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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7060287" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 5: RIFT-WEAVER'S TRIAL</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 3</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 19 March 2017</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"Well, this is no good!" complained Sam Crow, looking over the edge of the floating island to which the adventuring duo had been teleported after Baabby touched his <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> greatsword to a magic crystal in the Museum of Mystical Mysteries. Baabby and Sam were standing on a very narrow ledge about halfway up a very tall and very steep cliff, with only a very short stretch of level ground in either direction. Fortunately, behind them was a doorway cut into the side of the cliff leading deeper into the stone mountain. Carved above the doorway were the words:</p><p></p><p>"Let's go in," said Baabby, with that stubborn determination in his voice that Sam was learning to dread.</p><p></p><p>"Well," the crow griped, "I guess it's either that or live the rest of our lives on that ledge." He reluctantly followed the sheep-man into the tunnel.</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, there were three doors at the end of a narrow corridor, each glowing a different color: red, green, and purple. "Which one should we try?" asked Baabby.</p><p></p><p>Sam cautiously approached the first door. Although the center of the door was a uniform reddish glow, it seemed to have a translucent covering in front of it. Sam gave a tentative tap with the hilt of his short sword, and it felt like glass, or a solid crystal. Already guessing that Baabby's sword would be the key to opening either of these doors, the crow touched the translucent barrier with his hand. Sure enough, the way was blocked. He checked the green and purple doors to verify they were the same and sure enough, they were.</p><p></p><p>"Which one?" repeated Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"Well, let's think about it," replied Sam. "We have three options: red, green, and purple. What did that carving above the door say about family?"</p><p></p><p>"'Two are family, one stands alone'," replied Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"So presumably, two are similar to each other and one is different. Which two are similar between red, green, and purple?"</p><p></p><p>Baabby thought about it for a moment. "Red's a primary color," he said.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, and purple and green are secondary colors!" exclaimed Sam. "The red door's probably the one we want! Uh, you go first, Baabby," Sam suggested, stepping back behind the burly baabarian.</p><p></p><p>Baabby stepped forward and put his hand on the reddish door, feeling the crystal structure blocking his entrance. Pulling out his <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>, he touched it to the crystal - and it sunk through it like a hot knife through butter. Slicing down with his greatsword, Baabby carved a rift in the invisible barrier and it fell away in two pieces. Then the baabarian stepped forward, disappearing through the red doorway.</p><p></p><p>"Baabby? You okay?" asked Sam, hesitant to follow his friend into danger. When he got no answer, he realized either something terrible had happened to Baabby - or else sound couldn't travel through the doorway. Hoping fervently that it was the second reason, the crow took a step through the red doorway and found himself in a new room. Baabby was standing just before him, looking at the three corridors in the wall before them.</p><p></p><p>From each corridor streamed a column of different-colored smoke, each coming from a brazier at the end of that particular short corridor. There was blue smoke coming from the leftmost corridor, green from the rightmost, and the central corridor - which was twice as wide as the others - streamed red smoke. In each case, the flames rising up from the braziers carved into the floors at the ends of the short tunnels matched the color of the smoke. There were also three more colored doors on the far wall behind the braziers, just like the three in the first corridor: a purple one behind the blue brazier, a red one behind the red brazier, and a green one behind the green brazier. And on the wall above the three short corridors was carved another clue:</p><p></p><p>"I don't like this, Baabby!" groused Sam. Normally, he'd have voiced a desire to "get out of here!" - but the only way out seemed to make it through this Rift-Weaver's Trial.</p><p></p><p>Sam looked at the doorway through which they'd just passed. From this side, it looked just like the front: a doorway bathed in reddish light, obscuring all vision of what was on the other side. But it was red - that was the important thing. "Well, we don't want the red-smoke corridor," reasoned Sam. "If we stick with red, it won't take us forward."