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"Retake the Island" - Concluded!
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<blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2920949" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p>Chapter Thirty-three, “Cassie’s Truce“, August 8th, 1018, 4:00 P.M. </p><p></p><p>Outside in the dining room, Serita charges into the room, as Narg heads over towards the wall with the secret door. “About time somebody else got here,” says Narg. "There’s a secret door here that they went through.” Serita tells him to wait, that others are coming. Blake next enters the room, followed by Kharole and Fiona.</p><p></p><p>Back on the astral plane, the crimson dust has enveloped Hendry, leaving Cassie alone. Where it convalesces on his body it takes on an almost liquid appearance, and begins to cover over his arms and half of his head. Hendry opens his mouth, and the crimson liquid flows in, preventing him from breathing. </p><p></p><p>Rainville then reappears, seeing his brother in grave danger. Rainville grabs Hendry’s hand, and the crimson immediately flows off of most of Hendry’s body, only to then flow back and begin to also flow over Rainville. Cassie asks “What are you doing?” Rainville answers “We’re trying to mentally force this away.” “How can I help?” she asks, and Rainville thrusts his other hand towards her. </p><p></p><p>She grasps it, as he tells her to “Mentally project it away from us.” She does as he asks, telepathically hearing both Hendry and Rainville's thoughts. The three of them give a focused blast of energy, with the synergised messsage of "Get Off". The red creature immediately jumps off of them in multiple directions, then begins to reform into a whirlwind about fifteen feet away.</p><p></p><p>Hendry says “It’s Etronne, the mage that was killed.” Rainville asks “How? He should have dissipated across the astral plane…of course! The anti-magic barrier kept him his essence contained. When it struck the barrier it bounced back and reformed.” Hendry adds “And waited for an opportunity to attack just one of us, hoping to overtake my mental form here, in order to then assume my physical form back on the prime material plane!” </p><p></p><p>The crimson creature begins to start to move back in towards them. “We have to all go back,” says Rainville. Hendry points towards Cassie, and says “Agreed, but then her allies will be able to find us.” “They already have, let‘s go” is Rainville’s answer. The two grasp Cassie’s hands, and the three mentally depart the plane.</p><p></p><p>Shortly thereafter, Narg opens up the secret door, to see a short hallway and darkened chamber beyond it. A male voice yells out “Stop. We request mediation.” Narg answers “What? We have nothing to talk about.” The voice yells back “We disagree. We request mediation, and that Cassie-Andra be the mediator.” </p><p></p><p>This request takes Narg and his four allies by surprise, Narg asks his allies “What should we do?” Fiona answers “It’s probably just a trick.” The voice from inside the room then yells “Hold on, I’m coming out.” Blake is sent to invisibly wait outside of the passageway, as Fiona and Kharole position themselves in the corners of the room. A handsome young man in his early twenties, wearing a bright red robe and expensive clothing exits from the corridor into the dining room. </p><p></p><p>He introduces himself as Hendry, and says that will allow Cassie-Andra to act as a mediator for the two groups. Narg orders him to go get her. Hendry does this, carrying her unconscious body over to the dining table. They notice that she is wearing only a cloth tunic, and is bald. He explains that she has a potion in her system keeping her body unconscious, but that he has been in mental contact with her, and it was she who suggested mediation. </p><p></p><p>Serita and Fiona are both suspicious about this actually being Cassie. Fiona does a Detect Magic, which only shows her to be currently affected by Magic. Hendry explains that this is due to the potion in her system, and says that a Neutralize Poison will be needed to negate it. Serita reluctantly uses the spell, after which Fiona confirms the magical presence to be gone. Cassie regains consciousness, and is helped off of the table. </p><p></p><p>Cassie starts to explain who Hendry is. Hendry requests to go get others in his party, to which they agree. While he is gone they ask Cassie more questions, and she relays to them much of what Hendry and Rainville have told them. She also warns them to be careful of the older sister, and not to trust her. Hendry returns with his older sister and older brother. He introduces them as Elaine and Carl. Whereas Cassie had been told that the sister's name was Carrie, this leads to an angry outburst from Cassie about how she will not be lied to. Hendry is confused, but then goes on to explain how Elaine is his sisters first name, but how he usually refers to her as Carrie, her middle name, which is what her Grandfather Carter always addressed her as.