while Utred slashed his fiery whip at the thing in passing. Khari charged the ochre ooze, passing through the open gateway to do so and noting there was no actual mud in the road; what he'd taken for mud had been the creature's own body. He brought his warhammer crashing down upon the formless mass, redistributing its structure and possibly causing it some harm - again, it was difficult to tell. The shield guardian followed in the dwarf's wake, bringing a powerful fist crashing down upon Khari's shoulder and causing him to cry out in pain. Leery of the ooze's attacks, Cramer cast a [I]resist acid[/I] spell on himself while watching his [I]spiritual quarterstaff[/I] continue its attacks upon the ochre blob. But up on the wall, Jhasspok looked down at the scene of combat below him. The ooze had slithered away, but the shield guardian was now directly below the lizardfolk. Keeping in mind what Cramer had said, Jhasspok set aside his [I]flaming spear[/I] and pulled out the weapon he kept folded up at his hip and rarely used: his fishing net. He dropped it expertly upon the top of the shield guardian, then grabbed up his spear and leaped over the side of the wall, landing upon the construct's shoulder and bounding down to the ground from there. He spun in place, ready to fend off the construct with his spear if it attacked. Utred whipped the ochre ooze again while it attacked Khari with an acidic pseudopod. But then Khari finally slew the creature with his warhammer; apparently crushing it had been having some sort of effect after all, for its already almost-liquid body lost almost all cohesion and it trickled away into wet puddles on the ground. Cramer quickly splashed through the puddles and scooped up the amulet. Then, shaking off the slime as best he could, he dropped the necklace over his head and faced the shield guardian. "Cease all attacks!" he told it and the construct stepped forward to stand by its new master, the fishing net still draped over its head and shoulders like a shroud. "So do you think this guardian was Ordrick's?" asked Khari, wiping the ooze from the head of his hammer. "We come all this way for nothing?" "I wouldn't be so sure," Marlo mused. "The acid only seems to affect flesh; if Ordrick had been consumed you'd think there would be bones inside the ooze as well, plus, you know, his clothes." "Let's look around," suggested Cramer, while Jhasspok retrieved and refolded his fishing net. He hoped one day to be able to return to his simple life as a fisher, maybe when all of this running around and preparing to fight drow armies was at an end. Before starting the search himself, Cramer began providing healing spells to those who needed them. "Ordrick?" called Marlo, cupping her hands. "Are you around? We'd like to talk to you, if we might!" Eventually, they found an elderly figure in tattered green robes cowering in the corner of one of the abandoned buildings. He was the first person they'd found inside Baraxis and he looked fearfully up at the group with watery eyes. "Don't hurt me," he wheedled. "We have no wish to hurt you," Cramer replied in his most soothing voice. "Are you Ordrick? We only wish to talk to you, that's all." The others approached. Ordrick calmed down a bit, only to look fearful once again when Jhasspok approached and stared down at the man. "It's okay, he's friendly," Marlo assured the old man. "You should heal him," Jhasspok suggested to Cramer. "He's hurt." The gnome cleric looked over at the elderly man's body, not seeing any obvious wounds. "Are you hurt?" he asked him. Ordrick shook his head but Jhasspok persisted. "Those wounds on his face," he said, pointing with a clawed finger. Embarrassed, Marlo slapped the lizardfolk's hand down and hissed at him, "He's not hurt - those are just wrinkles!" Jhasspok frowned in confusion; how could those deep lines carved into his face not hurt? He'd never seen anybody with these "wrinkles" before - none of the drow in Overreach seemed to have them, nor did any of the slaves he'd ever seen. It was probably some weird mammal thing, he decided. The shield guardian ambled up, keeping Cramer within view and Ordrick recognized it at once. "My guardian!" he said, the crazed look on his face starting to go away and some lucidity returning. "You've recovered him!" His rheumy gaze swiveled over to the control amulet around Cramer's neck. "You must have gotten this from that ooze," he reasoned. "We did indeed," Cramer said, pulling the amulet from around his neck and handing it over to Ordrick. "How did you come to lose it to an ooze in the first place?" "I, uh, sort of accidentally threw it away," Ordrick admitted. "My brain plays tricks on me sometimes; I thought the necklace was trying to strangle me. It ended up in the ooze's body, and that was all it took for the shield guardian to switch its loyalty." "So you're Ordrick?" Cramer pressed. "I am indeed," replied the wizard. "One-time advisor to the King of Baraxis." His face fell as he recalled the role he'd played in the fall of the kingdom. With a heavy sigh, he said, "I recommended the king send our forces to attack Greenvale," he admitted. "I even provided a means for our soldiers to magically fly through the air - it was all very brilliant, or so I believed. And it was - up until those damned elves shot them down with [I]dispel magic[/I] spells; there was our entire army plummeting from the skies to their