</p><p></p><p>"So we have blue or green," surmised Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"Yep," agreed Sam. "There are two ways we can look at this. We could take the green one, because the smoke's green, the flames are green, and the door behind it is green. So it's all the same - it's 'true,' I guess."</p><p></p><p>"Uh huh," agreed Baabby. "And the other way to look at it?"</p><p></p><p>"Well," said Sam, "If you add the red door we just came through to the blue smoke, and mix red and blue, you get purple - so maybe the purple door's the way we want."</p><p></p><p>"Red won't take us forward," Baabby reminded his sidekick.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, you're right," agreed Sam. "We'll take the green corridor. You first, Baabby."</p><p></p><p>Baabby led the way with confidence; Sam followed behind with reluctance. Approaching the green flames, Baabby startled his companion by stepping into the brazier - directly into the green flames. With a yell, the baabarian quickly stepped out of the brazier, patting out the areas where his armor has started to burn.</p><p></p><p>"What did you do that for?" demanded Sam, helping to pat out the green flames on Baabby's back.</p><p></p><p>"I was just trying something," admitted Baabby sheepishly. "But it didn't work. Okay, let's try that green door." He touched his blade to the door, cut through the invisible barrier, and the two stepped through it and into yet another new room. This one was empty but for the green doorway behind them and a normal pair of wooden doors over in the far corner.</p><p></p><p>"Hey! Normal doors!" exclaimed Sam. "Maybe this is the way out of here!"</p><p></p><p>"You have passed the first two tests in the Rift-Weaver's Trial," said a voice emanating from somewhere in the room. "Now only the third and final test stands before you..."</p><p></p><p>"Aw, blast!" complained Sam.</p><p></p><p>"...to verify you are the two heroes described in the Prophecy of the Sheep and the Crow."</p><p></p><p>"Ahem," coughed Sam. "I believe you mean, 'The Prophecy of the Crow and the Sheep.'" He smiled over at Baabby, who only scowled at him in return.</p><p></p><p>"I mean the Prophecy of the Sheep and Crow," corrected the unseen voice, causing Sam to cringe and wince - if he'd known the unseen voice could react to what he said, he'd have kept his silly beak shut! "You must prove your worthiness to wield the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>."</p><p></p><p>"Come on, Sam," said Baabby, striding up the doors without hesitation. He was eager to prove his worthiness to wield his magical greatsword.</p><p></p><p>"I dunno why I have to get dragged into this," complained Sam. "I'm not wielding the stupid sword."</p><p></p><p>"The previous wielder also had an apprentice," said the voice in the room.</p><p></p><p>"Great," grumbled Sam under his breath, hopefully low enough so the voice wouldn't hear. "Now I'm an apprentice." They opened the doors wide, finding behind them only a twisting corridor. At the first turn, the mounted head of a blue dragon faced them. "Ahead lies the Trial of Might," the dragon head intoned. Once Sam stepped through the doorway, the doors slammed shut behind him. Instinctively, he tried them - and just as he had thought they would be, they were locked tight.</p><p></p><p>They turned the corner past the blue dragon head, to find a green dragon head facing them from the opposite wall. "The consequences of failure are not always immediate," the green dragon said.</p><p></p><p>"Hey, here's an idea," piped up Sam. "Let's not fail!"</p><p></p><p>"Good plaan!" agreed Baabby.</p><p></p><p>They turned another corner and were faced with a red dragon's head mounted on the far wall. "When you vanquish your foe, the doors shall open," it said.</p><p></p><p>"That's the best news I've heard all day!" said Sam, hoping at least one of the doors would lead them back to the museum.</p><p></p><p>There was a set of wooden doors beyond the red dragon's head. "Hey, before we go into our big final test, do you want to heal up your wounds from that fire?" asked Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Naah," dismissed Baabby. "But if this is a Trial of Might, I might as well be as mighty as I can!" And the baabarian cast a <em>bull's strength</em> spell upon himself, causing his already-powerful muscles to bulge even further. He hefted his heavy greatsword, marveling that it felt somewhat lighter than it ever had before. Then he and Sam swung open the doors and stepped forward, one of them boldly and one rather hesitantly. (You can probably guess which was which.)</p><p></p><p>The room before them had three more of those colored doorways: red, green, and purple, just as before. But standing in the middle of the room was a suit of plate mail armor, standing motionlessly with its arms crossed across its chest. It was hard to tell whether anyone was even wearing it, it stood so stock-still.</p><p></p><p>"Um, hello?" called Sam. "We're supposed to be here for the Trial of Might?"