Ant
First Post
Bas Dreams of Genie - The Conclusion
They step through the door to find themselves in the centre of a circular room. The room is quite well furnished, with bookshelves, couches, a bed, a staircase leading up directly in front of them. They also notice a skeleton draped over a desk to one side. It then becomes immediately obvious that the door they entered through is actually in the middle of the room, and that there is no sign of the passageway they can still see through the door.
This fact proves to be stronger than Bas' magic phobia saving throw and he panics. Mailcon thoughtfully takes advantage of that panic by telling the half orc: "Quick, up the stairs. You'll be safe there." Mailcon smiles at the sound of Bas' footsteps as he charges up the stairs. He wonders when it would be a good time to inform Bas that the inside of the tower appears to be much bigger than the outside, and smiles even more.
Bas, on the other hand, finds the stairs mysteriously reverses themselves and he finds himself entering running back the other way, although it appears he is now one floor up. He stops at the top of the stair, makes a saving throw and looks around while his panic drains away.
Meanwhile, the others do a little scouting around downstairs but don't find anything of immediate interest. So they follow Bas up the stairs. On the way up, Mailcon calls out: "Hey Bas, anything up there?"
"Boobies"
"Be right with you."
At the top they find Bas staring at 2 of 3 energy force cages. The third one (the one in the middle actually) encloses a stair leading upwards and he is ignoring that. The other 2 contains a beautiful blonde girl and a beautiful brunette girl respectively. Both of them start talking at once, begging to be let out while keeping the other one trapped. They point out some buttons of the far wall and confusingly tell the party which ones to press (or I wasn't paying attention. I can't remember which).
Mailcon is suspicious and uses his Fey resisting abilities and knowledge skills to determine that the blonde is actually a Fey creature trying to seduce them with subtle feminine wiles.
"Bas like boobies."
Or maybe not so subtle in some cases.
Mailcon announces to the blonde: "Ha. I know what you are. You’re a nymph!"
"Ooh. Bas dated one of them once. Wished he had Endurance feat."
"No Bas, a nymph. Not a nymphomani.... oh, forget it."
The nymph begs the Druid to let her out, while the brunette tells them not to trust her. Mailcon wanders over to the 3 buttons on the wall and examines them briefly. Then he shrugs and pushes both the outside buttons at the same time.
Behind him he hears Tyrant say; "Wait. What are you doing?"
Two of the force cages vanish (the one around the nymph and the one around the stairs). There is a scream of rage from the remaining force cage and the beautiful girl transforms into a scaly bat winged demon.
"Urm. Never mind," Tyrant continues.
"Aww. Pretty girl gone, but Bas does like her skin better now."
Mailcon turns to see Logan looking at him.
"What? I knew what I was doing."
The wolverine raises an eyebrow.
"It's dungeon logic. Three buttons. Obviously the one in the same position as the stairs would open the wrong cage. See?"
The wolverine shakes his head and wanders over to get his head scratched by the Nymph.
"But I'm serious...."
The Nymph walks over to Mailcon and thanks him. She asks her rescuer to name himself. Mailcon replies with: 'Err, Bas."
One Sense Motive roll later: "My lord, I’m not sure I believe you. Surely you can tell me your name."
Mailcon pauses for a moment then stands a little straighter: "I am a pen Annwn!"
Logan rolls his eyes. The nymph shrugs and then asks if the party would be willing to wait 24 hours so she could return with suitable rewards. Mailcon looks at the rest of the battered and exhausted party. They are nodding enthusiastically. Mailcon then agrees and she vanishes in a cloud of showy special effects. Bas' eyes bug somewhat at that but then he distracts himself by finding something interesting to look at on the blank wall. They decide to return to the bottom floor to rest.
As they move to the stairs Tyrant says something in Elven to the creature trapped in the force cage. It responds with a vicious string of words in some demonic language that they don't understand. Tyrant explains to Mailcon as they head down the stairs:
"The elven language really annoys those underworld types."
"Elven really annoys everyone. Those poncy, pointed-eared gits."
Downstairs they again look around but most of the books are for arcane magic use and of little use to the group. They therefore settle down for the night. Bas takes to the bed, Tyrant to the comfy couch. The Druid is disdainful of such easy comforts and, stealing the cover of the bed, settles down on the floor for the evening.