</p><p></p><p>The discussion after than gets tense, with the party demanding that Mark and Herculean also be brought out, with Elaine adamantly refusing. Fiona suggests that one of them be brought in to confirm the safety of the others, to which Elaine agrees. Fiona (with Blake following) heads into the room, finding Lisa and Rainville guarding an unconscious Mark. Herculean is also unconscious, six inches tall, and contained in an energy cage. The mimic Dave, in chair form, is in another energy cage. Also in the room is the mangled body of these people’s father, Hendry Senior. Fiona returns, and tells this to the others. When she describes the body Narg asks “What happened to him?” Cassie answers “He touched my library.”</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, the Sea Castle Adventurers arrive in the town. They see that the church is surrounded by hobgoblins. They circumnavigate around through the woods and up behind the home of the Silver Moon crewmember and navigator Smiddle, which is about one-hundred-fifty feet away from the church with a direct vantage point of the church from the southern windows. They decide to use this building as their headquarters. Both Aurora and Razou go to rest on Smiddle’s bed and couch respectively. Torvald and Flashis watch the church, while Billy Bob and Hans discreetly sneak over to Han’s house for food and supplies.</p><p></p><p>Twelve miles to the west, in the forest, a quarter mile south of Crystull’s cabin, the chimera that had fought the other group now charges out of the forest towards crewmember Lloyd, who is leading the group of prisoners. Simultaneous to this, ten elephant-footed giants rise up from their place of hiding eighty feet away, and start to charge toward the group. </p><p></p><p>Several crew members yell “retreat”, and start to turn to run. Adrianna, feeling tricked, turns towards the prisoners and fires an arrow into the back of the prisoner Gina. The evil cleric Roger then hits Adrianna with a flame strike, hitting her for twelve points and frying her bow string. The other five prisoners dive to the ground. Isaiah organizes a rapid retreat, as the chimera moves to the end of the line of fallen prisoners, and stops, standing guard over them. </p><p></p><p>The Southpoint island mediation session that Cassie is facilitating continues, including a lengthy side conversation about Narg’s unwashed socks and whether his possession of them constitutes a Chaotic Evil act. Narg adds that one of the reasons he is anxious to get back to the city is so that he can put the socks outside for the hurricane to wash. The comment about the weather leads to the group receiving information from the Hendry family that the storm's peak won't actually be for another thirty hours.</p><p></p><p>It soon becomes clear that the Hendry family does not necessarily want to either help or harm the party, the main thing they want is out of the caves they are now trapped in and then find a place to safely ride out the storm. They agree to turn the prisoners over to the party, provided that all five of them and their father’s body are brought to a place of safety. At that point they agree to send up a White flare, indicating that their team is out of the contest. After much debate, the party agrees to these terms. They then discuss how to get past the barriers, considering use of the Wand of Exchange.</p><p></p><p>Back at Crystul's cabin, the remaining adventurers (Blip, the Sea Castle Fiona, Freyland, Jerry, Kale Lono and Razou) decide to send the stagecoach down the road towards the approaching army, booby trapped to explode and filled with the enemy bodies. Leaving the six monster prisoners tied to trees, they then head off south into the woods with the remaining five crew members. </p><p></p><p>Within five minutes they meet up with the rapidly retreating first group that had headed off, hearing about the approaching monsters. Freyland quickly exclaims “It’s not the Balrog…it better not be…I hope it isn’t”. They conclude that they are in no shape to fight such a formidable collection of foes, especially with other enemies on the way, so head off west after their second group. They find the trail of the second group a quarter mile west, and follow it as then turns to the south.</p><p></p><p>At Southpoint, the deal is explained to Rainville and Lisa, as Fiona and Kharole investigate the magic barriers holding Herculean and Dave. Hendry says that he is unable to open them, although suspects that a Dispel Magic would do the trick. But unfortunately that spell would also cause Herculean to enlarge to his full size, which would exceed the size of the room they are in. </p><p></p><p>Further down the cave, it finally dawns upon Mojo that he is carrying the Sword of Cancellation, which can be used on the barriers! A test of this shows that the barrier itself does not cancel out, but that the sword wielder is protected from the barrier’s effect while the sword is within it. They send Timothy back to get Luekia, and head through the barriers one after another, sliding the sword back to the next person. This gets the remaining eight characters, plus Cassie’s familiar through. </p><p></p><p>This group makes their way towards the dining room, being surprised to find Narg and Serita sitting down at a table and talking to the enemy rather than fighting. Mojo mutters to Lannon “What ever happened to the old Narg?” Kharole, Narg and Serita introduce the others and explain the deal that was negotiated.