Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6104314" data-attributes="member: 6692807"><p>It was John who stepped in this time:</p><p> </p><p>“Before we go anywhere, we should gather our loot.”</p><p> </p><p>“What loot?” I asked.</p><p> </p><p>He looked at me as if I was insane: “How many times do I have to tell you! The armour, the weapons, the potions, the equipment. It’s worth a fortune!”</p><p> </p><p>This time I looked at him strangely: “Yes, it is but it would also take a fortune to pick it up and take in anywhere. Just how are you planning to get to a market?”</p><p> </p><p>“Like I said before, I’ll think of something. Let’s just gather it all in one place at the moment.”</p><p> </p><p>Victor spoke up: “We can do it with our horses; we have to go and get them from the mountains anyway; it will be much easier if we load up the horses.”</p><p> </p><p>I added: “Good idea; I want to stay here today anyway; that wyvern poison is still making me feel sick.”</p><p> </p><p>We went to the mountains to pick up our animals. Fortunately, they were still there, waiting patiently for us. As we rode them back through so many corpses on the battlefield, they became a little skittish, but despite this, we managed to collect all the equipment, armour, weapons and other supplies from the Ragesian fallen.</p><p> </p><p>It was as we were doing this that the enormity of what we had done struck me again; there were literally hundreds of Ragesian corpses strewn around, killed in oh so many ways; if we had been minor targets for the Ragesian war machine previously, when they found out what had happened here, that would change; I really hoped that when the news arrived at their high command, we would be very far away.</p><p> </p><p>The gathering of the equipment took the rest of the day; simultaneously, we began to organize the townsfolk into digging graves and lugging the corpses into them; Longhelim quickly pointed out the dangers of disease to them. Unfortunately, little could be done about the scorch marks, the broken weapons, the stench and the missing townsfolk. In their various forms, the memories of those would linger for a long time.</p><p> </p><p>We stored all the armour and sundries in Bechus’s house. The underground cellar was large and provided much-needed extra storage space. Then we retired for the night.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, Felix was able to cast a very handy spell that made me feel much better after the wyvern poison; simultaneously, John and I cast several spells which were able to discern the abilities of the various pieces of equipment we had gathered from the enemy commander. Amongst other things, Longhelim obtained a new suit of armour, a new pair of gauntlets which made him stronger and a shiny new shield: it was very shiny indeed.</p><p> </p><p>After that, we set out on the road to the Valley of Storms.</p><p> </p><p>As we rode, it was obvious that the climate was becoming warmer, although we couldn’t feel it of course. Certainly, the local landscape looked different; we even rode into a green and lush pine forest; very unusual for this climate and altitude.</p><p> </p><p>Having travelled most of the day and getting close to the edge of this valley, we decided to camp and learn new spells.</p><p> </p><p>The night passed uneventfully and the next morning, after our usual preparation, we mounted our horses and continued. Sometime later, we began to catch glimpses of another strange phenomenon; a layer of thin fog which rapidly became thicker and thicker; in fact, it became so thick that it made it difficult for us to see anything at any sort of distance. Longhelim stopped:</p><p> </p><p>“This is not good; we should rope ourselves together; just in case the fog gets even worse; we could easily lose each other.”</p><p> </p><p>So we stopped and took a little time, doing exactly what he suggested. We dismounted and then we carried on, leading our horses, this time with Drudge at the front; the ranger had preternaturally good eye sight.</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, Drudge stopped and I heard Longhelim’s voice:</p><p> </p><p>“Greetings: we come in peace and wish to progress to the Valley of Storms. Will you come down and share some food and news with us?”</p><p> </p><p>Frowning, I looked at the paladin. Who was he talking to? I saw him looking up into the trees and following his sight, I caught side of a figure, hugging the tree. It was dressed all in white and therefore very difficult to see in the mist. How Longhelim had seen it I had no idea.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone else was looking around at the same time and John subtly pointed out with his chin three other figures, again hugging the trees and dressed in white; it became obvious that they had been trying to hide. There was no reaction to Longhelim’s speech.