</p><p></p><p>The armor suddenly flinched, adopting a shoulder-wide ready stance. Then it held its arms out toward the two heroes and wiggled its fingers in a universally-recognized "Bring it on - let's see what you got!" gesture.</p><p></p><p>"Go get 'im, Baabby!" enthused Sam, pushing the baabarian forward into the room. Or so he told himself, anyway; it's doubtful the crow was anywhere strong enough to push Baabby anywhere he didn't want to go. But Baabby had no hesitation; he raced up to the armored opponent and swung a mighty blow with his greatsword, scoring a scrape across the front of the armor's chest plate. Sam followed suit, running down the left side of the room and shooting an arrow at the armor, getting its arrowhead lodged in a joint between the shoulder and the neck. As he passed the green doorway, he could see misty-looking bars blocking the way through the door. The crow imagined the other doors were likewise barred, and that defeating this animated suit of armor would cause the bars to go away.</p><p></p><p>The armor ignored Sam's arrow and concentrated its attacks on the hulking baabarian standing before it. That only made sense to Sam: this was, after all, a Trial of Might and it wasn't Sam's might that was on trial here. An armored fist came crashing into the side of Baabby's head, causing him to lurch momentarily to his left before regaining his balance. He retaliated immediately, bringing the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> crashing down onto the armored foe, cutting a notch out of the armor covering his left shoulder.</p><p></p><p>Sam stood where he was, over by the corner of the room, and charged up his Dynabow 2.0, before releasing an explosive arrow that caught the animated plate mail in the back. The armor smacked Baabby again, this time only dealing a glancing blow, but Baabby's return swing carved a gash in the joint by the hip. Sam shot it again with a normal arrow - the Dynabow required a moment between explosive charges - and then Baabby's final swing caused the armor to go crashing to the ground.</p><p></p><p>"You have succeeded at the Trial of Might," intoned another unseen voice from somewhere in this room. "You are indeed the Sheep and the Crow, as prophesied. Step through either of the doors, and you will be reunited." As the duo watched, the misty bars covering the three doors changed form, becoming words: "Strength" over the red door, "Wisdom" over the purple door, and "Dexterity" over the green one.</p><p></p><p>"I'm going with 'Strength'," advised Baabby, stepping through the red doorway and vanishing from view. Sam felt compelled to follow his friend, but then, comforted by the voice's promise, walked instead through the green door. Sure enough, doing so led him through a green portal right beside a red one and Baabby was already there in this next room.</p><p></p><p>There was a statue in the middle of this room, and it swiveled along its base to face the adventurers. Baabby and Sam saw a family resemblance at once: it looked like an older version of the statue in the entryway to the Museum of Mystical Mysteries. "You are the second wielder of the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>," said the statue. "I had it built to combat and defeat a powerful evil that threatened all of Skylands. Now, that evil is gaining in power and must be defeated again. The sword's power has diminished over the years, but you, the prophesied Sheep and Crow, will be able to restore it to its full power and save Skylands from this enemy!"</p><p></p><p>The statue of what the heroes now realized had to be the Rift-Weaver himself raised a stone hand and gathered up mystical energy, then threw it in Baabby's direction. The trusting baabarian didn't even flinch, knowing this wasn't an attack but rather something beneficial. Indeed, the nimbus of energy funneled straight to Baabby's greatsword, coalescing and filling in the symbol of Magic on the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>.</p><p></p><p>"The apprentice must aid his master in his endeavors," said the statue, swiveling on its base to face Sam. "The previous apprentice was the fairy <strong>Sapphrina</strong>, now imprisoned in the Museum of Mystical Mysteries." Another aura of energy surrounded the statue's fist and was sent hurtling in Sam's direction. The crow definitely flinched, but this was likewise no attack but rather a boost to his Dynabow's power. Then the statue turned to face Baabby once again, pointing a finger to a doorway to the right. "Step into the magic circle on the floor in the room beyond to return to the Museum. There you must give the crystal that brought you here to the statue of my son. He will tell you the next step of your quest. Return here when you have regained the symbols of Life and Fire. Now go!"