They get some sleep for a few hours when Bas wakes up early. On the bed he discovers he has recovered in half the time. This reassures him that his constitution really is good at healing and recovery and that Mailcon's little stick had nothing to do with it. As the others were still asleep he goes back to sleep for another few hours.
The following day the party just slums around and builds up its strength. Mailcon drinks a healing potion and then un-drinks it when the DM remembers they get another bout of natural healing due to not doing anything.
Eventually the nymph walks down the stairs. True to her word she rewards the party, starting with Tyrant. To him she gives a piece of smooth bark on a necklace fashioned from sinew. Tyrant asks what it does and she hints that it will aid him in battle. Tyrant also noticed a tingling sensation when he wore the necklace and felt his own skin toughen, although it didn't appear to change.
To Bas, she gives a shimmering green cloak. Apart from a slightly different colour, Mailcon thought that it could have been woven on the same loom as his own cloak (Mailcon tries to remember if his cloak could do anything). Bas is pleased and politely thanks her breasts for the gift.
Logan pushes in front of Mailcon and looks at the Nymph with puppy dog eyes. She laughs and places a plain leather collar with copper studs around his neck. He scratches at it with a paw but generally seems pleased with his new addition.
Finally she approaches the Druid and asks for the wooden sword the group has. They hand it over and the nymph briefly talks to the wood while stroking it. Mailcon is impressed as the wood shifts and warps its shape until it takes on the appearance of a scimitar. As he graciously takes the new weapon from her she passes on some advice to him.
"Blah, blah, beware of the guardian." she says. "Blah. Make an enemy of him at your peril. Something, something, blah."
"Yeah, ok," Mailcon replies. "Say, this is a really nice sword."
Swish, swish, he slices it through the air. Then he looks up at her again.
"Sorry, were you saying something?"
She sighs, wishes them luck and vanishes in a multicoloured cloud of pixels. Bas immediately distracts himself with his new cloak. The group settles their new stuff, look at each other and then heads back up the stairs to continue on with the journey.
Up on the next floor they pass the force cage enclosing the demon and make their way up the next flight of stairs. Tyrant taunts the creature with Elven as they pass, just because he can.
Her vituperations follow them up the stairs.
"They do? I don't see anything. What do they look like?"
"He means abuse and curses Bas"
"Oh. I get it."
At the top the stairs have again reversed themselves and they find themselves in a circular room much like the one below. There are a couple of small force cages with doors on the inside and the outsides of them. The southern curve of the room also has 3 doors on them.
"Hey, that something, something bit," Mailcon said. "Anyone remember it?"
"What?"
"The nymph. She said 'blah something something'. The something, something was about a hidden door in the southwest corner, wasn't it?"
“Was it 3 paces south of the most southern door?” Tyrant says.
"That was it!" says Mailcon.
They both go over to the southern part of the room, near the third door.
"NOW I get it."
"Yes, Bas. Very good."
They look in roughly the right spot and sure enough find a secret door. They open it to find it opens into another circular room which is about the same size as the one they were in. This room has a pile of gold and treasure in the middle with jovial looking man is standing on the pile.
"Ho, my friends! Please do not come in, as I would hate to cause you harm."
Tyrant and Mailcon look at each other then start up a conversation with him. It turns out the man is a djinni that had been trapped by the mage who had created the tower and was being used to guard his treasure for a millennia. He summons some food for the party. Mailcon asks him what happened to the wizard.
"Ah, well you see, the wizard, to whom I am his servant, was mighty in power. Having built this great tower, he realised the need to protect it from his enemies. So, in his wisdom, he developed a powerful force cage to protect the tower but was trapped when ….."
"Ok, that's enough"
"Alright"
There is an awkward silence. The djinni examines his fingernails and buffs them on the billowing fabric of his MC Hammer pants. Mailcon and Tyrant shuffles their feet. The silence drags on.
Finally Mailcon sits down to sample the food and asks the djinni if he can be released from service. It tells them that only death will release him (in a hint hint kind of way). He also explains how the wizard was trapped within the force cage of the tower until he died. The doors and cages in this room were his experiments on how to penetrate the force cages so he could escape. By opening the force wall the party had finally released his spirit. The djinni doesn't explain why the lever to turn it on and off was outside the force cage.