</p><p> </p><p>The paladin continued: “We plan to ride forward now; I hope this will not offend you but we really do need to go to the Valley of Storms.”</p><p> </p><p>Then he whispered to the rest of us: “There is no stain of evil on these people.”</p><p> </p><p>As we began to walk down the path, the figures in the trees exploded into movement; they were incredibly fast. Two of them glided above us from branch to branch and lashed out with whips; as these flew towards us, I saw the glint of a small blade at the tip of each one; then the two figures at the front also glided in front of us and handfuls of tiny missiles sped towards the group; most of these either rattled off the metal armour of the warriors or missed altogether with the exception of one, which struck John. I noticed that it was glowing.</p><p> </p><p>Victor was muttering audibly but was then caught by surprise as another figure burst from the undergrowth; this one was again dressed in robes and also holding a scroll. The command for the scroll was completed and a bolt of lightning sped down a line through the middle of the group; it wasn’t the most powerful of lightning bolts but it still hurt. It looked as if these monks also had arcane powers. That was not the last of them either as three other figures appeared, one after the other, all targeting the glowing bit of metal stuck in John. He managed to dodge one of these bolts but the other two caught him full on.</p><p> </p><p>The other figures then literally ran down the trees and rushed the group. For some strange reason, they were attempting to punch Victor and Longhelim through their full plate armour in a stylized manner, obviously trained to punch people in a particular way. I am not sure if their training included punching through metal armour though.</p><p> </p><p>Then I managed to cast my spell of speed and watched as Drudge began to target the enemy with the scrolls; that was something that they obviously hadn’t counted on, as two of them rapidly succumbed to the ranger’s arrows. Another of the figures approached too close to Victor who did not hesitate and chopped him down.</p><p> </p><p>I just got out of the way at this time; the warriors and Drudge seemed to have things under control. Then more lightning bolts shot out of the other figures at the rear of the group and again targeted poor John, who was looking decidedly the worse for wear. Felix did a powerful new healing spell; amazingly, this one affected everyone and at a distance; he had been given another boon by his god.</p><p> </p><p>Seeing this, one of the enemy suddenly shouted: “Lords of the Two Winds, bring down your fury!”</p><p> </p><p>I could have sworn that in the distance, I heard a huge roar after this call. Then I saw the enemy all casting spells of magical force missiles at Felix. There was another shout from the enemy:</p><p> </p><p>“If in doubt, take the healer out!”</p><p> </p><p>Hearing this, I quickly handed my brooch to Felix. It absorbed these missiles. Then I scurried out of the way again. I wanted to save my spells for the Valley and the warriors had things under control as I saw both Longhelim and Victor wade through two more opponents. That only left two others at this time; no, just one as Drudge’s arrows found their mark again. The last one fought fanatically, without asking for quarter or wishing to surrender; and that is how he died.</p><p> </p><p>We took advantage of a brief respite to recover when all of us heard an ominous sound: huge wings flapping towards our location.</p><p> </p><p>I didn’t like that; I didn’t like that at all. Huge flapping wings could be an awful lot of beasts; all of them nasty; and huge. I quickly used my spell and turned invisible. I was almost too late.</p><p> </p><p>Swooping out of the sky was a majestic dragon; it was coloured green although it was a little darker than the Green Dragon of Sour Lake Swamp. The other difference was also its tail: in this case, rather than ending in a tip, it ended in a collection of black spikes. Its arrival was heralded by a sweeping wind from its wings, which shook the trees and blew away all the fog which had obscured our vision. Then, it opened its mouth and let out a mighty roar; I was not in the effect of this sound but everyone else was and I could see them reeling, clutching their ears at the noise.</p><p> </p><p>Quickly, I moved forward and gave Victor a spell which allowed him to fly. The warrior immediately took off and confronted the dragon. I saw Felix move and cast the same spell on Longhelim; the paladin readied to join Victor. Drudge hit it with a couple of arrows that seemed to annoy it more than anything else. Victor and it engaged in combat and Longhelim joined in; thankfully, my speed spell was still active so they were able to reach it. I recognized the danger of this creature; if it let out another of those roars, things could get very dire indeed.