The never ending story of ...

[rgoodbb]

A short way into the cave, as your eyes adjust to the gloom, you find ...

find.... yourself grinning like buffoons because you've been here before.

There was a stench and a sound of rattling chains nearby and over to the right.

Herewulf stopped as he realised all eyes were upon him. "Sorry." He slowly stowed his reserve flail that had not been cleaned of zombie brains many moons ago, back into his backpack.

They advanced further. "So Jeli?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you swim?"

"This is surely not the time for idle conversation. And the water here is way to shallow. This cavern is much bigger than I first thought. Nord tap over there will you."

Nord tapped the ten foot pole almost blindly on the right wall Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, thuck, tap, tap, tap. "No, go back a bit" Tap. tap, thuck.

"I don't like the sound of that thuck. Wait, my darkvision is clearing. It's a, well it seems to be a bunch of tied up Cockatrices/Cockatri?. I think this is Xena's doing. Are they the enemy? Are we supposed to kill them and Snappy? I don't understand. Herewulf, is this what you wanted? Is this back to basic adventuring?"

At that point a low boom could be heard from deeper within the cavern. And a rumbling. Something was moving. Something was coming their way.....

 

[BoldItalic]

Something was coming their way.....

"It's the water trap!" shouted Od. "They've set it off early, before we reached the mmmph flmgth!". His last words were stifled as Norn clamped his hand over Od's mouth to save him from inadvertantly committing metagame.

"Water doesn't rumble," declared Norn. "Trust me, I'm a sailor. I know 347 different words for water and 'rumble' isn't one of them."

Herewulf rolled high on a Dex save and pushed Jeli roughly against the side wall of the tunnel, covering her with his shield. "Rolling balls!" he shouted.

"Well, there's no need to be quite so crude about it," sniffed Jeli. "A girl likes a little romance first ..."

However, it soon became apparent that Herewulf had purely noble intentions as three large boulders came rolling down the tunnel, knocked down Norn and Od, and continued out of the cave mouth where they splashed down into the stream, throwing water over the badger which was, incidentally, quite grateful for the cooling off in a badgerish sort of way.

"Well," said Od as he picked himself up and counted his bruises. "At least we know where we stand with this scenario. And .. Oh no! My flute! My flute! It's ruined!" for the gilded flute, his prize possession, had been knocked from his grasp, fallen into the path of a boulder and been squashed flat. "That was my grandfather's!" he cried in woe.

"Don't be such a cry-baby," admonished Norn, as he cast a Mending cantrip on the flute. "There, good as new. Try playing it." Od did, and the sound was better than ever except that for some reason he couldn't play D sharp ever again and it always came out as E flat.

To reassure himself, Od cast a Light cantrip on his thumb and held it up. "Do we take the side passage to the west," he asked, or go ahead under that rickety bridge of wood and rope that I can just make out in the shadows of the ceiling?"

As if to echo his question, a black rectangular window suddenly lit up on one wall displaying strange cryptic runes:

>NORTH
>WEST
>TAKE COCKATRICE
>PLAY FLUTE
>LOOK
>SAVE
>QUIT

"It's obvious what we do," decided Jeli. "We ..."

 

[rgoodbb]

"We...Roll a D7."

"How do we do that?"

"Well you just roll a D14 and half it dummy." Suggested Od

"Or you could just roll this D7." Replied a smug Jeli.

"Howz about just rolling 2d4 and subtracting 1?"

"Or you could just roll this D7" Jeli repeated.

"Nope I would do it as 2d10 + half of 1d6 and then reduce by a third.....I think....What's my intelligence again?" Asked Herewulf.

"Or you could just roll this D7" Jeli repeated again

Everyone stopped. Finally getting that the Ranger held an actual D7 in her hand.

"Ooh, it's pretty. Is it a magic item? What are the shapes on each side?"

"Well one is hexagonal, one is a square, The 3 is an oval and the rest just seem to fit. I think I am going to just use this dice for the next few posts if that's OK with everyone."

"Well then Jeli. What is it to be?"

She crouched down and shook both of her hands with the dice inside.

"Oh. You're one of those dice rollers are you?"

"What does that mean? Is there any other way?"

"Well of course." Replied Od. "We have the Vandenska method of letting it fall between your index and middle finger, the Asmodeus Slam, the flick/spin otherwise known as the Kobold Drumstick, we have Tasha's Herringbone Flip, The Flying

Not listening any more, Jeli proceeded to roll on the stone path next to the stream....It clacked and bounced and rolled, steadying on a 5 but just slowly teetering and turning until landing on a solid.......