</p><p></p><p>Stepping onto the magic circle carved into the floor in the next room, the heroes found themselves back on the third floor of the museum. Baabby grabbed up the crystal from the table and they rushed downstairs. In the entryway, the baabarian touched the crystal to the statue, and it bent down to take it from Baabby. It held the crystal above its head and the stone dissolved away, its energy suffusing into the statue and imbuing it with knowledge and power.</p><p></p><p>"With every pair of elemental symbols you regain, your sword will gain in power," the statue advised. "But this place is no longer safe. The trolls left behind a damaged airship," it said, stepping down from its plinth and heading for the front door. "I will repair it at once. Bring Sapphrina with you, and take the airship to the Serpent Isles. Seek there the Cave of Crystal Statues - the Medusa there will aid you. Now go!"</p><p></p><p>"I'll go grab Sapphrina!" offered Sam, rushing to the stairs.</p><p></p><p>"I'll help fix the airship," said Baabby, hefting his greatsword in a powerful fist. Then the two heroes each ran off in a different direction - but each unerringly heading to their shared destiny.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Logan used an early entry in the Pathfinder Flip-Mat series for this adventure: "Arcane Dungeons." He built the Trial to correspond with the disjointed rooms on the one side of the map; we didn't even use the other side, which is all one big area. (Knowing Logan, he'll likely find a use for it in a later adventure.)</p><p></p><p>We now know a bit more of the back story of Baabby's greatsword, and we have a path ahead of us, although we have no ideas of the details of how we'll regain the lost symbols on the sword. But it started out as a <em>+1 greatsword</em>, and has been upgraded to a <em>+2 greatsword</em> now that Baabby's regained two of the symbols. Once he regains the Life and Fire symbols, it'll be a <em>+3 greatsword</em> and so on, eventually capping out at +5.</p><p></p><p>Sam's Dynabow 2.0, originally a masterwork shortbow, is now a full +1 weapon. It was granted its explosive powers by the tech spell punk the heroes encountered earlier (the one on the troll airship).</p><p></p><p>Harry was surprised at how quickly we went through this adventure, because up until now the adventures have been mostly combat-related; this was his first experience with a puzzle dungeon. Logan explained that the DM never knows how quickly the players will figure out the puzzles, and that had we been stumped the adventure could have taken a lot longer. But he even had eventualities for those turns of events: had we ever gone through a "wrong" door, we'd have been teleported right back to where we had been, but doing so would have granted the animated armor in the Trial of Might an additional Hit Die. So had we flubbed up at every turn, we'd have still made it to what Harry referred to as the "boss fight," but he'd have been 4 HD more powerful than he already was.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I'm glad it didn't come to that. And I'm sure Sam Crow feels likewise.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7060287, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 5: RIFT-WEAVER'S TRIAL[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 3 Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 3[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 19 March 2017 - - - "Well, this is no good!" complained Sam Crow, looking over the edge of the floating island to which the adventuring duo had been teleported after Baabby touched his [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] greatsword to a magic crystal in the Museum of Mystical Mysteries. Baabby and Sam were standing on a very narrow ledge about halfway up a very tall and very steep cliff, with only a very short stretch of level ground in either direction. Fortunately, behind them was a doorway cut into the side of the cliff leading deeper into the stone mountain. Carved above the doorway were the words: "Let's go in," said Baabby, with that stubborn determination in his voice that Sam was learning to dread. "Well," the crow griped, "I guess it's either that or live the rest of our lives on that ledge." He reluctantly followed the sheep-man into the tunnel. Sure enough, there were three doors at the end of a narrow corridor, each glowing a different color: red, green, and purple. "Which one should we try?" asked Baabby. Sam cautiously approached the first door. Although the center of the door was a uniform reddish glow, it seemed to have a translucent covering in front of it. Sam gave a tentative tap with the hilt of his short sword, and it felt like glass, or a solid crystal. Already guessing that Baabby's sword would be the key to opening either of these doors, the crow touched the translucent barrier with his hand. Sure enough, the way was blocked. He checked the green and purple doors to verify they were the same and sure enough, they were. "Which one?" repeated Baabby. "Well, let's think about it," replied Sam. "We have three options: red, green, and purple. What did that carving