After they have feasted the djinni asks them if they are ready. Mailcon and Tyrant stand up. Mailcon draws his new wooden sword and replies with a 'yep'. Then he hits the djinni with a bolt from the Call Lightning spell.
The djinni is quick enough to avoid most of the damage but tells Mailcon that he is impressed by the strike. He doesn't comment on the arrows that both Tyrant and Bas hits him with, but they do make him vanish.
Mailcon frowns and makes a Listen check. He gets the impression that the djinni has moved to stand next to the door, so he targets the area with a Faerie Fire spell. The outline of the djinni appears next to the door briefly before the djinni suddenly reappears on the pile in the centre of the room. He compliments the party for its ingenuity. Appreciative of the compliment Tyrant and Bas decides that nothing says thank you better than a bunch of arrows. Mailcon decides to burn a spell slot on a spontaneous Nature's Ally. He summons a small earth elemental in the room and gets it involved as well.
The djinni is sucking up arrows and elemental punches but doesn't retaliate. Suspicion, and a decent Will save, prompts Mailcon to realise that the djinni that they are attacking is actually an illusion. He tells the others, which causes the djinni to appear next to the door with a bellowing laugh. It steps into view in the doorway and Mailcon asks if it is impressed. The djinni replies with a 'yep'. Then it hits the entire party with a whirlwind full of gold coin shrapnel.
“I do not want to harm you my friends,” the djinni says as he uses the whirlwind to throw Bas across the room. Tyrant struggles through the winds to attack with his longsword. The hailstorm of gold coins does harm him quite a bit thank you very much, but he lashes out with an effective strike anyway.
Bas struggles to his feet and, despite his magic terror reaching Def-Con 4, charges into the storm to land a solid blow with his axe. At the same time, the earth elemental survives the battering of coins and also connects with a damaging blow.
Reeling from the multiple attacks, the djinni’s attempt to gather itself is thwarted at the last by a second lighting strike called down by Mailcon. The creature explodes into an electrified cloud that is quickly dispersed by the swirling winds before they too die away. Solid gold coins bounce off the floor.
Victory has its price as this proves to be the final straw for the magic-phobic Bas and with a scream he charges down the stairs, waving his arms above his head. Logan wanders over to the top of the stairs and watches him go with great curiosity. Mailcon and Tyrant sink to the floor in exhaustion. Leaning against the walls they listen to Bas's bare feet as they hit the floor below them. Demonic cursing drifts up the stairs, followed by the sound of Bas running down the other staircase.
"I wonder how far he will go," Tyrant said.
"Seeing as the only way out is a magic door floating in the middle of the room? Not too far I imagine."
"True"
Eventually the cursing stops.
"It just occurred to me," Tyrant continued. "How are we going to get him out of the tower?"
"Blindfolded I guess,” Mailcon replies. “A better question is what to do with this lot."
They both turn to look at the pile of treasure in the middle of the room and then....
"What? What happens next? Why did you stop?"
"Ehh. It was just more kissing. You don't want to hear about that."
"What? Kissing? Who? What on earth are you talking about?"
“...
"Oh, sorry. I was watching The Princess Bride. I got confused. Now where were we? Oh yes..."
"And that's the adventure over," said the DM. "You now own the treasure and the tower."
"Excellent. Thanks for the cool adventure. Good job. Let’s look at the treasure list."
About 5 minutes later.
"Hey, what happened to the kid?"
"What kid?"
"You know. The missing one. At the start of the adventure."
"Oh that. Plot hook."
"A plot hook that has nothing to do with the plot?"
"Well, you seem to be doing ok without it. Maybe he ran away to join the circus."
"Ok. Whatever. Back to the treasure, and I guess we need to find a plan to get it all out of the tower"
"Bas back now"
"Never mind. I think I just found one"
THE END.
…
…
…
…
"Is it over? Is everyone leaving? Aww. Bas wants to say goodbye first."
"Alright Bas. Here, give me your axe and away you go"
"Bye! Goodbye!"
"Bas. They’re this way. You're waving in the wrong direction."
"Oh. Thanks. Bye Bye! Sniff. Bas misses you already."
"Its ok Bas. They'll be back one day. If you are finished, why don't you take your axe back and we'll go look for some breakfast."