</p><p> </p><p>Still bolstered by the speed spell, Drudge, stepped to the side, took out an arrow, breathed deeply and aimed: then, with astonishing rapidity, he drew another arrow, followed by another and a final missile. These were all in the air before the first struck its target. One of arrows hit the dragon straight in its eye, sinking almost to the fletching; another flew into its throat just as it was opening its mouth, disappearing deep into its gullet; the other two thudded solidly into its torso; the beast roared its pain and anger and as it flew by, the spikes from its tail flew out; all six of them hit Drudge in various parts of his anatomy; Victor and Longhelim were in pursuit and I hit it with a spell of force missiles but Drudge, despite the spikes, jutting out from various parts of his body, stepped up again and in another exhibition of speed and accuracy, a volley of arrows struck the mighty dragon who crashed out of the sky.</p><p> </p><p>We all looked at each other with wonder; we had slain a dragon! It was something out of which legends were made. As he looked at it, Drudge had the last word, when he wryly said:</p><p> </p><p>“Now I can see why it is said that no one has returned from this valley!”</p><p> </p><p>We then healed ourselves by drinking various magical potions and continued on the path.</p><p> </p><p>We were getting quite close to the edge of the valley by this point; as we neared the lip, we became more and more cautious; we roped ourselves again, this time just by slipping the rope through our saddle girths, in case we needed to release ourselves quickly. The mist was still there so again, we had to be very careful.</p><p> </p><p>Therefore, when the four huge misshapen creatures appeared from the deep mists, we were not very surprised; except by how ugly they were maybe. They really were horrible; we had not seen anything like them before. They looked like brutish humans, but with two heads! Not only that, they had wings on their backs; three of them. They were completely atrophied though; I couldn’t see how they could fly with them. The creatures wasted no time as they produced more whips, again with small blades attached at the end.</p><p> </p><p>Victor and Longhelim jumped off their horses, realizing that they had to close quickly with the enemy, otherwise, they would just use their whips from range and inflict dreadful wounds with those daggers.</p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, before the warriors were able to reach them, the giants were able to strike from a long distance away with those damnable whips; one of them managed to entangle Victor’s legs together and yank the warrior’s feet from under him.</p><p> </p><p>Another attempted to do the same to Longhelim but the paladin sidestepped nimbly. The other two attacked the rear of our group; Drudge fired several arrows into one of the attackers almost immediately. I released my first spell, the magic which prevented normal movement, slowing everything down. I targeted three of them but it affected only one. Unfortunately, the other two continued whipping the warriors, especially Victor as he attempted to get up from the ground. Drudge was keeping out of the way of the last enemy while the giant that was slowed had made me his target, with the whip flicking out and causing me considerable pain; thankfully, he did not seem to be able to wrap it around my legs.</p><p> </p><p>A moment later, I incanted another spell; this one was a ball of fire except that it was one that had been boosted; it was more complicated to cast but it certainly burnt those giants. Victor and Longhelim had finally been able to close with the front two and they engaged in melee although poor Victor looked to be badly wounded. He managed to land a couple of good blows to one of the enemy but only after the enemy hit him with the whip and also with his fist; that was when we received the next surprise as a crackle of electricity flashed as the fist hit Victor’s armour. It was at this point that Victor burst into flames and sank to the ground.</p><p> </p><p>I managed to cast another spell, this time a ray which weakened an opponent badly; I did this twice in quick succession and succeeded both times. Both of the creatures roared loudly when I did this and my stalker re-doubled his efforts to hit me; he had already been very dangerous for me and this time, I had to move away from him. He was getting too close and I was running out of places where I could dodge.</p><p> </p><p>Then, finally, with one volley, Drudge slew his attacker. This was quickly followed by Longhelim hitting his opponent with such accuracy that he also fell. That left my enemy and the enemy who had concentrated on Victor. By coincidence, they were the two that were suffering from my weakening ray.