</p><p></p><p>Hendry, glancing at all of the members of the Silver Moon now present, has a disturbed look on his face. Cassie asks him “What is it”. “You brought all of these people here,” he says. “Right, we’re thorough” exclaims Mojo proudly. “So,” asks Cassie. Hendry replies “Then who did you leave with the prisoners and non-combatants?” “Lots of other powerful team members,” Mojo assertively answers. </p><p></p><p>Now suddenly worried, Cassie replies “Why do you ask?” Hendry answers “Because Roger left here with the Black Dragon, the Chimera and ten giants, to go there to rescue the prisoners, three hours ago! This throws several members of the party into a panic, especially Vincenzo who realizes the immediate danger to his wife and children and that they may already be too late. </p><p></p><p>They quickly organize everyone together, realizing that total number present now far exceeds the capacity of the two bags of holding. They discuss leaving the Hendry family behind, which Elaine adamantly protests would violate the terms of their agreement, saying “If you leave us trapped here the prisoners have to stay too.” </p><p></p><p>Cassie says “She’s right, that was our deal, and I personally don’t want to stay here a minute longer, so figure something else out.” They conclude that with the high level cleric soon to return it is best not to leave anyone behind, with the possible exception of the mimic Dave. </p><p></p><p>They decide to keep Herculean in small form, and Hendry uses his remaining Reduce spell to make their father’s body small and portable too. They have everybody present dump all excess non-magical possessions, then plan how many at a maximum can fit into the two bags. They conclude that they can get all but four inside provided that at least two of these four are the two large human clerics, Timothy and Vincenzo. Serita very reluctantly agrees to let Timothy use her teleportation ring. Vincenzo uses the belt of shape change to turn into a mouse, climbing into Timothy’s pocket. </p><p></p><p>Serita assumes the form of a Faerie Dragon, landing on Timothy’s right shoulder, as the owl Deanna lands rides on his left shoulder. Aradyn is to be carried on Timothy’s, bow extended, to deal with any immediate threats. All of the others get into the two bags (setting a new capacity record). They remind Timothy to get them out fast, as the air inside the bags will be used up in minutes with such a large group in each. He then teleports to a spot near Crystul’s cabin, behind the duck blind.</p><p>They arrive beside the camouflaged Jeep. Seeing and hearing nothing other than the sound of the rain, Aradyn exclaims “Oh no, we’re too late.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 2920949, member: 8530"] Chapter Thirty-three, “Cassie’s Truce“, August 8th, 1018, 4:00 P.M. Outside in the dining room, Serita charges into the room, as Narg heads over towards the wall with the secret door. “About time somebody else got here,” says Narg. "There’s a secret door here that they went through.” Serita tells him to wait, that others are coming. Blake next enters the room, followed by Kharole and Fiona. Back on the astral plane, the crimson dust has enveloped Hendry, leaving Cassie alone. Where it convalesces on his body it takes on an almost liquid appearance, and begins to cover over his arms and half of his head. Hendry opens his mouth, and the crimson liquid flows in, preventing him from breathing. Rainville then reappears, seeing his brother in grave danger. Rainville grabs Hendry’s hand, and the crimson immediately flows off of most of Hendry’s body, only to then flow back and begin to also flow over Rainville. Cassie asks “What are you doing?” Rainville answers “We’re trying to mentally force this away.” “How can I help?” she asks, and Rainville thrusts his other hand towards her. She grasps it, as he tells her to “Mentally project it away from us.” She does as he asks, telepathically hearing both Hendry and Rainville's thoughts. The three of them give a focused blast of energy, with the synergised messsage of "Get Off". The red creature immediately jumps off of them in multiple directions, then begins to reform into a whirlwind about fifteen feet away. Hendry says “It’s Etronne, the mage that was killed.” Rainville asks “How? He should have dissipated across the astral plane…of course! The anti-magic barrier kept him his essence contained. When it struck the barrier it bounced back and reformed.” Hendry adds “And waited for an opportunity to attack just one of us, hoping to overtake my mental form here, in order to then assume my physical form back on the prime material plane!” The crimson creature begins to start to move back in towards them. “We have to all go back,” says Rainville. Hendry points towards Cassie, and says “Agreed, but then her allies will be able to find us.” “They already have, let‘s go” is Rainville’s answer. The two grasp Cassie’s hands, and the three mentally depart the plane. Shortly thereafter, Narg