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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 4147336" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>“Now what?” Severin asks Barouk and Kifla. The three of them cluster around, keeping one eye on Romdar. Their trust has been broken, and it will take some time and effort for the duskblade to regain it... if he can.</p><p></p><p>“I want to go back to that camp of soldiers,” Barouk says. “I want to report that Earl.”</p><p></p><p>“Report him for what?” Kifla pipes up.</p><p></p><p>“For being a hoodlum! For murdering my father, years ago! He has no right to be a noble. What good is he doing his people?”</p><p></p><p>After a pause, Kifla inquires, “What does any of that have to do with anything? Do you really think they’ll listen to us?”</p><p></p><p>But Barouk will not be discouraged. The party marches on, traveling as discretely as they can while still making reasonable progress. They start their journey in late afternoon, and march past nightfall. Just after the sun goes down, the dwarf hears an odd buzzing sound. It sounds familiar. It is something that he has heard before, at the beginning of his adventuring career- something that he has feared ever since. </p><p></p><p>“STIRGES!!” Barouk bellows. </p><p></p><p>Then the little things fly into view, silhouetted against the star-filled sky. There are quite a few of them, fanning out as they rapidly approach. Kifla immediately casts her <em>mage armor</em>; then the stirge swarm is upon our heroes. They slash, punch and jab all around them, feeling the little terrors pierce them and cling to their bodies! Barouk punches one and it pops, exploding in a shower of blood like a bloated mosquito. Severin draws <em>Frogspaw</em> and jabs the tip of the sword at another stirge, but the little beast wheels through the air, avoiding the attack. Romdar moves up, his sword naked in his hand, and begins attacking the stirges as well. Kifla summons up a celestial eagle, which immediately starts attacking the stirges with a shrill cry. </p><p></p><p>But the little stirges are dangerous. They dart this way and that, wheeling around the adventurers like bats. They dart in, but thankfully, they must get very close before they can attack with their proboscises, and our heroes are able to attack them as they move in. Through a combination of skill and luck, the first wave of stirges fails to get a single hit on anyone!</p><p></p><p>The second wave comes in, and again, our heroes try to slay them before they enter striking distance. This time, however, a stirge gets through, landing on Severin. “Aargh!” he cries, and commences frantically trying to pry it off of his body. “Help!”</p><p></p><p>The stirges are falling; Severin finally manages to impale the one sucking his blood with <em>Frogspaw.</em> With a roar, he rips it from his body, then flings it off of his blade. Whirling to face the battle, he finds that the other remaining stirges have just been put down. “That was close,” he gasps, wiping his brow.</p><p></p><p>“Are you all right?” rumbles Barouk. “I know what stirges are like. They almost killed me in my first adventure!”*</p><p></p><p>“Yes... I’m a little light-headed, but I’ll be okay,” Severin replies. He takes a deep breath. <em>I seem steady enough,</em> he thinks. <em>Right, I’m okay.</em> “Let’s keep moving.”</p><p></p><p>They do, traveling onward until dawn. Romdar, Severin and Barouk go hunting for food while Kifla finds a place to build a fire for breakfast. They bring back mushrooms, fish, eggs, shallots, quail and a squirrel. It makes a nice meal. Severin hunts out a nice spot with an overhang- the party is paralleling the mountains- and they set up camp and rests through the day. Again, the group travels into the night. Soon they come upon a shallow creek and follow its path by starlight.</p><p></p><p>Across the creek, a figure slides out of the shadows and calls out at our heroes. </p><p></p><p>“Did anyone understand that?” Barouk asks. Nobody did. Everyone begins calling out to it, in different tongues.</p><p></p><p>Speaking Forinthian in an odd accent, the dim figure says, “You are in our area. You must pay tribute to pass. And you must toss your sources of light aside.”</p><p></p><p>“All right,” Barouk shrugs. He pulls out his torches and drops them. <em>I have darkvision anyway,</em> he think.</p><p></p><p>“Uh, sure,” Severin bluffs, and drops one torch. He has more in his backpack. </p><p></p><p>Romdar argues, “We need our light sources. Why do you want us to get rid of them? What if we promise not to use them? We could-”</p><p></p><p>Three grey figures wielding spiked chains appear from the shadows and attack.</p><p></p><p>The first one lashes its chain across Romdar’s face. “Aargh!” the duskblade cries. “Wait, we are parlaying!!”</p><p></p><p>Not anymore, apparently.</p><p></p><p>The second shadowy creature attacks Barouk, but the dwarf throws himself down below the spiked chain. It whistles overhead. Barouk pops back up and settles into a fighting stance. It strikes again, but he ducks beneath the blow. </p><p></p><p>Severin, meanwhile, is attacked by the third figure. It strikes him twice across the chest. “Woof!” he gasps. </p><p></p><p>The first of the three, meanwhile, whips his chain squarely into Romdar’s groin. The duskblade howls in agony. Then, in reprisal, he quickdraws his sword, casts <em>shocking grasp</em> and channels the spell into his blade. With a mighty lunge, he nearly trips over himself, completely misses, and discharges his spell into the earth below him. His foe shakes his head and whacks Romdar with his chain again.