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim then stepped forward and engaged the enemy closest to him. This time, he summoned the power of his faith and I could have sworn I saw that sword of his attain an extra gleam as he struck the creature once, twice with mighty blows; it gave out a mighty roar but then, slowly, it toppled over. The last one was stalked by Drudge who sniped at it mercilessly, shooting arrow after arrow into it torso, despite its roars of rage. It was trying to get at the ranger but it was just too slow.</p><p> </p><p>I looked at these creatures; I had seen nothing like them before. Two heads and wings were the most peculiar combination. I wrote down a quick description of them while everyone was drinking more potions. I had to take some myself of course as I had been struck several times by the whip but thankfully, I was not hurt too badly, unlike poor Victor, who had been at death’s door.</p><p> </p><p>After a little time, everyone was finally recovered and we also waited a little time for everyone else to gather themselves and then we finally looked over the lip of the valley.</p><p> </p><p>The lush pine forest continued into the valley, but the most prominent feature we could see was a tower in the distance, rising above the trees. This was a pleasant surprise as it was the first time we had seen any indication of human habitation. Slowly, we rode our way down into the valley, being careful to look around as much as possible. There was still a lot of thick mist, hinting at the likelyhood of ambushes. In fact, we could all see various misshapen shadows creeping in the forest; some of them ran away as soon as they saw us; others watched us from the undergrowth but none of them made any attempt to stop us. Thankfully, nothing attacked us and we reached a clearing. The tower stood in the middle of it, a short distance away. It had a door at its ground level as well as a balcony and another doorway at its uppermost level.</p><p> </p><p>“So, how do we handle this?” I asked. “We have no idea who lives here, but whoever they are, they really value their privacy, so they won’t appreciate callers; and that tower just looks ominous, standing here, in the middle of nowhere.”</p><p> </p><p>John was looking thoughtful. “We have to scout the area.”</p><p> </p><p>“I still have that spell which allows you to climb walls as if you were walking. Would it help?”</p><p> </p><p>The rogue replied: “That would be very useful. If you put it on me, I’ll go and have a look at this tower; maybe even climb it.”</p><p> </p><p>I cast the spell and then John sped into the clearing. I quickly lost sight of him, although oddly, I could hear his footsteps.</p><p> </p><p>Then, I managed to catch sight of him as he approached the tower; suddenly, with a yelp, he plunged through the ground and disappeared!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cafu, post: 6104314, member: 6692807"] It was John who stepped in this time: “Before we go anywhere, we should gather our loot.” “What loot?” I asked. He looked at me as if I was insane: “How many times do I have to tell you! The armour, the weapons, the potions, the equipment. It’s worth a fortune!” This time I looked at him strangely: “Yes, it is but it would also take a fortune to pick it up and take in anywhere. Just how are you planning to get to a market?” “Like I said before, I’ll think of something. Let’s just gather it all in one place at the moment.” Victor spoke up: “We can do it with our horses; we have to go and get them from the mountains anyway; it will be much easier if we load up the horses.” I added: “Good idea; I want to stay here today anyway; that wyvern poison is still making me feel sick.” We went to the mountains to pick up our animals. Fortunately, they were still there, waiting patiently for us. As we rode them back through so many corpses on the battlefield, they became a little skittish, but despite this, we managed to collect all the equipment, armour, weapons and other supplies from the Ragesian fallen. It was as we were doing this that the enormity of what we had done struck me again; there were literally hundreds of Ragesian corpses strewn around, killed in oh so many ways; if we had been minor targets for the Ragesian war machine previously, when they found out what had happened here, that would change; I really hoped that when the news arrived at their high command, we would be very far away. The gathering of the equipment took the rest of the day; simultaneously, we began to organize the townsfolk into digging graves and lugging the corpses into them; Longhelim quickly pointed out the dangers of disease to them. Unfortunately, little could be done about the scorch marks, the broken weapons, the stench and the missing townsfolk. In their various forms, the