"Ooh. Good idea. Bas hungry..."
They step through the door to find themselves in the centre of a circular room. The room is quite well furnished, with bookshelves, couches, a bed, a staircase leading up directly in front of them. They also notice a skeleton draped over a desk to one side. It then becomes immediately obvious that the door they entered through is actually in the middle of the room, and that there is no sign of the passageway they can still see through the door.
This fact proves to be stronger than Bas' magic phobia saving throw and he panics. Mailcon thoughtfully takes advantage of that panic by telling the half orc: "Quick, up the stairs. You'll be safe there." Mailcon smiles at the sound of Bas' footsteps as he charges up the stairs. He wonders when it would be a good time to inform Bas that the inside of the tower appears to be much bigger than the outside, and smiles even more.
Bas, on the other hand, finds the stairs mysteriously reverses themselves and he finds himself entering running back the other way, although it appears he is now one floor up. He stops at the top of the stair, makes a saving throw and looks around while his panic drains away.
Meanwhile, the others do a little scouting around downstairs but don't find anything of immediate interest. So they follow Bas up the stairs. On the way up, Mailcon calls out: "Hey Bas, anything up there?"
"Boobies"
"Be right with you."
At the top they find Bas staring at 2 of 3 energy force cages. The third one (the one in the middle actually) encloses a stair leading upwards and he is ignoring that. The other 2 contains a beautiful blonde girl and a beautiful brunette girl respectively. Both of them start talking at once, begging to be let out while keeping the other one trapped. They point out some buttons of the far wall and confusingly tell the party which ones to press (or I wasn't paying attention. I can't remember which).
Mailcon is suspicious and uses his Fey resisting abilities and knowledge skills to determine that the blonde is actually a Fey creature trying to seduce them with subtle feminine wiles.
"Bas like boobies."
Or maybe not so subtle in some cases.
Mailcon announces to the blonde: "Ha. I know what you are. You’re a nymph!"
"Ooh. Bas dated one of them once. Wished he had Endurance feat."
"No Bas, a nymph. Not a nymphomani.... oh, forget it."
The nymph begs the Druid to let her out, while the brunette tells them not to trust her. Mailcon wanders over to the 3 buttons on the wall and examines them briefly. Then he shrugs and pushes both the outside buttons at the same time.
Behind him he hears Tyrant say; "Wait. What are you doing?"
Two of the force cages vanish (the one around the nymph and the one around the stairs). There is a scream of rage from the remaining force cage and the beautiful girl transforms into a scaly bat winged demon.
"Urm. Never mind," Tyrant continues.
"Aww. Pretty girl gone, but Bas does like her skin better now."
Mailcon turns to see Logan looking at him.
"What? I knew what I was doing."
The wolverine raises an eyebrow.
"It's dungeon logic. Three buttons. Obviously the one in the same position as the stairs would open the wrong cage. See?"
The wolverine shakes his head and wanders over to get his head scratched by the Nymph.
"But I'm serious...."
The Nymph walks over to Mailcon and thanks him. She asks her rescuer to name himself. Mailcon replies with: 'Err, Bas."
One Sense Motive roll later: "My lord, I’m not sure I believe you. Surely you can tell me your name."
Mailcon pauses for a moment then stands a little straighter: "I am a pen Annwn!"
Logan rolls his eyes. The nymph shrugs and then asks if the party would be willing to wait 24 hours so she could return with suitable rewards. Mailcon looks at the rest of the battered and exhausted party. They are nodding enthusiastically. Mailcon then agrees and she vanishes in a cloud of showy special effects. Bas' eyes bug somewhat at that but then he distracts himself by finding something interesting to look at on the blank wall. They decide to return to the bottom floor to rest.
As they move to the stairs Tyrant says something in Elven to the creature trapped in the force cage. It responds with a vicious string of words in some demonic language that they don't understand. Tyrant explains to Mailcon as they head down the stairs:
"The elven language really annoys those underworld types."
"Elven really annoys everyone. Those poncy, pointed-eared gits."
Downstairs they again look around but most of the books are for arcane magic use and of little use to the group. They therefore settle down for the night. Bas takes to the bed, Tyrant to the comfy couch. The Druid is disdainful of such easy comforts and, stealing the cover of the bed, settles down on the floor for the evening.