 

[BoldItalic]

until landing on a solid....... pentagon.

"You have to read the number at the top," explained Od, "Not the one it lands on, obviously, because you can't see it."

"The numbers around the top are 1, 3, Z, Ϫ, and 2⅞. Doesn't help a lot."

"Roll it again."

*clackety, clackety, clack* "That's better. 13."

"What? You can't get 13 on a 1d7. Let me see. Oh, you're looking at it sideways. It's a fimbrish, the alchemical symbol for heavy rain in the afternoon."

"So what does it mean?"

"It means we should go west."

So they did. The passage to the west proved difficult because it was quite steep in places and there was a lot of loose gravel on the floor. Several times, Od lost his footing and slid back into Nord who promptly threw him back up the slope. Jeli also slid back into Herewulf a few times but he didn't take the hint.

Eventually, they reached the top of the slope and entered a large cavern which was occupied by half a dozen orcs. The orcs jeered and remarked amongst themselves how idiotic these adventurers were, and especially the little one with his thumb on fire. "Hey, dinner," called one of the orcs rudely, "You're dead meat. Except that *spit* elf. We'll save that one for breakfast."

Herewulf stepped boldly forward, readied his shield and drew his rapier very slowly and deliberately, so that the orcs would know that he was ready to fight. "I roll for intiative," he announced calmly.

"Ooh, get you!" mocked another orc. "I roll for initiative, please and thank you. See this polearm? Try to reach me. Go on, try."

Herewulf held his peace and Nornthew spoke next. "If you gentlemen would all care to stand together with your halberds raised menacingly, and the metal tips towards me, I would be most obliged," he suggested in a mock-polite voice he had once heard a nobleman midshipman use (the one who inexplicably drowned by falling overboard with his hands tied together behind his back). "Ah, splendid, you make a truly frightening spectacle. I cast Chain Lightning."

"'Ere, that's a 6th level spell, you gotta be ..." the orc counted on his fingers, then on his toes, "... 11th level to cast that! Wot you doing in this adventure? You OP, you are. We got the DM on our side, un't we?" and he looked around to his fellow orcs for reassurance. But he found little, for all the other orcs had suddenly deserted him and were fleeing the cavern through another exit. Seeing this, he drew upon his inner reserves of orcishness, flourished his halberd and stood his ground. "I attack the bard," he announced.

What happened next was quite gruesome ...

 

[rgoodbb]

What happened next was quite gruesome ...

Orc No. 6 suddenly realised that she was now Orc No. 1. She was both the Clan and Tribal leader, but also the runt and whipping girl. After whipping herself with her Glaive, Her spine became exposed to such an extent that it protruded out her shoulder blades. Pain made her slash harder. She went into a berserker's rage and hacked a nearby captive Elf named Sildar Hallwinter to death and accidently stabbed her own left eye out. It was at this point when Grummesh intervened. She had become chosen. Chosen by...Him, Ragash-the-Chosen. She became so much more than she could imagine. She had become an UBER ORC EYE OF GRUUMSH. She had become Death.

Od felt significantly peculiar. Jeli felt distinctly wobbly, Nord felt mildly Scandinavian, and Herewolf felt disturbingly hairy under the full moon.

Ragash-the-Chosen became a...a.....a..........Demigod. Not a semi god. mot a hemi semi demi god. but a Demigod. Much like Perseus, much like Hercules, much like.....

 

[rgoodbb]

[MENTION=6777052]BoldItalic[/MENTION] I will be getting lost in the Peak District for the next couple of days and will not be able to post anything.

My challenge to you is to get at least one other to contribute to this thread by hook or by crook by the time I return Saturday eve.

Good Luck!

 

[BoldItalic]

[MENTION=6777052]BoldItalic[/MENTION] I will be getting lost in the Peak District for the next couple of days and will not be able to post anything.

I know the Peak District. If lost, go down.

My challenge to you is to get at least one other to contribute to this thread by hook or by crook by the time I return Saturday eve.

Good Luck!

Not a chance. We are in a black hole with an audience of nil. It's just me and ... *looks around* where did they come from?

 

[BoldItalic]

Much like Perseus, much like Hercules, much like..... Ragash The Destroyer of Lives.