</p><p></p><p>Kifla hurries up to Barouk and casts <em>magic weapon</em> on his fists. “Here, this should help!” she cries. Barouk grins and springs forward, unleashing a flurry of blows at his opponent. One hits, bloodying his face, but the dwarf’s other strike misses. He growls, but his enemy just grins. </p><p></p><p>Severin begins dancing with the one on him, and he manages to land a very solid blow with <em>Frogspaw.</em> However, the grey-skinned, sad-featured figure he is fighting is still standing. “Take that!” the ranger cries. </p><p></p><p>The other creature, on the other side of the river, scowls at the scene. Like them, he is grey-haired, grey-skinned, wearing strange-looking studded leather armor and jewels that seem to be pierced into his skin. He begins to whirl his chain and starts crossing the river. </p><p></p><p>“This is bad!” Kifla squeaks. She casts <em>color spray</em>, and the one that is pressing Romdar shrieks and drops its chain, blinded and stunned! Romdar takes up a similar strategy, casting <em>flare</em> on the enemy that is crossing the river. Unfortunately, the grey-skinned creature throws its arms up, covering its eyes, and continues to advance.</p><p></p><p>Barouk continues to duel with his enemy. Each of them has wounded the other; now, Barouk focuses his <em>ki</em> into his fists- and they burst into flame. His shadowy adversary’s eyes widen in surprise. “What,” he says, and it is his last word. Barouk is a lethal, flaming blur; and in seconds, the chain-wielding figure has fallen.</p><p></p><p>Then the one that just crossed over charges him, raking its spiked chain across the dwarf’s flank! Barouk groans in pain, and blood splatters down the side of his robes. He throws another flurry of blows at his new enemy, but the shadowy figure ducks and weaves away from his punches. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Severin continues to duel with the figure that he has already wounded. <em>Frogspaw</em> seems to sing in his hand as he stabs forward; but the grey figure dances aside and swings his chain around to slap Severin in the nose. “Urgh!” the ranger grunts. The two exchange a series of quick, whirling feints and slashes. <em>Clang! Clang!</em> Steel clashes on steel as they dance.</p><p></p><p>Kifla has spent a great deal of time watching Barouk’s techniques for tumbling. Now, as she is too close to multiple enemies, she thanks the gods that she had the foresight to do so. She is nowhere near as good as the monk, but she has been practicing- and now, she flips and tumbles back out of range of the enemies and into position. She unleashes another <em>color spray</em>! This time, however, both enemies throw the effects off completely. Romdar unleashes a <em>burning hands</em> spell that catches two of the party’s foes in it, but both remain standing!</p><p></p><p>“These guys are tough!” Romdar shouts.</p><p></p><p>“Not so tough,” replies Severin, as he nearly decapitates his foe. At last, the figure drops to the ground lifeless. </p><p></p><p>“Hah! Well done!” exclaims Barouk, just in time for his enemy to whack him in the face again! Then the shadowy figure turns and starts to flee. Barouk growls, reaches out and grabs him by the shoulder, spins him around and shoves his fingers in its eyes, nearly knocking the crown of its head off! It collapses, slain.</p><p></p><p>The party turns to their last adversary, who is just shaking off the <em>color spray</em> at last. They spring on him collectively, grappling him. The figure struggles wildly; finally, Barouk forces its head down onto some of its own spiky accoutrements, and it collapses with a wail. </p><p></p><p>Is it over?</p><p></p><p>It’s over. </p><p></p><p>Everyone looks around warily. “We made it!” Kifla cheers. </p><p></p><p>“Those guys were tough,” Romdar groans. He is badly wounded, and he is not the only one. In fact, except for Kifla, everyone is badly damaged. </p><p></p><p>“We need to rest,” Severin says, wiping his blade off on the tunic of one of the fallen grey figures. “Search these guys, then move on and back into the Deadgrass Lands a little bit. That is, if you still want to go to those soldiers,” he nods at Barouk. </p><p></p><p>“Yes,” Barouk replies curtly. </p><p></p><p>Severin sighs. “All right. But we need to rest first.”</p><p></p><p>The dwarf scowls. After a moment, he nods. </p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>In the morning, as the dawn rises, our heroes rise as well. They didn’t make enough progress before the fight last night to really need to sleep in much longer, and now they have, in one fell swoop, adjusted their collective sleep cycle back to what might be considered ‘normal’ for most folk. They search the dead chain-wielding creatures. Now that it is light, Romdar is able to identify them: “They’re shadar-kai, fey from the Plane of Shadow.”