above the door say about family?" "'Two are family, one stands alone'," replied Baabby. "So presumably, two are similar to each other and one is different. Which two are similar between red, green, and purple?" Baabby thought about it for a moment. "Red's a primary color," he said. "Yeah, and purple and green are secondary colors!" exclaimed Sam. "The red door's probably the one we want! Uh, you go first, Baabby," Sam suggested, stepping back behind the burly baabarian. Baabby stepped forward and put his hand on the reddish door, feeling the crystal structure blocking his entrance. Pulling out his [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i], he touched it to the crystal - and it sunk through it like a hot knife through butter. Slicing down with his greatsword, Baabby carved a rift in the invisible barrier and it fell away in two pieces. Then the baabarian stepped forward, disappearing through the red doorway. "Baabby? You okay?" asked Sam, hesitant to follow his friend into danger. When he got no answer, he realized either something terrible had happened to Baabby - or else sound couldn't travel through the doorway. Hoping fervently that it was the second reason, the crow took a step through the red doorway and found himself in a new room. Baabby was standing just before him, looking at the three corridors in the wall before them. From each corridor streamed a column of different-colored smoke, each coming from a brazier at the end of that particular short corridor. There was blue smoke coming from the leftmost corridor, green from the rightmost, and the central corridor - which was twice as wide as the others - streamed red smoke. In each case, the flames rising up from the braziers carved into the floors at the ends of the short tunnels matched the color of the smoke. There were also three more colored doors on the far wall behind the braziers, just like the three in the first corridor: a purple one behind the blue brazier, a red one behind the red brazier, and a green one behind the green brazier. And on the wall above the three short corridors was carved another clue: "I don't like this, Baabby!" groused Sam. Normally, he'd have voiced a desire to "get out of here!" - but the only way out seemed to make it through this Rift-Weaver's Trial. Sam looked at the doorway through which they'd just passed. From this side, it looked just like the front: a doorway bathed in reddish light, obscuring all vision of what was on the other side. But it was red - that was the important thing. "Well, we don't want the red-smoke corridor," reasoned Sam. "If we stick with red, it won't take us forward." "So we have blue or green," surmised Baabby. "Yep," agreed Sam. "There are two ways we can look at this. We could take the green one, because the smoke's green, the flames are green, and the door behind it is green. So it's all the same - it's 'true,' I guess." "Uh huh," agreed Baabby. "And the other way to look at it?" "Well," said Sam, "If you add the red door we just came through to the blue smoke, and mix red and blue, you get purple - so maybe the purple door's the way we want." "Red won't take us forward," Baabby reminded his sidekick. "Yeah, you're right," agreed Sam. "We'll take the green corridor. You first, Baabby." Baabby led the way with confidence; Sam followed behind with reluctance. Approaching the green flames, Baabby startled his companion by stepping into the brazier - directly into the green flames. With a yell, the baabarian quickly stepped out of the brazier, patting out the areas where his armor has started to burn. "What did you do that for?" demanded Sam, helping to pat out the green flames on Baabby's back. "I was just trying something," admitted Baabby sheepishly. "But it didn't work. Okay, let's try that green door." He touched his blade to the door, cut through the invisible barrier, and the two stepped through it and into yet another new room. This one was empty but for the green doorway behind them and a normal pair of wooden doors over in the far corner. "Hey! Normal doors!" exclaimed Sam. "Maybe this is the way out of here!" "You have passed the first two tests in the Rift-Weaver's Trial," said a voice emanating from somewhere in the room. "Now only the third and final test stands before you..." "Aw, blast!" complained Sam. "...to verify you are the two heroes described in the Prophecy of the Sheep and the Crow." "Ahem," coughed Sam. "I believe you mean, 'The Prophecy of the Crow and the Sheep.'" He smiled over at Baabby, who only scowled at him in return. "I mean the Prophecy of the Sheep and Crow," corrected the unseen voice, causing Sam to cringe and wince - if he'd known the unseen voice could react to what he said, he'd have kept his silly beak shut! "You must prove your worthiness to wield the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i]." "Come on, Sam," said Baabby, striding up the doors without hesitation. He was eager to prove his worthiness to wield his magical greatsword. "I dunno why I have to get