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Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 205
The creature is about forty feet away from the portal. It towers some twenty feet high, a huge skeletal body with twelve heads atop twelve long fleshless necks. Dranko doesn’t wait to see if the undead monster spots him; he jumps right back into the portal.
“Giant monster!” he announces upon his return. Morningstar, sitting on the edge of the bed, cocks an eye at him.
“Yeah, right,” she says with a laugh.
“No, no, no, no!” insists Dranko, clearly agitated. “Gi - ant. Mon- Ster.”
“Your point?” asks Aravis.
“Soft comfy bed,” adds Ernie.
“I don’t think you get it,” says Dranko. “There’s a huge monster outside that could reach through the portal and pluck us out!”
Flicker backs away from the portal.
“I don’t think it works that way,” says Aravis. “There’s no sign that undead have ever been in here. And the monsters back in the beast cave never plucked anyone out. I don’t think you can stick just part of yourself through.”
“I’m just sayin’. Gi – ant Mon – ster. And I would sleep better if we just killed it now.”
“We could just sleep in a rope trick,” says Aravis.
“I’m sooooooo sick of sleeping in stupid rope tricks!” Ernie complains.
“And there’s a big comfy bed out here!” adds Flicker. "We could just push some furniture in front of the gate if we're worried.”
Morningstar clears her throat before offering a more practical reason to wait.
“Knowing that we’re up against undead when we prepare our spells tomorrow will be very helpful,” she says. Dranko concedes the point.
“But I’m going to have terrible nightmares,” he says. “Aaaaaaand, the only thing that’s going to make me sleep better would be that big, comfortable bed….”
* *
Much of the next morning is spent debating spell choices and tactics for fighting a huge undead hydra. Only after many buffing spells are cast does someone bring up the idea of casting invisibility to undead and simply flying and/or sneaking past the creature. After all, there’s nothing obvious to be gained by fighting it. (But just in case the sneaking plan fails, they don’t stop with the buffing spells.)
“Maybe it’s not there anymore,” pipes up Flicker, glancing nervously at the portal.
“Oh, it’s there,” says Dranko.
“How do you know? Maybe it got bored and went home.”
“Flicker, it is home.”
Another discussion breaks out, this one on the topic of where they should go once they escape the hydra. The negative material plane and the various gray portals are obviously bad ideas. That leaves the desert and the portal leading to Glaring Peak. In they end they postpone that decision until they’re back at the two-sun plane.
Finally Morningstar casts invisibility to undead on the group.
“Remember,” warns Dranko, “if anyone attacks, or even touches an undead, we’ll all become visible.”
Like most of the portals they’ve seen, this one is only large enough for five of them to go through in a round. The first team is Dranko, Ernie, Aravis, Flicker and Kay. They jump through, and there’s the cold tugging sensation that pulls them through the void between planes. When they stumble out the other side, it’s still gray and cold, with thunder rolling continuously overhead.
The enormous skeletal hydra is still there, very close to where Dranko saw it the previous night. To the chagrin of the new arrivals, it has been joined by three more just like it! Collectively the four of them are filling up most of the pass that leads to the distant blue portal and freedom. The Company can hear the clicking and rattling of bones as all those heads sway slightly.
Worse still, there’s more than just the hydras. Eight or nine tall humanoid mummies shuffle around, interspersed in front of, behind and among the hydras. Waves of horror roll off them, and for the moment four of the five party members are literally paralyzed with fear. Only Ernie can still move. He sees that the hydras haven’t noticed any of them, but about half of the mummies see through the spell and start to shamble forward to attack.
“Yondalla’s rotten potatoes!” Ernie thinks to himself.
One mummy walks right up to Flicker, and clubs the terrified halfling with a bandaged fist. Still paralyzed, Flicker topples over. Ernie winces, wondering if this contact will end the invisibility to undead spell. Fortunately it seems that contact initiated by the undead doesn’t disrupt the magic. Three other mummies advance, walking around the hydras. The remaining four watch the first three curiously. Ernie uses his shield to fly and moves to hover above Flicker.
“I’ll save you,” he mouths.