memories of those would linger for a long time. We stored all the armour and sundries in Bechus’s house. The underground cellar was large and provided much-needed extra storage space. Then we retired for the night. The next day, Felix was able to cast a very handy spell that made me feel much better after the wyvern poison; simultaneously, John and I cast several spells which were able to discern the abilities of the various pieces of equipment we had gathered from the enemy commander. Amongst other things, Longhelim obtained a new suit of armour, a new pair of gauntlets which made him stronger and a shiny new shield: it was very shiny indeed. After that, we set out on the road to the Valley of Storms. As we rode, it was obvious that the climate was becoming warmer, although we couldn’t feel it of course. Certainly, the local landscape looked different; we even rode into a green and lush pine forest; very unusual for this climate and altitude. Having travelled most of the day and getting close to the edge of this valley, we decided to camp and learn new spells. The night passed uneventfully and the next morning, after our usual preparation, we mounted our horses and continued. Sometime later, we began to catch glimpses of another strange phenomenon; a layer of thin fog which rapidly became thicker and thicker; in fact, it became so thick that it made it difficult for us to see anything at any sort of distance. Longhelim stopped: “This is not good; we should rope ourselves together; just in case the fog gets even worse; we could easily lose each other.” So we stopped and took a little time, doing exactly what he suggested. We dismounted and then we carried on, leading our horses, this time with Drudge at the front; the ranger had preternaturally good eye sight. Suddenly, Drudge stopped and I heard Longhelim’s voice: “Greetings: we come in peace and wish to progress to the Valley of Storms. Will you come down and share some food and news with us?” Frowning, I looked at the paladin. Who was he talking to? I saw him looking up into the trees and following his sight, I caught side of a figure, hugging the tree. It was dressed all in white and therefore very difficult to see in the mist. How Longhelim had seen it I had no idea. Everyone else was looking around at the same time and John subtly pointed out with his chin three other figures, again hugging the trees and dressed in white; it became obvious that they had been trying to hide. There was no reaction to Longhelim’s speech. The paladin continued: “We plan to ride forward now; I hope this will not offend you but we really do need to go to the Valley of Storms.” Then he whispered to the rest of us: “There is no stain of evil on these people.” As we began to walk down the path, the figures in the trees exploded into movement; they were incredibly fast. Two of them glided above us from branch to branch and lashed out with whips; as these flew towards us, I saw the glint of a small blade at the tip of each one; then the two figures at the front also glided in front of us and handfuls of tiny missiles sped towards the group; most of these either rattled off the metal armour of the warriors or missed altogether with the exception of one, which struck John. I noticed that it was glowing. Victor was muttering audibly but was then caught by surprise as another figure burst from the undergrowth; this one was again dressed in robes and also holding a scroll. The command for the scroll was completed and a bolt of lightning sped down a line through the middle of the group; it wasn’t the most powerful of lightning bolts but it still hurt. It looked as if these monks also had arcane powers. That was not the last of them either as three other figures appeared, one after the other, all targeting the glowing bit of metal stuck in John. He managed to dodge one of these bolts but the other two caught him full on. The other figures then literally ran down the trees and rushed the group. For some strange reason, they were attempting to punch Victor and Longhelim through their full plate armour in a stylized manner, obviously trained to punch people in a particular way. I am not sure if their training included punching through metal armour though. Then I managed to cast my spell of speed and watched as Drudge began to target the enemy with the scrolls; that was something that they obviously hadn’t counted on, as two of them rapidly succumbed to the ranger’s arrows. Another of the figures approached too close to Victor who did not hesitate and chopped him down. I just got out of the way at this time; the warriors and Drudge seemed to have things under control. Then more lightning bolts shot out of the other figures at the rear of the group and again targeted poor John, who was looking decidedly the worse for wear. Felix did a powerful new healing