opens up the secret door, to see a short hallway and darkened chamber beyond it. A male voice yells out “Stop. We request mediation.” Narg answers “What? We have nothing to talk about.” The voice yells back “We disagree. We request mediation, and that Cassie-Andra be the mediator.” This request takes Narg and his four allies by surprise, Narg asks his allies “What should we do?” Fiona answers “It’s probably just a trick.” The voice from inside the room then yells “Hold on, I’m coming out.” Blake is sent to invisibly wait outside of the passageway, as Fiona and Kharole position themselves in the corners of the room. A handsome young man in his early twenties, wearing a bright red robe and expensive clothing exits from the corridor into the dining room. He introduces himself as Hendry, and says that will allow Cassie-Andra to act as a mediator for the two groups. Narg orders him to go get her. Hendry does this, carrying her unconscious body over to the dining table. They notice that she is wearing only a cloth tunic, and is bald. He explains that she has a potion in her system keeping her body unconscious, but that he has been in mental contact with her, and it was she who suggested mediation. Serita and Fiona are both suspicious about this actually being Cassie. Fiona does a Detect Magic, which only shows her to be currently affected by Magic. Hendry explains that this is due to the potion in her system, and says that a Neutralize Poison will be needed to negate it. Serita reluctantly uses the spell, after which Fiona confirms the magical presence to be gone. Cassie regains consciousness, and is helped off of the table. Cassie starts to explain who Hendry is. Hendry requests to go get others in his party, to which they agree. While he is gone they ask Cassie more questions, and she relays to them much of what Hendry and Rainville have told them. She also warns them to be careful of the older sister, and not to trust her. Hendry returns with his older sister and older brother. He introduces them as Elaine and Carl. Whereas Cassie had been told that the sister's name was Carrie, this leads to an angry outburst from Cassie about how she will not be lied to. Hendry is confused, but then goes on to explain how Elaine is his sisters first name, but how he usually refers to her as Carrie, her middle name, which is what her Grandfather Carter always addressed her as. The discussion after than gets tense, with the party demanding that Mark and Herculean also be brought out, with Elaine adamantly refusing. Fiona suggests that one of them be brought in to confirm the safety of the others, to which Elaine agrees. Fiona (with Blake following) heads into the room, finding Lisa and Rainville guarding an unconscious Mark. Herculean is also unconscious, six inches tall, and contained in an energy cage. The mimic Dave, in chair form, is in another energy cage. Also in the room is the mangled body of these people’s father, Hendry Senior. Fiona returns, and tells this to the others. When she describes the body Narg asks “What happened to him?” Cassie answers “He touched my library.” Meanwhile, the Sea Castle Adventurers arrive in the town. They see that the church is surrounded by hobgoblins. They circumnavigate around through the woods and up behind the home of the Silver Moon crewmember and navigator Smiddle, which is about one-hundred-fifty feet away from the church with a direct vantage point of the church from the southern windows. They decide to use this building as their headquarters. Both Aurora and Razou go to rest on Smiddle’s bed and couch respectively. Torvald and Flashis watch the church, while Billy Bob and Hans discreetly sneak over to Han’s house for food and supplies. Twelve miles to the west, in the forest, a quarter mile south of Crystull’s cabin, the chimera that had fought the other group now charges out of the forest towards crewmember Lloyd, who is leading the group of prisoners. Simultaneous to this, ten elephant-footed giants rise up from their place of hiding eighty feet away, and start to charge toward the group. Several crew members yell “retreat”, and start to turn to run. Adrianna, feeling tricked, turns towards the prisoners and fires an arrow into the back of the prisoner Gina. The evil cleric Roger then hits Adrianna with a flame strike, hitting her for twelve points and frying her bow string. The other five prisoners dive to the ground. Isaiah organizes a rapid retreat, as the chimera moves to the end of the line of fallen prisoners, and stops, standing guard over them. The Southpoint island mediation session that Cassie is facilitating continues, including a lengthy side conversation about Narg’s unwashed socks and whether his possession of them constitutes a Chaotic Evil act. Narg adds that one of the reasons he is anxious to get back to the city is so that he can put the socks outside for the hurricane to wash. The comment about the weather leads to the group receiving information from the Hendry family that the storm's peak won't actually be for another thirty hours. It soon becomes clear that the Hendry family does not necessarily want to either help or harm the party, the main thing they