Just then the remaining members of the Company come through the portal, to discover that for some reason the first group hasn’t cleared out from the landing zone! There’s chaos as a lot of people crash into a lot of other people. Aravis and Kibi go sprawling onto the ground. Snokas nearly falls into Kay, and in his attempt to avoid her trips and falls himself. Morningstar, Grey Wolf and One Certain Step manage to lurch around and avoid the others.
Grey Wolf thinks to himself: “Why is the first group still crowded around the entrance?”
Then: “Uh, oh, they look like they’re paralyzed.”
Then: “Holy crap! That’s not a hydra. That’s four hydras and a bunch of mummies! $#@!”
The mummies' aura of terror washes over the newcomers, but bolstered by the heroic presence of One Certain Step, none of them are paralyzed. (Morningstar is actually terrified, but her ring of freedom of movement nullifies the paralysis.) Kay is still paralyzed, but this doesn’t prevent her from activating her air-spirit-assisted flight ability. She flies upward and out of harm’s way.
Kibi struggles to his feet, props up Aravis and gets him balanced. Dranko manages to shake off the crippling fear, and his muscles relax.
“Do we go back?” he whispers harshly. The closest hydra turns a couple of its heads in his direction but still makes no move.
“Ah, screw it,” he thinks. One hydra they were prepared for, but this is going to need more planning. Dranko grabs Aravis and leaps back through the portal. A moment later they emerge into the bedroom again.
Morningstar twigs to the plan and does the same, grabbing the nearest paralyzed person (Flicker, in her case) and jumping back to the bedroom. Away from the mummies, Aravis feels the paralysis fade. He swears aloud and casts shield on himself.
Alas, the retreat-and-regroup plan is extremely short-lived. A ways back and off to the side of the pass, obscured by both some intervening hydras and a large boulder, something casts a spell. A wall of stone appears behind the remaining members of the Company – entirely sealing off the portal! From her high vantage point, Kay catches a glimpse of something like a skeletal snake with arms slithering behind the large boulder.
The hydras continue to shuffle, mindlessly aware that something’s going on but not seeing anything to kill. One Certain Step itches to attack the mummies, but knows that doing so will allow the Hydras to see them. Instead, realizing that there’s a spellcaster about, he moves off to the side to get out of “fireball formation.” Grey Wolf uses his wand of flying on himself and flies straight up.
The four mummies who see targets amble forward. Two of them approach Kibi and punch him solidly. The dwarf can smell a rotting stench coming from the beneath their dirty wrappings as they pummel him.
The fourth mummy trips on a chunk of rock and stumbles into Snokas. Both of them fall to the ground with the mummy on top. Oof! Snokas groans in discomfort and terror. He has no idea if the act of shoving the mummy off of him will end the invisibility spell or not.
>> So at this point my players are giving me a pretty hard time. First there was the multiplying-the-expected-monsters-by-15 trick. Then there was the split-the-party-with-a-wall-of-stone trick. Now I’ve got Snokas lying on the ground with a filthy, oozing mummy sprawled on top of him, and unable to do anything about it for fear that it will alert the four hydras to their presence. Dranko’s player (Piratecat) leaned across the table and said: “I demand my money back.” Grey Wolf’s player was more direct. “Let’s beat him,” he suggested, glaring at me.
Dranko, Flicker, Aravis and Morningstar are starting to wonder why the others haven’t followed them through the portal. None of the possible explanations are good.
“I’m going to check and see what’s going on out there,” says Flicker. He jumps through the portal. Two seconds later he comes lurching back out into the bedroom, hands pressed to his face. “Ooooowwwwaaaauuuugh!” he exclaims. He peeks through his fingers. “Hey, I’m still here! I slammed into something. It was like someone threw me into a wall.”
He lowers his hands, which are red and sticky. His nose is broken and gushing blood.
“Oh, crap!” says Dranko, his face going pale. “What kind of wall?”
“A solid wall!” says Flicker.
“Force?”
“No, no… I mean a real wall, a physical wall. It wasn’t glassy like a force wall. It was probably stone.”
“So no splinters,” says Dranko. “What did it taste like?”
“What did it TASTE LIKE?!” cries Flicker, his voice shrill. “Why would I have tasted it?”
