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The Furious Fated - The World of Low'verok (Updated 10-26-03)
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<blockquote data-quote="Isida Kep'Tukari" data-source="post: 1189876" data-attributes="member: 4441"><p>After the last session, most of the party leveled up, so Uianya, Alarian, and Rhianna were all effectively 6th level, while Helios and Dante were still fifth (as were Jenna and Gorf).</p><p></p><p>This week's session (of 10-18) I call:</p><p></p><p><strong><u>The Tale of the Troubled Farm</u></strong> <em>or why little old ladies should not be on their own</em>.</p><p></p><p>After dealing with the Bridgekeeper, the party finally got to Port Cross, looking for a place they could rest and sell some of their items. The guard at the gate asked them their names and wrote everything down carefully, along with what weapons they were carrying. The party decided to go to the Adventurer's Guild to tell them what had gone on on the road, and headed off in that direction. Rhianna also wanted to find the local Elemental guild, as she had made her decision to be an air genasi. (It's possible for someone in my world to become a genasi with sufficient knowledge, time, money, and ability to persuade other genasi that they are worthy to join their ranks.)</p><p></p><p>In the Adventurer's Guild, they were met by an air genasi man named Rishan. He got their group name, and carefully listened to their tales, and wrote them all down. Rhianna asked about the Elemental Guild, and Rishan said he might be able to help her, but wanted to ask a favor of the group. He wanted them to go out to his grandmother's farm, right outside of town, to check up on her. He usually did it every few days, but he had been swamped with work and hadn't been able to go. She had several farm hands to help her with the farm (raising cattle and chickens mostly), but he still worried. The party agreed to go in the afternoon. In return, Rhianna spent part of the morning being questioned by the Elemental Guild. If they found her to be true in her intent, and knowledgeable about the ways of genasi, they would do the ceremony tomorrow.</p><p></p><p>The also asked Rishan where they could go sell some things, weapons specifically, they had found in their travels. He directed them to Fireaxe's Smithy, which was run by a dwarf of excellent reputation. They went to said smithy, finding the smith at work with some of his apprentices. After getting his attention over the noise of the forge, they went into Master Fireaxe's office. They offered him most of the weapons they had gotten off of the darktentacles, as well as some minor magic weapons no one was able to use. In order to maximize their bargaining advantage, Alarian went out to their horses one more time to get an adamantine warhammer they also wanted to sell. While there he put on some magical perfume that aided in social interactions (+2 to Cha-based skill checks for one hour, they found it in the Tomb of Kosar). </p><p></p><p>Going back inside and adding the adamantine warhammer to the pile, Master Fireaxe snapped it right up, along with the magical weapons. The bargained, but the dwarf held firm on his price. They wanted to trade or purchase some armor from him (both Helios and Alarian had magical armor they were willing to trade for something better), and considering the amount they brought to the table, Master Fireaxe took them to a securely locked storeroom. </p><p></p><p>Inside he had several suits of armor, many of which Gorf said were magical, to a greater or lesser degree. Master Fireaxe offered Alarian a fine set of half-plate he said would "allow him to take the harshest hits with ease" and suggested a fine mithril shirt to Helios. After a bit of bargaining, which the smith got the better of, the party got the armor for Helios and Alarian as well as a good bit of gold. The party also got the name of an inn, the Golden Ale, as having good stables.</p><p></p><p>In addition, Uianya had been wanting to get her nagaika enchanted, and had asked Rishan about a reliable leather-worker to do it. Since the nagaika resembles, in part, a scourge (the favored weapon of Loviatar, the goddess of pain), finding someone to do such work is somewhat difficult. However, Rishan knew of the leatherworker by the name of Carn who generally knew how to keep his mouth shut. Uianya stopped by there after the party left Fireaxe's Smithy to see about making her nagaika magical.</p><p></p><p>Carn was a curiously colorless, expressionless, and humorless individual who regarded Uianya's question with a bleak gaze. He only nodded once in acquiescence to her request, and gave her a sharp glance when she didn't put enough money on the table right away. He said less than a half-dozen words to her, but promised her nagaika by the next day. Thus pleased, she returned to the group. </p><p></p><p>The party went and got rooms at the Golden Ale inn, then headed out to go visit Granny. It was only a half-mile outside of town to get to the farm, but as they passed the fenced in fields, they saw a horror. Jumping rats were consuming a cow; already part of its flank was stripped to the bone. But the worst thing was that the cow didn't seem to notice. It continued to eat grass as the rats consumed it alive. In the same field was a skeleton of a cow. Thoroughly disturbed, the party made haste to the farm proper.