She emerged from the cave like a serpent from the egg. The hideout would no longer contain her and she would range freely through the Sword Coast, laying waste to the human lands and reclaiming them for her kind. Four rapiers danced in the air as she juggled them. She laughed a guttural laugh as she thought of their former owners, torn limb from puny limb, protesting that a TPK was sooo unfair. She licked the taste of crocodile from her lips. The taste was new to her and she had a taste for the exotic. And it came in a convenient handbag, too.

There was a village not far to the south. Ghandalin, the humans called it. She would begin there. Cottages burned well and she would eat more manflesh. She chanted an orcish chant as the miles sped under her feet. Soon, she was on a trail that led to the village. She was Ragash. She would slay.

There was a figure on the trail. It was a man on a horse. The man was armoured from head to toe and so was the horse. Over his armour, the man wore a white surcoat and a crimson cloak. His helmet sported a crimson and white plume and a crimson and white shield hung from his saddle. As Ragash watched, the man closed his visor and tilted a lance towards her. "Easy, boy," said Lord Emphal to his horse. Brocollin twitched an ear in response, muscles tensed for the charge.

Ragash sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring. There were four humans and two horses upwind of her, not just the lone cavalier she could see. She glanced to left and right, for he trail ran between two outcrops of rock. So, she thought, there were others concealed in ambush. But she was Ragash. She would not fall for such an obvious trap. She stopped, and moved aside from the trail so that the horseman would have to come forward to meet her on ground of her choosing. There was a dried-up watercourse where the ground was stony with loose gravel, washed down by vanished stream. She took her stand there, with her back to a large boulder. The stones would make the horse's footing unsure. She waited, weapons ready to strike.

A man in drab clothing, a sheaf of arrows in his quiver, crouched in the shadow of a gnarled tree-stump and made a complex hand signal to an unseen companion nearby. He was of average height, with the sunburnt complexion of an outdoorsman and his eyes were deep-set with a permanent frown that came from being ever-watchful. His name was Hendred.

In response to Hendred's signal, a wizard raised her hand and a crytal orb glittered in the fitful sunlight as she twirled it and intoned the words of a spell. The air shimmered between her and Ragash and the spell took shape and was manifest. Beside her, a dwarf grunted with satisfaction and readied a loaded crossbow. He murmured a prayer to his gods and tensed his finger on the trigger. He was Gardain Brawnanvil, the half-brother of Rurik of the Seven Mines. It was for this moment that he had travelled to Ghandalin, to meet the fate laid upon him by his gods.

Suddenly, the stillness was broken by the sound of tumbling rocks and of numbers being spoken aloud by unseen beings. The immortals were rolling for Initiative ....

 

[rgoodbb]

I know the Peak District. If lost, go down.

Good Call. After shivering on the shivering mountain, We descended. A real fire and some real ale and real pies is definitely the answer

 

[rgoodbb]

The immortals were rolling for Initiative ....

DM: What do you mean you cast Wall of Dice? It’s Wall of Ice.

P2: Tell me again why have we suddenly changed to a wan-shot this weak?

DM: Well. I have to break up the Starter Set. I’ve run it so many times. I get board of it now.

P2: Well OK I guess. Umm. I shoot a Holy Bolt from my crossbow at that thing over their.

P1: Don’t you mean a Holly Bolt?

P2: No.

P1: Well that’s what you have written on your Character Sheet.

P2: Oh. I guess I just misspelt it

P1: That’s a relief. I thought we were doing a Christmas themed wan-shot.

P3: I cast Chromatic Orc

P4: This is getting ridiculous. Can No-one hear spell? What about ewe Rouge?

P1: I am a little blush aren’t I? I guess it’s because I’m trying to hide this Uncanny Podge.

DM: The Ork takes advantage of your bad spell and goze first. Hollyman. Duz a 16 hit you?

P2: Yes.

DM: 8 points as she slashes at you. Rouge. Oooh 23?

P1: Yep butt eye Uncanny Podge.

DM: Fore then.

The Battle raged on with errors and miss-spells from both sides until it was shelved and agreed that it was a drawer. The DM wrote up a table of terms and the chaired the cabinet meeting. The Rouge wanted to fight on but was benched and the DM had to make a stand and put it to bed. After furnishings and window dressings the session ended.

P1: Well, while that was fun, can we get back to our story now or is Snappy and the rest of the party really dead?

DM: Well, It’s like this……