spell; amazingly, this one affected everyone and at a distance; he had been given another boon by his god. Seeing this, one of the enemy suddenly shouted: “Lords of the Two Winds, bring down your fury!” I could have sworn that in the distance, I heard a huge roar after this call. Then I saw the enemy all casting spells of magical force missiles at Felix. There was another shout from the enemy: “If in doubt, take the healer out!” Hearing this, I quickly handed my brooch to Felix. It absorbed these missiles. Then I scurried out of the way again. I wanted to save my spells for the Valley and the warriors had things under control as I saw both Longhelim and Victor wade through two more opponents. That only left two others at this time; no, just one as Drudge’s arrows found their mark again. The last one fought fanatically, without asking for quarter or wishing to surrender; and that is how he died. We took advantage of a brief respite to recover when all of us heard an ominous sound: huge wings flapping towards our location. I didn’t like that; I didn’t like that at all. Huge flapping wings could be an awful lot of beasts; all of them nasty; and huge. I quickly used my spell and turned invisible. I was almost too late. Swooping out of the sky was a majestic dragon; it was coloured green although it was a little darker than the Green Dragon of Sour Lake Swamp. The other difference was also its tail: in this case, rather than ending in a tip, it ended in a collection of black spikes. Its arrival was heralded by a sweeping wind from its wings, which shook the trees and blew away all the fog which had obscured our vision. Then, it opened its mouth and let out a mighty roar; I was not in the effect of this sound but everyone else was and I could see them reeling, clutching their ears at the noise. Quickly, I moved forward and gave Victor a spell which allowed him to fly. The warrior immediately took off and confronted the dragon. I saw Felix move and cast the same spell on Longhelim; the paladin readied to join Victor. Drudge hit it with a couple of arrows that seemed to annoy it more than anything else. Victor and it engaged in combat and Longhelim joined in; thankfully, my speed spell was still active so they were able to reach it. I recognized the danger of this creature; if it let out another of those roars, things could get very dire indeed. Still bolstered by the speed spell, Drudge, stepped to the side, took out an arrow, breathed deeply and aimed: then, with astonishing rapidity, he drew another arrow, followed by another and a final missile. These were all in the air before the first struck its target. One of arrows hit the dragon straight in its eye, sinking almost to the fletching; another flew into its throat just as it was opening its mouth, disappearing deep into its gullet; the other two thudded solidly into its torso; the beast roared its pain and anger and as it flew by, the spikes from its tail flew out; all six of them hit Drudge in various parts of his anatomy; Victor and Longhelim were in pursuit and I hit it with a spell of force missiles but Drudge, despite the spikes, jutting out from various parts of his body, stepped up again and in another exhibition of speed and accuracy, a volley of arrows struck the mighty dragon who crashed out of the sky. We all looked at each other with wonder; we had slain a dragon! It was something out of which legends were made. As he looked at it, Drudge had the last word, when he wryly said: “Now I can see why it is said that no one has returned from this valley!” We then healed ourselves by drinking various magical potions and continued on the path. We were getting quite close to the edge of the valley by this point; as we neared the lip, we became more and more cautious; we roped ourselves again, this time just by slipping the rope through our saddle girths, in case we needed to release ourselves quickly. The mist was still there so again, we had to be very careful. Therefore, when the four huge misshapen creatures appeared from the deep mists, we were not very surprised; except by how ugly they were maybe. They really were horrible; we had not seen anything like them before. They looked like brutish humans, but with two heads! Not only that, they had wings on their backs; three of them. They were completely atrophied though; I couldn’t see how they could fly with them. The creatures wasted no time as they produced more whips, again with small blades attached at the end. Victor and Longhelim jumped off their horses, realizing that they had to close quickly with the enemy, otherwise, they would just use their whips from range and inflict dreadful wounds with those daggers. Unfortunately, before the warriors were able to reach them, the giants were able to strike from a long distance away with those damnable whips; one of them managed to entangle