</p><p></p><p>They went to the farmhouse, and greeted Granny and told them why they were there. She told them that she hadn't heard or seen her farmhands all day. The party noticed that Granny's eyes were mostly opaque; the old woman was nearly blind. The party asked them what the farmhands were supposed to be doing, and she said they were supposed to be cleaning out the barn and taking care of her chickens, especially her prize chicken. When they asked about her prize chicken, she said she had raised it from a chick, and that it was very large and sure to win her a prize at the fair. When she indicated its size, she indicated a chicken almost three feet high.</p><p></p><p>The party wanted to take her back to town before they explored her farm further (fearing the rats), but Granny would have none of it. She offered the party cookies... which a few took, as the finally were able to convince her to barricade herself in the house while they went to go investigate the farm. </p><p></p><p>Walking toward the barn, they came to a chicken coop, beside which was a statue of a farmhand. Dante immediately thought "cockatrice, or maybe basilisk" and let everyone know it, so they could be prepared if it appeared. However, they couldn't hear anything, so gingerly passed on toward the barn. The walked in, and heard a faint squeaking. As they got to one of the end stalls, they saw the body of a man entirely covered by rats, most of his flesh gone. Seeing fresh meat, the rats leaped at them, jumping and running all over the party, thoroughly disgusting and disturbing them. The rats got in several bites, but mostly just gave the party a bad scare. It look some time, but between spells, teeth, swords, and strong language, the party was able to destroy the flesh-eating rats. They recognized the rats as flesh-strippers, a kind of furry locust that only appeared infrequently, but left utter devastation in their wake.</p><p></p><p>Just after this fight, as the party was recovering, they heard a clucking from behind them. Paranoid, Alarian immediately turned around so he could look behind himself with his shield, and Uianya and some of the others quickly wrapped loosely-woven stripes of cloth around their eyes to try to protect themselves. Out of the hen house stalked an incredibly ugly, three-foot high rooster with bat-like wings. Dante said that it was definitely a cockatrice, which could only turn people to stone by touching them, so the others felt safe to look at it. Which they all did. And Rhianna promptly turned to stone as the cockatrice gazed at the party.</p><p></p><p>Somewhat panicked, the party closed their eyes and attacked blindly, doing a decent amount of damage when they managed to hit. Dante tried to work his way around the back and hit it with a spell, which also helped. Through an amazing effort of blind luck (heh heh) the party was able to eventually take the cockatrice down. Searching the hen house, the party found a lot of stone chickens, as well as three large blue and green cockatrice eggs. Carefully taking them, Helios double-checked for tracks around the hen house. He found a couple pairs leading off away from the fields and house, and the party decided to follow them.</p><p></p><p>After several minutes of searching, the party found two exhausted farmhands at the edge of the woods. The two had seen their friend get stoned by the cockatrice and had fled into the woods in terror. They were greatly sorrowed to hear about the demise of Felise, the man that had been pitching hay in the barn.</p><p></p><p>Taking the farmhands, both statues, and Granny, the party headed back to town. Rishan was very grateful to the party for saving his grandmother, and quickly summoned a wizard to see if he could take care of the two stoned creatures. The party wished to go back to take care of the rest of the flesh-strippers the next day, and hope that Rhianna could be restored. The wizard, a short, intense-looking man called Norrin, demanded to know if the party had any of the cockatrice's eggs, which they did. Taking one in each hand, Norrin considered the statues for a minute, then smashed the eggs on the statues' heads. As the egg ran down their faces, stone became flesh once again. Norrin wanted to keep the third egg to study, which the party happily allowed.</p><p></p><p>Rhianna, glad at being flesh again, asked the party to fill her in. They did so, and decided to call it a day. Rhianna was still going to do her ritual the next day, and the party wanted to go see if any more flesh-strippers were still on the farm. </p><p></p><p>The next day, Rhianna went with the members of the Elemental Guild. A full description of her ritual is as follows: </p><p></p><p><em><strong>Rhianna’s Ritual of Air</strong></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>You are dressed in a gown of flowing white, and your hair is left loose and free. The other genasi wear robes of deep blue adorned with feathers, their own long hair cascading past their knees. You are taken to the high plains outside the city, where the wind blows constantly from the west. The air genasi take you to the top of a steep hill, bare of any stone or tree. Here they stand circled around you, and they burn exotic incenses as they call upon Akadi, the goddess of air, to witness this transformation. You join in their pleas, raising your arms to the ever-increasing wind. It circles around you, whipping your hair and gown.