Aravis thinks out loud. “I could try using my staff, just as I went through the portal. With luck it would target the wall of stone with a passwall.” But no one thinks that would work, including him. The four of them just stare helplessly at the portal, wondering what fate is befalling their friends outside.
Kay flies back to help Step, hovering above him, intending to air-lift him out if necessary. She flies close to one of the hydras, and sensing something stirring the air, it idly snaps in Kay’s direction with three of its heads. Kibi winces at the bruises left by the mummies’ fists, but realizes immediately what needs to be done. Avoiding more attacks from his foes, he casts stone shape and parts the stone wall blocking the portal. Having cleared the way, he steps through it. Seconds later he emerges into the bedroom.
Dranko looks at the dwarf in surprise.
“Flicker! You weren’t just messing with us, were you?”
“Yeah,” says Flicker reproachfully, “and my smashed, bloody nose is just an act.”
“Ok,” announces Kibi proudly. “The wall of stone is down.”
“Wall of stone! Oh, for crying out loud!” says Flicker.
“Who cast a wall of stone?” asks Morningstar.
“I don’t know,” Kibi admits. “I didn’t see anything.”
Morningstar heals Flicker’s nose and then steps through the portal, not wanting to be stuck in the bedroom again if another wall gets cast. Still inside, Aravis activates his boots of haste and Dranko casts protection from evil on himself.
Morningstar emerges into the rocky pass. A moment later the lurking bone snake-creature casts another spell – a greater dispelling that blankets the area around the Company. Ernie loses his fly and drops four feet to the ground. Snokas loses his endurance spell and feels a bit weaker.
Step is divested of his invisibility to undead.
Forty-eight hydra heads swivel and rattle and stare directly at him.
…to be continued…
The creature is about forty feet away from the portal. It towers some twenty feet high, a huge skeletal body with twelve heads atop twelve long fleshless necks. Dranko doesn’t wait to see if the undead monster spots him; he jumps right back into the portal.
“Giant monster!” he announces upon his return. Morningstar, sitting on the edge of the bed, cocks an eye at him.
“Yeah, right,” she says with a laugh.
“No, no, no, no!” insists Dranko, clearly agitated. “Gi - ant. Mon- Ster.”
“Your point?” asks Aravis.
“Soft comfy bed,” adds Ernie.
“I don’t think you get it,” says Dranko. “There’s a huge monster outside that could reach through the portal and pluck us out!”
Flicker backs away from the portal.
“I don’t think it works that way,” says Aravis. “There’s no sign that undead have ever been in here. And the monsters back in the beast cave never plucked anyone out. I don’t think you can stick just part of yourself through.”
“I’m just sayin’. Gi – ant Mon – ster. And I would sleep better if we just killed it now.”
“We could just sleep in a rope trick,” says Aravis.
“I’m sooooooo sick of sleeping in stupid rope tricks!” Ernie complains.
“And there’s a big comfy bed out here!” adds Flicker. "We could just push some furniture in front of the gate if we're worried.”
Morningstar clears her throat before offering a more practical reason to wait.
“Knowing that we’re up against undead when we prepare our spells tomorrow will be very helpful,” she says. Dranko concedes the point.
“But I’m going to have terrible nightmares,” he says. “Aaaaaaand, the only thing that’s going to make me sleep better would be that big, comfortable bed….”
* *
Much of the next morning is spent debating spell choices and tactics for fighting a huge undead hydra. Only after many buffing spells are cast does someone bring up the idea of casting invisibility to undead and simply flying and/or sneaking past the creature. After all, there’s nothing obvious to be gained by fighting it. (But just in case the sneaking plan fails, they don’t stop with the buffing spells.)
“Maybe it’s not there anymore,” pipes up Flicker, glancing nervously at the portal.
“Oh, it’s there,” says Dranko.
“How do you know? Maybe it got bored and went home.”
“Flicker, it is home.”
Another discussion breaks out, this one on the topic of where they should go once they escape the hydra. The negative material plane and the various gray portals are obviously bad ideas. That leaves the desert and the portal leading to Glaring Peak. In they end they postpone that decision until they’re back at the two-sun plane.
Finally Morningstar casts invisibility to undead on the group.