They get some sleep for a few hours when Bas wakes up early. On the bed he discovers he has recovered in half the time. This reassures him that his constitution really is good at healing and recovery and that Mailcon's little stick had nothing to do with it. As the others were still asleep he goes back to sleep for another few hours.
The following day the party just slums around and builds up its strength. Mailcon drinks a healing potion and then un-drinks it when the DM remembers they get another bout of natural healing due to not doing anything.
Eventually the nymph walks down the stairs. True to her word she rewards the party, starting with Tyrant. To him she gives a piece of smooth bark on a necklace fashioned from sinew. Tyrant asks what it does and she hints that it will aid him in battle. Tyrant also noticed a tingling sensation when he wore the necklace and felt his own skin toughen, although it didn't appear to change.
To Bas, she gives a shimmering green cloak. Apart from a slightly different colour, Mailcon thought that it could have been woven on the same loom as his own cloak (Mailcon tries to remember if his cloak could do anything). Bas is pleased and politely thanks her breasts for the gift.
Logan pushes in front of Mailcon and looks at the Nymph with puppy dog eyes. She laughs and places a plain leather collar with copper studs around his neck. He scratches at it with a paw but generally seems pleased with his new addition.
Finally she approaches the Druid and asks for the wooden sword the group has. They hand it over and the nymph briefly talks to the wood while stroking it. Mailcon is impressed as the wood shifts and warps its shape until it takes on the appearance of a scimitar. As he graciously takes the new weapon from her she passes on some advice to him.
"Blah, blah, beware of the guardian." she says. "Blah. Make an enemy of him at your peril. Something, something, blah."
"Yeah, ok," Mailcon replies. "Say, this is a really nice sword."
Swish, swish, he slices it through the air. Then he looks up at her again.
"Sorry, were you saying something?"
She sighs, wishes them luck and vanishes in a multicoloured cloud of pixels. Bas immediately distracts himself with his new cloak. The group settles their new stuff, look at each other and then heads back up the stairs to continue on with the journey.
Up on the next floor they pass the force cage enclosing the demon and make their way up the next flight of stairs. Tyrant taunts the creature with Elven as they pass, just because he can.
Her vituperations follow them up the stairs.
"They do? I don't see anything. What do they look like?"
"He means abuse and curses Bas"
"Oh. I get it."
At the top the stairs have again reversed themselves and they find themselves in a circular room much like the one below. There are a couple of small force cages with doors on the inside and the outsides of them. The southern curve of the room also has 3 doors on them.
"Hey, that something, something bit," Mailcon said. "Anyone remember it?"
"What?"
"The nymph. She said 'blah something something'. The something, something was about a hidden door in the southwest corner, wasn't it?"
“Was it 3 paces south of the most southern door?” Tyrant says.
"That was it!" says Mailcon.
They both go over to the southern part of the room, near the third door.
"NOW I get it."
"Yes, Bas. Very good."
They look in roughly the right spot and sure enough find a secret door. They open it to find it opens into another circular room which is about the same size as the one they were in. This room has a pile of gold and treasure in the middle with jovial looking man is standing on the pile.
"Ho, my friends! Please do not come in, as I would hate to cause you harm."
Tyrant and Mailcon look at each other then start up a conversation with him. It turns out the man is a djinni that had been trapped by the mage who had created the tower and was being used to guard his treasure for a millennia. He summons some food for the party. Mailcon asks him what happened to the wizard.
"Ah, well you see, the wizard, to whom I am his servant, was mighty in power. Having built this great tower, he realised the need to protect it from his enemies. So, in his wisdom, he developed a powerful force cage to protect the tower but was trapped when ….."
"Ok, that's enough"
"Alright"
There is an awkward silence. The djinni examines his fingernails and buffs them on the billowing fabric of his MC Hammer pants. Mailcon and Tyrant shuffles their feet. The silence drags on.
Finally Mailcon sits down to sample the food and asks the djinni if he can be released from service. It tells them that only death will release him (in a hint hint kind of way). He also explains how the wizard was trapped within the force cage of the tower until he died. The doors and cages in this room were his experiments on how to penetrate the force cages so he could escape. By opening the force wall the party had finally released his spirit. The djinni doesn't explain why the lever to turn it on and off was outside the force cage.