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>The air genasi circle around you, dancing and chanting. They leap into the air, seeming to float forever before they return to earth. They come toward you, making flowing gestures, the feathers on their robes mimicking their movements. Each reaches out to you with a fan of feathers, and you feel the wind intensify. It not only runs around you, it runs through you. You feel it running deep inside you, flowing in your veins, running through your soul. With a triumphant shout, you feel your feet leave the earth and you soar high above, looking down upon the hill where you once stood. From your height you can see the blue earth of the hill, and white rocks hidden in the grass come together to make the symbol of Akadi. Only from here could you see it.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>“Welcome Sister!” the genasi sing to you, “Welcome Sashana, known as Rhianna. Fly among your new kin, learn your new name, and glory in the freedom of the winds!” </em></p><p></p><p>The rest of the party went back to the farm and went into the field were the cow was being eaten yesterday. That cow was down and stripped of all flesh, but they didn't see any other flesh-strippers anywhere. Helios and Uianya followed the tracks the best they could, over to the tree line of the forest. Invoking her ability to talk with plants, Uianya questioned an oak tree about the rats. The tree said they came from sundownward (from the west), and the last time they had come was when the tree was young. </p><p></p><p>[At one point during this conversation with the oak, Uianya asked the tree if any of the other trees knew anything else. I, as the tree, turned over my shoulder and called, "Hey Clyde! You seen anything today?" as if the trees were construction buddies or something on break. It was damn funny at the time, let me tell you. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />]</p><p></p><p>This comforted Uianya, but Helios was less than comforted when a hoard of flesh-strippers jumped onto him from a different tree. Hacking and slashing at the jumping, bouncing rats, it took some time to finally cleave (or explode) all of the vile little things, and they delivered several bites before they went down. Thus annoyed and disgusted, the party returned to Port Cross, where they spent the night at the Golden Ale inn and tavern before leaving the next morning for Port Lyalee.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Isida Kep'Tukari, post: 1189876, member: 4441"] After the last session, most of the party leveled up, so Uianya, Alarian, and Rhianna were all effectively 6th level, while Helios and Dante were still fifth (as were Jenna and Gorf). This week's session (of 10-18) I call: [b][u]The Tale of the Troubled Farm[/u][/b][u][/u] [i]or why little old ladies should not be on their own[/i]. After dealing with the Bridgekeeper, the party finally got to Port Cross, looking for a place they could rest and sell some of their items. The guard at the gate asked them their names and wrote everything down carefully, along with what weapons they were carrying. The party decided to go to the Adventurer's Guild to tell them what had gone on on the road, and headed off in that direction. Rhianna also wanted to find the local Elemental guild, as she had made her decision to be an air genasi. (It's possible for someone in my world to become a genasi with sufficient knowledge, time, money, and ability to persuade other genasi that they are worthy to join their ranks.) In the Adventurer's Guild, they were met by an air genasi man named Rishan. He got their group name, and carefully listened to their tales, and wrote them all down. Rhianna asked about the Elemental Guild, and Rishan said he might be able to help her, but wanted to ask a favor of the group. He wanted them to go out to his grandmother's farm, right outside of town, to check up on her. He usually did it every few days, but he had been swamped with work and hadn't been able to go. She had several farm hands to help her with the farm (raising cattle and chickens mostly), but he still worried. The party agreed to go in the afternoon. In return, Rhianna spent part of the morning being questioned by the Elemental Guild. If they found her to be true in her intent, and knowledgeable about the ways of genasi, they would do the ceremony tomorrow. The also asked Rishan where they could go sell some things, weapons specifically, they had found in their travels. He directed them to Fireaxe's Smithy, which was run by a dwarf of excellent reputation. They went to said smithy, finding the smith at work with some of his apprentices. After getting his attention over the noise