“Remember,” warns Dranko, “if anyone attacks, or even touches an undead, we’ll all become visible.”
Like most of the portals they’ve seen, this one is only large enough for five of them to go through in a round. The first team is Dranko, Ernie, Aravis, Flicker and Kay. They jump through, and there’s the cold tugging sensation that pulls them through the void between planes. When they stumble out the other side, it’s still gray and cold, with thunder rolling continuously overhead.
The enormous skeletal hydra is still there, very close to where Dranko saw it the previous night. To the chagrin of the new arrivals, it has been joined by three more just like it! Collectively the four of them are filling up most of the pass that leads to the distant blue portal and freedom. The Company can hear the clicking and rattling of bones as all those heads sway slightly.
Worse still, there’s more than just the hydras. Eight or nine tall humanoid mummies shuffle around, interspersed in front of, behind and among the hydras. Waves of horror roll off them, and for the moment four of the five party members are literally paralyzed with fear. Only Ernie can still move. He sees that the hydras haven’t noticed any of them, but about half of the mummies see through the spell and start to shamble forward to attack.
“Yondalla’s rotten potatoes!” Ernie thinks to himself.
One mummy walks right up to Flicker, and clubs the terrified halfling with a bandaged fist. Still paralyzed, Flicker topples over. Ernie winces, wondering if this contact will end the invisibility to undead spell. Fortunately it seems that contact initiated by the undead doesn’t disrupt the magic. Three other mummies advance, walking around the hydras. The remaining four watch the first three curiously. Ernie uses his shield to fly and moves to hover above Flicker.
“I’ll save you,” he mouths.
Just then the remaining members of the Company come through the portal, to discover that for some reason the first group hasn’t cleared out from the landing zone! There’s chaos as a lot of people crash into a lot of other people. Aravis and Kibi go sprawling onto the ground. Snokas nearly falls into Kay, and in his attempt to avoid her trips and falls himself. Morningstar, Grey Wolf and One Certain Step manage to lurch around and avoid the others.
Grey Wolf thinks to himself: “Why is the first group still crowded around the entrance?”
Then: “Uh, oh, they look like they’re paralyzed.”
Then: “Holy crap! That’s not a hydra. That’s four hydras and a bunch of mummies! $#@!”
The mummies' aura of terror washes over the newcomers, but bolstered by the heroic presence of One Certain Step, none of them are paralyzed. (Morningstar is actually terrified, but her ring of freedom of movement nullifies the paralysis.) Kay is still paralyzed, but this doesn’t prevent her from activating her air-spirit-assisted flight ability. She flies upward and out of harm’s way.
Kibi struggles to his feet, props up Aravis and gets him balanced. Dranko manages to shake off the crippling fear, and his muscles relax.
“Do we go back?” he whispers harshly. The closest hydra turns a couple of its heads in his direction but still makes no move.
“Ah, screw it,” he thinks. One hydra they were prepared for, but this is going to need more planning. Dranko grabs Aravis and leaps back through the portal. A moment later they emerge into the bedroom again.
Morningstar twigs to the plan and does the same, grabbing the nearest paralyzed person (Flicker, in her case) and jumping back to the bedroom. Away from the mummies, Aravis feels the paralysis fade. He swears aloud and casts shield on himself.
Alas, the retreat-and-regroup plan is extremely short-lived. A ways back and off to the side of the pass, obscured by both some intervening hydras and a large boulder, something casts a spell. A wall of stone appears behind the remaining members of the Company – entirely sealing off the portal! From her high vantage point, Kay catches a glimpse of something like a skeletal snake with arms slithering behind the large boulder.
The hydras continue to shuffle, mindlessly aware that something’s going on but not seeing anything to kill. One Certain Step itches to attack the mummies, but knows that doing so will allow the Hydras to see them. Instead, realizing that there’s a spellcaster about, he moves off to the side to get out of “fireball formation.” Grey Wolf uses his wand of flying on himself and flies straight up.
The four mummies who see targets amble forward. Two of them approach Kibi and punch him solidly. The dwarf can smell a rotting stench coming from the beneath their dirty wrappings as they pummel him.