dragged into this," complained Sam. "I'm not wielding the stupid sword." "The previous wielder also had an apprentice," said the voice in the room. "Great," grumbled Sam under his breath, hopefully low enough so the voice wouldn't hear. "Now I'm an apprentice." They opened the doors wide, finding behind them only a twisting corridor. At the first turn, the mounted head of a blue dragon faced them. "Ahead lies the Trial of Might," the dragon head intoned. Once Sam stepped through the doorway, the doors slammed shut behind him. Instinctively, he tried them - and just as he had thought they would be, they were locked tight. They turned the corner past the blue dragon head, to find a green dragon head facing them from the opposite wall. "The consequences of failure are not always immediate," the green dragon said. "Hey, here's an idea," piped up Sam. "Let's not fail!" "Good plaan!" agreed Baabby. They turned another corner and were faced with a red dragon's head mounted on the far wall. "When you vanquish your foe, the doors shall open," it said. "That's the best news I've heard all day!" said Sam, hoping at least one of the doors would lead them back to the museum. There was a set of wooden doors beyond the red dragon's head. "Hey, before we go into our big final test, do you want to heal up your wounds from that fire?" asked Sam. "Naah," dismissed Baabby. "But if this is a Trial of Might, I might as well be as mighty as I can!" And the baabarian cast a [i]bull's strength[/i] spell upon himself, causing his already-powerful muscles to bulge even further. He hefted his heavy greatsword, marveling that it felt somewhat lighter than it ever had before. Then he and Sam swung open the doors and stepped forward, one of them boldly and one rather hesitantly. (You can probably guess which was which.) The room before them had three more of those colored doorways: red, green, and purple, just as before. But standing in the middle of the room was a suit of plate mail armor, standing motionlessly with its arms crossed across its chest. It was hard to tell whether anyone was even wearing it, it stood so stock-still. "Um, hello?" called Sam. "We're supposed to be here for the Trial of Might?" The armor suddenly flinched, adopting a shoulder-wide ready stance. Then it held its arms out toward the two heroes and wiggled its fingers in a universally-recognized "Bring it on - let's see what you got!" gesture. "Go get 'im, Baabby!" enthused Sam, pushing the baabarian forward into the room. Or so he told himself, anyway; it's doubtful the crow was anywhere strong enough to push Baabby anywhere he didn't want to go. But Baabby had no hesitation; he raced up to the armored opponent and swung a mighty blow with his greatsword, scoring a scrape across the front of the armor's chest plate. Sam followed suit, running down the left side of the room and shooting an arrow at the armor, getting its arrowhead lodged in a joint between the shoulder and the neck. As he passed the green doorway, he could see misty-looking bars blocking the way through the door. The crow imagined the other doors were likewise barred, and that defeating this animated suit of armor would cause the bars to go away. The armor ignored Sam's arrow and concentrated its attacks on the hulking baabarian standing before it. That only made sense to Sam: this was, after all, a Trial of Might and it wasn't Sam's might that was on trial here. An armored fist came crashing into the side of Baabby's head, causing him to lurch momentarily to his left before regaining his balance. He retaliated immediately, bringing the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] crashing down onto the armored foe, cutting a notch out of the armor covering his left shoulder. Sam stood where he was, over by the corner of the room, and charged up his Dynabow 2.0, before releasing an explosive arrow that caught the animated plate mail in the back. The armor smacked Baabby again, this time only dealing a glancing blow, but Baabby's return swing carved a gash in the joint by the hip. Sam shot it again with a normal arrow - the Dynabow required a moment between explosive charges - and then Baabby's final swing caused the armor to go crashing to the ground. "You have succeeded at the Trial of Might," intoned another unseen voice from somewhere in this room. "You are indeed the Sheep and the Crow, as prophesied. Step through either of the doors, and you will be reunited." As the duo watched, the misty bars covering the three doors changed form, becoming words: "Strength" over the red door, "Wisdom" over the purple door, and "Dexterity" over the green one. "I'm going with 'Strength'," advised Baabby, stepping through the red doorway and vanishing from view. Sam felt compelled to follow his friend, but then, comforted by the voice's promise, walked instead through the green door. Sure enough, doing so led him through a green portal right beside a red one and Baabby was already there in this next room. There was a statue in the middle