of the forge, they went into Master Fireaxe's office. They offered him most of the weapons they had gotten off of the darktentacles, as well as some minor magic weapons no one was able to use. In order to maximize their bargaining advantage, Alarian went out to their horses one more time to get an adamantine warhammer they also wanted to sell. While there he put on some magical perfume that aided in social interactions (+2 to Cha-based skill checks for one hour, they found it in the Tomb of Kosar). Going back inside and adding the adamantine warhammer to the pile, Master Fireaxe snapped it right up, along with the magical weapons. The bargained, but the dwarf held firm on his price. They wanted to trade or purchase some armor from him (both Helios and Alarian had magical armor they were willing to trade for something better), and considering the amount they brought to the table, Master Fireaxe took them to a securely locked storeroom. Inside he had several suits of armor, many of which Gorf said were magical, to a greater or lesser degree. Master Fireaxe offered Alarian a fine set of half-plate he said would "allow him to take the harshest hits with ease" and suggested a fine mithril shirt to Helios. After a bit of bargaining, which the smith got the better of, the party got the armor for Helios and Alarian as well as a good bit of gold. The party also got the name of an inn, the Golden Ale, as having good stables. In addition, Uianya had been wanting to get her nagaika enchanted, and had asked Rishan about a reliable leather-worker to do it. Since the nagaika resembles, in part, a scourge (the favored weapon of Loviatar, the goddess of pain), finding someone to do such work is somewhat difficult. However, Rishan knew of the leatherworker by the name of Carn who generally knew how to keep his mouth shut. Uianya stopped by there after the party left Fireaxe's Smithy to see about making her nagaika magical. Carn was a curiously colorless, expressionless, and humorless individual who regarded Uianya's question with a bleak gaze. He only nodded once in acquiescence to her request, and gave her a sharp glance when she didn't put enough money on the table right away. He said less than a half-dozen words to her, but promised her nagaika by the next day. Thus pleased, she returned to the group. The party went and got rooms at the Golden Ale inn, then headed out to go visit Granny. It was only a half-mile outside of town to get to the farm, but as they passed the fenced in fields, they saw a horror. Jumping rats were consuming a cow; already part of its flank was stripped to the bone. But the worst thing was that the cow didn't seem to notice. It continued to eat grass as the rats consumed it alive. In the same field was a skeleton of a cow. Thoroughly disturbed, the party made haste to the farm proper. They went to the farmhouse, and greeted Granny and told them why they were there. She told them that she hadn't heard or seen her farmhands all day. The party noticed that Granny's eyes were mostly opaque; the old woman was nearly blind. The party asked them what the farmhands were supposed to be doing, and she said they were supposed to be cleaning out the barn and taking care of her chickens, especially her prize chicken. When they asked about her prize chicken, she said she had raised it from a chick, and that it was very large and sure to win her a prize at the fair. When she indicated its size, she indicated a chicken almost three feet high. The party wanted to take her back to town before they explored her farm further (fearing the rats), but Granny would have none of it. She offered the party cookies... which a few took, as the finally were able to convince her to barricade herself in the house while they went to go investigate the farm. Walking toward the barn, they came to a chicken coop, beside which was a statue of a farmhand. Dante immediately thought "cockatrice, or maybe basilisk" and let everyone know it, so they could be prepared if it appeared. However, they couldn't hear anything, so gingerly passed on toward the barn. The walked in, and heard a faint squeaking. As they got to one of the end stalls, they saw the body of a man entirely covered by rats, most of his flesh gone. Seeing fresh meat, the rats leaped at them, jumping and running all over the party, thoroughly disgusting and disturbing them. The rats got in several bites, but mostly just gave the party a bad scare. It look some time, but between spells, teeth, swords, and strong language, the party was able to destroy the flesh-eating rats. They recognized the rats as flesh-strippers, a kind of furry locust that only appeared infrequently, but left utter devastation in their wake. Just after this fight, as the party was recovering, they heard a clucking from behind them. Paranoid, Alarian immediately turned around so he could look behind himself with his shield, and Uianya and some of the others quickly wrapped loosely-woven stripes of cloth around their eyes to try to protect themselves. Out of the hen house stalked an incredibly ugly, three-foot high rooster with bat-like wings. Dante said that it was definitely a cockatrice, which could only turn