deaths! And, of course, then frost giants came down from their own lands to wipe out our kingdom once it had been left more or less defenseless...." Ordrick's gaze went blank as he relived the unpleasant memories of his past. "All of that is in the past," suggested Cramer. "We must look to the future! In fact, we have come to warn the local areas of an impending attack by drow forces, rising up from the Underdark! We would appreciate it if you could [I]teleport[/I] us to Greenvale, so we could warn them as well." This, Cramer knew, was a quite inaccurate telling of the true state of affairs, but he really didn't want to get into the realities of the Greenvale elves being sunborn drow...all he really wanted was to get this doddering old fool to get them a shortcut to Greenvale. "If you think about it, it would be a way to make up for the loss of your own kingdom, to help us to warn the other local kingdoms of a dangerous threat to them," suggested Marlo. "We wouldn't want the drow taking over other kingdoms like the frost giants overtook Baraxis." "No, no, we wouldn't," agreed Ordrick, "Not at all. You just want me to [I]teleport[/I] you to the gates of Greenvale? I don't need to come with you inside, do I? I could just drop you off and then go my own way?" "That would be perfectly acceptable, and greatly appreciated," Marlo replied, giving the old man her warmest smile. It did the trick. "Very well," Ordrick agreed. "After all, you did get me my shield guardian back." He motioned for the group to gather around him and they hurried to do so. Then, with the voicing of a few arcane syllables, they all [I]teleported[/I] to the front of a familiar set of gates before the Pantheon Wall of Greenvale. "Okay then bye!" called Ordrick frantically before [I]teleporting[/I] away again, no doubt fearing he'd be recognized and restrained by the elves whose city he'd once helped attack - at the cost of his own kingdom. "Weird guy," Utred commented as the group advanced to the city gate. Once inside, the group reported in to the Greenvale officials and explained about the relic they'd been forced to gather for the Mortal Queen. "I'm afraid, while we've managed to garner support from the Kingdoms of Elderwood, Kravyrn, Revin, and Dracovania and got the frost giants to agree not to attack, all of that has been overshadowed by the threat we've brought to your land," Marlo mourned. "All is not yet lost," reassured Greenvale's highest official: T'puuli Tine, the half-celestial drider who ran Greenvale in the absence of Matron Ky'hulcressen, whose duties forced her to spend most of her time in the Overreach. "The Mortal Queen apparently does not yet know how to control this relic or the Tarrasque. That gives us time - we will research what we can about this 'Vengeance of the Gods' and see what we can learn about it. Perhaps there is a way to overcome it, or negate it - if nothing else, perhaps we can find a way to steal it away from her or destroy it before it can be used." "You are very understanding," Marlo replied, her heart lightened somewhat. "We, of all people, know what it is like to be forced to do the bidding of a Matron Mother. Now go; you have been out in the field for some time on our behalf - it is time you slept in a comfortable bed, had some good food, and perhaps restocked some of your own goods or upgraded your armor and weapons. Go about these tasks for the rest of the day; we will meet again tomorrow and make our next plans." That sounded like a very good idea to the five arena slaves. - - - This adventure was basically two short fights against two foes each, with each pairing made up of creatures you probably wouldn't expect to find together. I was especially amused by how the "ochre ooze" (Logan merged an ochre jelly and a gray ooze, taking the bits he wanted from each) ended up with a shield guardian protecting it. And we leveled up to 9th at the end! Jhasspok took his 4th level of fighter, specifically so he could get the Weapon Specialization (battleaxe) feat that requires 4 levels of fighter as a prerequisite (he also took Cleave as his bonus fighter feat), so I'll probably need to throw some barbarian levels his way for a bit to try to even them out. And back in a city large enough to have armorers and weaponcrafters and magic shops allowed us to spend some of the hard-earned coin we'd been gathering in recent adventures. Cramer had an [I]Elderwood flaming heavy mace[/I] crafted for himself, while Khari and Jhasspok each added an additional +1 to their primary weapons. Utred sold his [I]+2 heavy steel shield[/I] and used the money from that to help pay for a [I]+1 animated tower shield[/I], then picked up a [I]+1 greataxe[/I] because apparently he didn't have enough weapons on hand just yet. Jhasspok bought the equivalent of a [I]+1 amulet of mighty fists[/I], but in his case it's a necklace of predators' teeth - in any case, it adds a +1 to attack and damage rolls using natural weapons (meaning claws and teeth in his case). And Vicki had some secret discussions with Logan off in the family room while the rest of us calculated the cost of our purchases; apparently Marlo is up to something the rest of us don't know about. Interesting, considering our characters don't know about that [I]Book of Uboros[/I] she's got hidden from us or that she's sworn to worship the Dying One.... [/QUOTE]
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