want is out of the caves they are now trapped in and then find a place to safely ride out the storm. They agree to turn the prisoners over to the party, provided that all five of them and their father’s body are brought to a place of safety. At that point they agree to send up a White flare, indicating that their team is out of the contest. After much debate, the party agrees to these terms. They then discuss how to get past the barriers, considering use of the Wand of Exchange. Back at Crystul's cabin, the remaining adventurers (Blip, the Sea Castle Fiona, Freyland, Jerry, Kale Lono and Razou) decide to send the stagecoach down the road towards the approaching army, booby trapped to explode and filled with the enemy bodies. Leaving the six monster prisoners tied to trees, they then head off south into the woods with the remaining five crew members. Within five minutes they meet up with the rapidly retreating first group that had headed off, hearing about the approaching monsters. Freyland quickly exclaims “It’s not the Balrog…it better not be…I hope it isn’t”. They conclude that they are in no shape to fight such a formidable collection of foes, especially with other enemies on the way, so head off west after their second group. They find the trail of the second group a quarter mile west, and follow it as then turns to the south. At Southpoint, the deal is explained to Rainville and Lisa, as Fiona and Kharole investigate the magic barriers holding Herculean and Dave. Hendry says that he is unable to open them, although suspects that a Dispel Magic would do the trick. But unfortunately that spell would also cause Herculean to enlarge to his full size, which would exceed the size of the room they are in. Further down the cave, it finally dawns upon Mojo that he is carrying the Sword of Cancellation, which can be used on the barriers! A test of this shows that the barrier itself does not cancel out, but that the sword wielder is protected from the barrier’s effect while the sword is within it. They send Timothy back to get Luekia, and head through the barriers one after another, sliding the sword back to the next person. This gets the remaining eight characters, plus Cassie’s familiar through. This group makes their way towards the dining room, being surprised to find Narg and Serita sitting down at a table and talking to the enemy rather than fighting. Mojo mutters to Lannon “What ever happened to the old Narg?” Kharole, Narg and Serita introduce the others and explain the deal that was negotiated. Hendry, glancing at all of the members of the Silver Moon now present, has a disturbed look on his face. Cassie asks him “What is it”. “You brought all of these people here,” he says. “Right, we’re thorough” exclaims Mojo proudly. “So,” asks Cassie. Hendry replies “Then who did you leave with the prisoners and non-combatants?” “Lots of other powerful team members,” Mojo assertively answers. Now suddenly worried, Cassie replies “Why do you ask?” Hendry answers “Because Roger left here with the Black Dragon, the Chimera and ten giants, to go there to rescue the prisoners, three hours ago! This throws several members of the party into a panic, especially Vincenzo who realizes the immediate danger to his wife and children and that they may already be too late. They quickly organize everyone together, realizing that total number present now far exceeds the capacity of the two bags of holding. They discuss leaving the Hendry family behind, which Elaine adamantly protests would violate the terms of their agreement, saying “If you leave us trapped here the prisoners have to stay too.” Cassie says “She’s right, that was our deal, and I personally don’t want to stay here a minute longer, so figure something else out.” They conclude that with the high level cleric soon to return it is best not to leave anyone behind, with the possible exception of the mimic Dave. They decide to keep Herculean in small form, and Hendry uses his remaining Reduce spell to make their father’s body small and portable too. They have everybody present dump all excess non-magical possessions, then plan how many at a maximum can fit into the two bags. They conclude that they can get all but four inside provided that at least two of these four are the two large human clerics, Timothy and Vincenzo. Serita very reluctantly agrees to let Timothy use her teleportation ring. Vincenzo uses the belt of shape change to turn into a mouse, climbing into Timothy’s pocket. Serita assumes the form of a Faerie Dragon, landing on Timothy’s right shoulder, as the owl Deanna lands rides on his left shoulder. Aradyn is to be carried on Timothy’s, bow extended, to deal with any immediate threats. All of the others get into the two bags (setting a new capacity record). They remind Timothy to get them out fast, as the air inside the bags will be used up in minutes with such a large group in each. He then teleports to a spot near Crystul’s cabin, behind the duck blind. They arrive beside the camouflaged Jeep. Seeing and hearing nothing other than the sound of the rain, Aradyn exclaims “Oh no, we’re too late.” [/QUOTE]
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