The fourth mummy trips on a chunk of rock and stumbles into Snokas. Both of them fall to the ground with the mummy on top. Oof! Snokas groans in discomfort and terror. He has no idea if the act of shoving the mummy off of him will end the invisibility spell or not.
>> So at this point my players are giving me a pretty hard time. First there was the multiplying-the-expected-monsters-by-15 trick. Then there was the split-the-party-with-a-wall-of-stone trick. Now I’ve got Snokas lying on the ground with a filthy, oozing mummy sprawled on top of him, and unable to do anything about it for fear that it will alert the four hydras to their presence. Dranko’s player (Piratecat) leaned across the table and said: “I demand my money back.” Grey Wolf’s player was more direct. “Let’s beat him,” he suggested, glaring at me.
Dranko, Flicker, Aravis and Morningstar are starting to wonder why the others haven’t followed them through the portal. None of the possible explanations are good.
“I’m going to check and see what’s going on out there,” says Flicker. He jumps through the portal. Two seconds later he comes lurching back out into the bedroom, hands pressed to his face. “Ooooowwwwaaaauuuugh!” he exclaims. He peeks through his fingers. “Hey, I’m still here! I slammed into something. It was like someone threw me into a wall.”
He lowers his hands, which are red and sticky. His nose is broken and gushing blood.
“Oh, crap!” says Dranko, his face going pale. “What kind of wall?”
“A solid wall!” says Flicker.
“Force?”
“No, no… I mean a real wall, a physical wall. It wasn’t glassy like a force wall. It was probably stone.”
“So no splinters,” says Dranko. “What did it taste like?”
“What did it TASTE LIKE?!” cries Flicker, his voice shrill. “Why would I have tasted it?”
Aravis thinks out loud. “I could try using my staff, just as I went through the portal. With luck it would target the wall of stone with a passwall.” But no one thinks that would work, including him. The four of them just stare helplessly at the portal, wondering what fate is befalling their friends outside.
Kay flies back to help Step, hovering above him, intending to air-lift him out if necessary. She flies close to one of the hydras, and sensing something stirring the air, it idly snaps in Kay’s direction with three of its heads. Kibi winces at the bruises left by the mummies’ fists, but realizes immediately what needs to be done. Avoiding more attacks from his foes, he casts stone shape and parts the stone wall blocking the portal. Having cleared the way, he steps through it. Seconds later he emerges into the bedroom.
Dranko looks at the dwarf in surprise.
“Flicker! You weren’t just messing with us, were you?”
“Yeah,” says Flicker reproachfully, “and my smashed, bloody nose is just an act.”
“Ok,” announces Kibi proudly. “The wall of stone is down.”
“Wall of stone! Oh, for crying out loud!” says Flicker.
“Who cast a wall of stone?” asks Morningstar.
“I don’t know,” Kibi admits. “I didn’t see anything.”
Morningstar heals Flicker’s nose and then steps through the portal, not wanting to be stuck in the bedroom again if another wall gets cast. Still inside, Aravis activates his boots of haste and Dranko casts protection from evil on himself.
Morningstar emerges into the rocky pass. A moment later the lurking bone snake-creature casts another spell – a greater dispelling that blankets the area around the Company. Ernie loses his fly and drops four feet to the ground. Snokas loses his endurance spell and feels a bit weaker.
Step is divested of his invisibility to undead.
Forty-eight hydra heads swivel and rattle and stare directly at him.
…to be continued…
Last edited:
Mathew_Freeman
First Post
I think your players had a right to be a little annoyed at this point...
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Liolel said:
If he had to ask, it just wasn't worth explaining.
I can't even begin to say how freaked out we were when Velendo started putting out first one giant tile for the one hydra... then another, then another, then ANOTHER. Then a ton more for the mummies. And we were worried about fighting one hydra. Even worse, he said "Everyone make spot checks. Okay, what'd you get? Ernie, you got a 14, so you see three figures back amongst the rocks.. make three saving throws. Aravis, you got a 16, so you have to make four will saves. And Dranko, what was your spot?"
(wincing) "33."
(slight grin) "You see all of them. Make eight saves."
I hate it when he does that. This is what got Dranko petrified when we fought basilisks, too.
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