Victor’s legs together and yank the warrior’s feet from under him. Another attempted to do the same to Longhelim but the paladin sidestepped nimbly. The other two attacked the rear of our group; Drudge fired several arrows into one of the attackers almost immediately. I released my first spell, the magic which prevented normal movement, slowing everything down. I targeted three of them but it affected only one. Unfortunately, the other two continued whipping the warriors, especially Victor as he attempted to get up from the ground. Drudge was keeping out of the way of the last enemy while the giant that was slowed had made me his target, with the whip flicking out and causing me considerable pain; thankfully, he did not seem to be able to wrap it around my legs. A moment later, I incanted another spell; this one was a ball of fire except that it was one that had been boosted; it was more complicated to cast but it certainly burnt those giants. Victor and Longhelim had finally been able to close with the front two and they engaged in melee although poor Victor looked to be badly wounded. He managed to land a couple of good blows to one of the enemy but only after the enemy hit him with the whip and also with his fist; that was when we received the next surprise as a crackle of electricity flashed as the fist hit Victor’s armour. It was at this point that Victor burst into flames and sank to the ground. I managed to cast another spell, this time a ray which weakened an opponent badly; I did this twice in quick succession and succeeded both times. Both of the creatures roared loudly when I did this and my stalker re-doubled his efforts to hit me; he had already been very dangerous for me and this time, I had to move away from him. He was getting too close and I was running out of places where I could dodge. Then, finally, with one volley, Drudge slew his attacker. This was quickly followed by Longhelim hitting his opponent with such accuracy that he also fell. That left my enemy and the enemy who had concentrated on Victor. By coincidence, they were the two that were suffering from my weakening ray. Longhelim then stepped forward and engaged the enemy closest to him. This time, he summoned the power of his faith and I could have sworn I saw that sword of his attain an extra gleam as he struck the creature once, twice with mighty blows; it gave out a mighty roar but then, slowly, it toppled over. The last one was stalked by Drudge who sniped at it mercilessly, shooting arrow after arrow into it torso, despite its roars of rage. It was trying to get at the ranger but it was just too slow. I looked at these creatures; I had seen nothing like them before. Two heads and wings were the most peculiar combination. I wrote down a quick description of them while everyone was drinking more potions. I had to take some myself of course as I had been struck several times by the whip but thankfully, I was not hurt too badly, unlike poor Victor, who had been at death’s door. After a little time, everyone was finally recovered and we also waited a little time for everyone else to gather themselves and then we finally looked over the lip of the valley. The lush pine forest continued into the valley, but the most prominent feature we could see was a tower in the distance, rising above the trees. This was a pleasant surprise as it was the first time we had seen any indication of human habitation. Slowly, we rode our way down into the valley, being careful to look around as much as possible. There was still a lot of thick mist, hinting at the likelyhood of ambushes. In fact, we could all see various misshapen shadows creeping in the forest; some of them ran away as soon as they saw us; others watched us from the undergrowth but none of them made any attempt to stop us. Thankfully, nothing attacked us and we reached a clearing. The tower stood in the middle of it, a short distance away. It had a door at its ground level as well as a balcony and another doorway at its uppermost level. “So, how do we handle this?” I asked. “We have no idea who lives here, but whoever they are, they really value their privacy, so they won’t appreciate callers; and that tower just looks ominous, standing here, in the middle of nowhere.” John was looking thoughtful. “We have to scout the area.” “I still have that spell which allows you to climb walls as if you were walking. Would it help?” The rogue replied: “That would be very useful. If you put it on me, I’ll go and have a look at this tower; maybe even climb it.” I cast the spell and then John sped into the clearing. I quickly lost sight of him, although oddly, I could hear his footsteps. Then, I managed to catch sight of him as he approached the tower; suddenly, with a yelp, he plunged through the ground and disappeared! [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
Top