</p><p></p><p>A search finds only a few coins- 22 gold, to be precise- but Grom decides to take the shadar-kai spiked chains. “They’re fairly valuable,” he points out. “We’ll be in a city before long; we were within spitting distance of the Elsir Vale as it was, before we turned around to go talk to these soldiers.” He frowns. “I don’t like that we’re traveling away from my people now; let’s try to get this over with in a hurry.”</p><p></p><p>“Yeah, let’s,” agrees Severin.</p><p></p><p>The party continues along their way, starting to edge back into the Deadgrass Lands. Before long, they spy a patrol up ahead, with a number of garen-mounted soldiers leading the way. </p><p></p><p>“Hail!” Barouk calls.</p><p></p><p>“This is a bad idea,” mutters Severin.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Next Time:</strong></em> Is Severin right? What happens when Barouk tries to turn the authorities in to the authorities??</p><p></p><p>*Back at the beginning of this thread- the very first post, in fact! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 4147336, member: 1210"] “Now what?” Severin asks Barouk and Kifla. The three of them cluster around, keeping one eye on Romdar. Their trust has been broken, and it will take some time and effort for the duskblade to regain it... if he can. “I want to go back to that camp of soldiers,” Barouk says. “I want to report that Earl.” “Report him for what?” Kifla pipes up. “For being a hoodlum! For murdering my father, years ago! He has no right to be a noble. What good is he doing his people?” After a pause, Kifla inquires, “What does any of that have to do with anything? Do you really think they’ll listen to us?” But Barouk will not be discouraged. The party marches on, traveling as discretely as they can while still making reasonable progress. They start their journey in late afternoon, and march past nightfall. Just after the sun goes down, the dwarf hears an odd buzzing sound. It sounds familiar. It is something that he has heard before, at the beginning of his adventuring career- something that he has feared ever since. “STIRGES!!” Barouk bellows. Then the little things fly into view, silhouetted against the star-filled sky. There are quite a few of them, fanning out as they rapidly approach. Kifla immediately casts her [i]mage armor[/i]; then the stirge swarm is upon our heroes. They slash, punch and jab all around them, feeling the little terrors pierce them and cling to their bodies! Barouk punches one and it pops, exploding in a shower of blood like a bloated mosquito. Severin draws [i]Frogspaw[/i] and jabs the tip of the sword at another stirge, but the little beast wheels through the air, avoiding the attack. Romdar moves up, his sword naked in his hand, and begins attacking the stirges as well. Kifla summons up a celestial eagle, which immediately starts attacking the stirges with a shrill cry. But the little stirges are dangerous. They dart this way and that, wheeling around the adventurers like bats. They dart in, but thankfully, they must get very close before they can attack with their proboscises, and our heroes are able to attack them as they move in. Through a combination of skill and luck, the first wave of stirges fails to get a single hit on anyone! The second wave comes in, and again, our heroes try to slay them before they enter striking distance. This time, however, a stirge gets through, landing on Severin. “Aargh!” he cries, and commences frantically trying to pry it off of his body. “Help!” The stirges are falling; Severin finally manages to impale the one sucking his blood with [i]Frogspaw.[/i] With a roar, he rips it from his body, then flings it off of his blade. Whirling to face the battle, he finds that the other remaining stirges have just been put down. “That was close,” he gasps, wiping his brow. “Are you all right?” rumbles Barouk. “I know what stirges are like. They almost killed me in my first adventure!”* “Yes... I’m a little light-headed, but I’ll be okay,” Severin replies. He takes a deep breath. [i]I seem steady enough,[/i] he thinks. [i]Right, I’m okay.[/i] “Let’s keep moving.” They do, traveling onward until dawn. Romdar, Severin and Barouk go hunting for food while Kifla finds a place to build a fire for breakfast. They bring back mushrooms, fish, eggs, shallots, quail and a squirrel. It makes a nice meal. Severin hunts out a nice spot with an overhang- the party is paralleling the mountains- and they set up camp and rests through the day. Again, the group travels into the night. Soon they come upon a shallow creek and follow its path by starlight. Across the creek, a figure slides out of the shadows and calls out at our heroes. “Did anyone understand that?” Barouk asks. Nobody did. Everyone begins calling out to it, in different tongues. Speaking Forinthian in an odd accent, the dim figure says, “You are in our area. You must pay tribute to pass. And you must toss your sources of light aside.” “All right,” Barouk shrugs. He pulls out his torches and drops them. [i]I have darkvision anyway,[/i] he think. “Uh, sure,” Severin bluffs, and drops one torch. He has more in his backpack. Romdar argues, “We need our light sources. Why do you want us to get rid of them? What if we promise not to use them? We could-” Three