people to stone by touching them, so the others felt safe to look at it. Which they all did. And Rhianna promptly turned to stone as the cockatrice gazed at the party. Somewhat panicked, the party closed their eyes and attacked blindly, doing a decent amount of damage when they managed to hit. Dante tried to work his way around the back and hit it with a spell, which also helped. Through an amazing effort of blind luck (heh heh) the party was able to eventually take the cockatrice down. Searching the hen house, the party found a lot of stone chickens, as well as three large blue and green cockatrice eggs. Carefully taking them, Helios double-checked for tracks around the hen house. He found a couple pairs leading off away from the fields and house, and the party decided to follow them. After several minutes of searching, the party found two exhausted farmhands at the edge of the woods. The two had seen their friend get stoned by the cockatrice and had fled into the woods in terror. They were greatly sorrowed to hear about the demise of Felise, the man that had been pitching hay in the barn. Taking the farmhands, both statues, and Granny, the party headed back to town. Rishan was very grateful to the party for saving his grandmother, and quickly summoned a wizard to see if he could take care of the two stoned creatures. The party wished to go back to take care of the rest of the flesh-strippers the next day, and hope that Rhianna could be restored. The wizard, a short, intense-looking man called Norrin, demanded to know if the party had any of the cockatrice's eggs, which they did. Taking one in each hand, Norrin considered the statues for a minute, then smashed the eggs on the statues' heads. As the egg ran down their faces, stone became flesh once again. Norrin wanted to keep the third egg to study, which the party happily allowed. Rhianna, glad at being flesh again, asked the party to fill her in. They did so, and decided to call it a day. Rhianna was still going to do her ritual the next day, and the party wanted to go see if any more flesh-strippers were still on the farm. The next day, Rhianna went with the members of the Elemental Guild. A full description of her ritual is as follows: [i][b]Rhianna’s Ritual of Air[/b] You are dressed in a gown of flowing white, and your hair is left loose and free. The other genasi wear robes of deep blue adorned with feathers, their own long hair cascading past their knees. You are taken to the high plains outside the city, where the wind blows constantly from the west. The air genasi take you to the top of a steep hill, bare of any stone or tree. Here they stand circled around you, and they burn exotic incenses as they call upon Akadi, the goddess of air, to witness this transformation. You join in their pleas, raising your arms to the ever-increasing wind. It circles around you, whipping your hair and gown. The air genasi circle around you, dancing and chanting. They leap into the air, seeming to float forever before they return to earth. They come toward you, making flowing gestures, the feathers on their robes mimicking their movements. Each reaches out to you with a fan of feathers, and you feel the wind intensify. It not only runs around you, it runs through you. You feel it running deep inside you, flowing in your veins, running through your soul. With a triumphant shout, you feel your feet leave the earth and you soar high above, looking down upon the hill where you once stood. From your height you can see the blue earth of the hill, and white rocks hidden in the grass come together to make the symbol of Akadi. Only from here could you see it. “Welcome Sister!” the genasi sing to you, “Welcome Sashana, known as Rhianna. Fly among your new kin, learn your new name, and glory in the freedom of the winds!” [/i] The rest of the party went back to the farm and went into the field were the cow was being eaten yesterday. That cow was down and stripped of all flesh, but they didn't see any other flesh-strippers anywhere. Helios and Uianya followed the tracks the best they could, over to the tree line of the forest. Invoking her ability to talk with plants, Uianya questioned an oak tree about the rats. The tree said they came from sundownward (from the west), and the last time they had come was when the tree was young. [At one point during this conversation with the oak, Uianya asked the tree if any of the other trees knew anything else. I, as the tree, turned over my shoulder and called, "Hey Clyde! You seen anything today?" as if the trees were construction buddies or something on break. It was damn funny at the time, let me tell you. :D] This comforted Uianya, but Helios was less than comforted when a hoard of flesh-strippers jumped onto him from a different tree. Hacking and slashing at the jumping, bouncing rats, it took some time to finally cleave (or explode) all of the vile little things, and they delivered several bites before they went down. Thus annoyed and disgusted, the party returned to Port Cross, where they spent the night at the Golden Ale inn and tavern before leaving the next morning for Port Lyalee. [/QUOTE]
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