After they have feasted the djinni asks them if they are ready. Mailcon and Tyrant stand up. Mailcon draws his new wooden sword and replies with a 'yep'. Then he hits the djinni with a bolt from the Call Lightning spell.
The djinni is quick enough to avoid most of the damage but tells Mailcon that he is impressed by the strike. He doesn't comment on the arrows that both Tyrant and Bas hits him with, but they do make him vanish.
Mailcon frowns and makes a Listen check. He gets the impression that the djinni has moved to stand next to the door, so he targets the area with a Faerie Fire spell. The outline of the djinni appears next to the door briefly before the djinni suddenly reappears on the pile in the centre of the room. He compliments the party for its ingenuity. Appreciative of the compliment Tyrant and Bas decides that nothing says thank you better than a bunch of arrows. Mailcon decides to burn a spell slot on a spontaneous Nature's Ally. He summons a small earth elemental in the room and gets it involved as well.
The djinni is sucking up arrows and elemental punches but doesn't retaliate. Suspicion, and a decent Will save, prompts Mailcon to realise that the djinni that they are attacking is actually an illusion. He tells the others, which causes the djinni to appear next to the door with a bellowing laugh. It steps into view in the doorway and Mailcon asks if it is impressed. The djinni replies with a 'yep'. Then it hits the entire party with a whirlwind full of gold coin shrapnel.
“I do not want to harm you my friends,” the djinni says as he uses the whirlwind to throw Bas across the room. Tyrant struggles through the winds to attack with his longsword. The hailstorm of gold coins does harm him quite a bit thank you very much, but he lashes out with an effective strike anyway.
Bas struggles to his feet and, despite his magic terror reaching Def-Con 4, charges into the storm to land a solid blow with his axe. At the same time, the earth elemental survives the battering of coins and also connects with a damaging blow.
Reeling from the multiple attacks, the djinni’s attempt to gather itself is thwarted at the last by a second lighting strike called down by Mailcon. The creature explodes into an electrified cloud that is quickly dispersed by the swirling winds before they too die away. Solid gold coins bounce off the floor.
Victory has its price as this proves to be the final straw for the magic-phobic Bas and with a scream he charges down the stairs, waving his arms above his head. Logan wanders over to the top of the stairs and watches him go with great curiosity. Mailcon and Tyrant sink to the floor in exhaustion. Leaning against the walls they listen to Bas's bare feet as they hit the floor below them. Demonic cursing drifts up the stairs, followed by the sound of Bas running down the other staircase.
"I wonder how far he will go," Tyrant said.
"Seeing as the only way out is a magic door floating in the middle of the room? Not too far I imagine."
"True"
Eventually the cursing stops.
"It just occurred to me," Tyrant continued. "How are we going to get him out of the tower?"
"Blindfolded I guess,” Mailcon replies. “A better question is what to do with this lot."
They both turn to look at the pile of treasure in the middle of the room and then....
"What? What happens next? Why did you stop?"
"Ehh. It was just more kissing. You don't want to hear about that."
"What? Kissing? Who? What on earth are you talking about?"
“...
"Oh, sorry. I was watching The Princess Bride. I got confused. Now where were we? Oh yes..."
"And that's the adventure over," said the DM. "You now own the treasure and the tower."
"Excellent. Thanks for the cool adventure. Good job. Let’s look at the treasure list."
About 5 minutes later.
"Hey, what happened to the kid?"
"What kid?"
"You know. The missing one. At the start of the adventure."
"Oh that. Plot hook."
"A plot hook that has nothing to do with the plot?"
"Well, you seem to be doing ok without it. Maybe he ran away to join the circus."
"Ok. Whatever. Back to the treasure, and I guess we need to find a plan to get it all out of the tower"
"Bas back now"
"Never mind. I think I just found one"
THE END.
…
…
…
…
"Is it over? Is everyone leaving? Aww. Bas wants to say goodbye first."
"Alright Bas. Here, give me your axe and away you go"
"Bye! Goodbye!"
"Bas. They’re this way. You're waving in the wrong direction."
"Oh. Thanks. Bye Bye! Sniff. Bas misses you already."
"Its ok Bas. They'll be back one day. If you are finished, why don't you take your axe back and we'll go look for some breakfast."
"Ooh. Good idea. Bas hungry..."
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