of this room, and it swiveled along its base to face the adventurers. Baabby and Sam saw a family resemblance at once: it looked like an older version of the statue in the entryway to the Museum of Mystical Mysteries. "You are the second wielder of the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i]," said the statue. "I had it built to combat and defeat a powerful evil that threatened all of Skylands. Now, that evil is gaining in power and must be defeated again. The sword's power has diminished over the years, but you, the prophesied Sheep and Crow, will be able to restore it to its full power and save Skylands from this enemy!" The statue of what the heroes now realized had to be the Rift-Weaver himself raised a stone hand and gathered up mystical energy, then threw it in Baabby's direction. The trusting baabarian didn't even flinch, knowing this wasn't an attack but rather something beneficial. Indeed, the nimbus of energy funneled straight to Baabby's greatsword, coalescing and filling in the symbol of Magic on the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i]. "The apprentice must aid his master in his endeavors," said the statue, swiveling on its base to face Sam. "The previous apprentice was the fairy [b]Sapphrina[/b], now imprisoned in the Museum of Mystical Mysteries." Another aura of energy surrounded the statue's fist and was sent hurtling in Sam's direction. The crow definitely flinched, but this was likewise no attack but rather a boost to his Dynabow's power. Then the statue turned to face Baabby once again, pointing a finger to a doorway to the right. "Step into the magic circle on the floor in the room beyond to return to the Museum. There you must give the crystal that brought you here to the statue of my son. He will tell you the next step of your quest. Return here when you have regained the symbols of Life and Fire. Now go!" Stepping onto the magic circle carved into the floor in the next room, the heroes found themselves back on the third floor of the museum. Baabby grabbed up the crystal from the table and they rushed downstairs. In the entryway, the baabarian touched the crystal to the statue, and it bent down to take it from Baabby. It held the crystal above its head and the stone dissolved away, its energy suffusing into the statue and imbuing it with knowledge and power. "With every pair of elemental symbols you regain, your sword will gain in power," the statue advised. "But this place is no longer safe. The trolls left behind a damaged airship," it said, stepping down from its plinth and heading for the front door. "I will repair it at once. Bring Sapphrina with you, and take the airship to the Serpent Isles. Seek there the Cave of Crystal Statues - the Medusa there will aid you. Now go!" "I'll go grab Sapphrina!" offered Sam, rushing to the stairs. "I'll help fix the airship," said Baabby, hefting his greatsword in a powerful fist. Then the two heroes each ran off in a different direction - but each unerringly heading to their shared destiny. - - - Logan used an early entry in the Pathfinder Flip-Mat series for this adventure: "Arcane Dungeons." He built the Trial to correspond with the disjointed rooms on the one side of the map; we didn't even use the other side, which is all one big area. (Knowing Logan, he'll likely find a use for it in a later adventure.) We now know a bit more of the back story of Baabby's greatsword, and we have a path ahead of us, although we have no ideas of the details of how we'll regain the lost symbols on the sword. But it started out as a [i]+1 greatsword[/i], and has been upgraded to a [i]+2 greatsword[/i] now that Baabby's regained two of the symbols. Once he regains the Life and Fire symbols, it'll be a [i]+3 greatsword[/i] and so on, eventually capping out at +5. Sam's Dynabow 2.0, originally a masterwork shortbow, is now a full +1 weapon. It was granted its explosive powers by the tech spell punk the heroes encountered earlier (the one on the troll airship). Harry was surprised at how quickly we went through this adventure, because up until now the adventures have been mostly combat-related; this was his first experience with a puzzle dungeon. Logan explained that the DM never knows how quickly the players will figure out the puzzles, and that had we been stumped the adventure could have taken a lot longer. But he even had eventualities for those turns of events: had we ever gone through a "wrong" door, we'd have been teleported right back to where we had been, but doing so would have granted the animated armor in the Trial of Might an additional Hit Die. So had we flubbed up at every turn, we'd have still made it to what Harry referred to as the "boss fight," but he'd have been 4 HD more powerful than he already was. Personally, I'm glad it didn't come to that. And I'm sure Sam Crow feels likewise. [/QUOTE]
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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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