grey figures wielding spiked chains appear from the shadows and attack. The first one lashes its chain across Romdar’s face. “Aargh!” the duskblade cries. “Wait, we are parlaying!!” Not anymore, apparently. The second shadowy creature attacks Barouk, but the dwarf throws himself down below the spiked chain. It whistles overhead. Barouk pops back up and settles into a fighting stance. It strikes again, but he ducks beneath the blow. Severin, meanwhile, is attacked by the third figure. It strikes him twice across the chest. “Woof!” he gasps. The first of the three, meanwhile, whips his chain squarely into Romdar’s groin. The duskblade howls in agony. Then, in reprisal, he quickdraws his sword, casts [i]shocking grasp[/i] and channels the spell into his blade. With a mighty lunge, he nearly trips over himself, completely misses, and discharges his spell into the earth below him. His foe shakes his head and whacks Romdar with his chain again. Kifla hurries up to Barouk and casts [i]magic weapon[/i] on his fists. “Here, this should help!” she cries. Barouk grins and springs forward, unleashing a flurry of blows at his opponent. One hits, bloodying his face, but the dwarf’s other strike misses. He growls, but his enemy just grins. Severin begins dancing with the one on him, and he manages to land a very solid blow with [i]Frogspaw.[/i] However, the grey-skinned, sad-featured figure he is fighting is still standing. “Take that!” the ranger cries. The other creature, on the other side of the river, scowls at the scene. Like them, he is grey-haired, grey-skinned, wearing strange-looking studded leather armor and jewels that seem to be pierced into his skin. He begins to whirl his chain and starts crossing the river. “This is bad!” Kifla squeaks. She casts [i]color spray[/i], and the one that is pressing Romdar shrieks and drops its chain, blinded and stunned! Romdar takes up a similar strategy, casting [i]flare[/i] on the enemy that is crossing the river. Unfortunately, the grey-skinned creature throws its arms up, covering its eyes, and continues to advance. Barouk continues to duel with his enemy. Each of them has wounded the other; now, Barouk focuses his [i]ki[/i] into his fists- and they burst into flame. His shadowy adversary’s eyes widen in surprise. “What,” he says, and it is his last word. Barouk is a lethal, flaming blur; and in seconds, the chain-wielding figure has fallen. Then the one that just crossed over charges him, raking its spiked chain across the dwarf’s flank! Barouk groans in pain, and blood splatters down the side of his robes. He throws another flurry of blows at his new enemy, but the shadowy figure ducks and weaves away from his punches. Meanwhile, Severin continues to duel with the figure that he has already wounded. [i]Frogspaw[/i] seems to sing in his hand as he stabs forward; but the grey figure dances aside and swings his chain around to slap Severin in the nose. “Urgh!” the ranger grunts. The two exchange a series of quick, whirling feints and slashes. [i]Clang! Clang![/i] Steel clashes on steel as they dance. Kifla has spent a great deal of time watching Barouk’s techniques for tumbling. Now, as she is too close to multiple enemies, she thanks the gods that she had the foresight to do so. She is nowhere near as good as the monk, but she has been practicing- and now, she flips and tumbles back out of range of the enemies and into position. She unleashes another [i]color spray[/i]! This time, however, both enemies throw the effects off completely. Romdar unleashes a [i]burning hands[/i] spell that catches two of the party’s foes in it, but both remain standing! “These guys are tough!” Romdar shouts. “Not so tough,” replies Severin, as he nearly decapitates his foe. At last, the figure drops to the ground lifeless. “Hah! Well done!” exclaims Barouk, just in time for his enemy to whack him in the face again! Then the shadowy figure turns and starts to flee. Barouk growls, reaches out and grabs him by the shoulder, spins him around and shoves his fingers in its eyes, nearly knocking the crown of its head off! It collapses, slain. The party turns to their last adversary, who is just shaking off the [i]color spray[/i] at last. They spring on him collectively, grappling him. The figure struggles wildly; finally, Barouk forces its head down onto some of its own spiky accoutrements, and it collapses with a wail. Is it over? It’s over. Everyone looks around warily. “We made it!” Kifla cheers. “Those guys were tough,” Romdar groans. He is badly wounded, and he is not the only one. In fact, except for Kifla, everyone is badly damaged. “We need to rest,” Severin says, wiping his blade off on the tunic of one of the fallen grey figures. “Search these guys, then move on and back into the Deadgrass Lands a little bit. That is, if you still want to go to those soldiers,” he nods at Barouk. “Yes,” Barouk replies curtly. Severin sighs. “All right. But we need to rest first.” The dwarf scowls. After a moment, he nods. *** In the morning, as the dawn rises, our heroes rise as well. They didn’t make enough progress before the fight last night to really need to sleep in much longer, and now they have, in one fell swoop, adjusted their collective sleep cycle back to what might be considered ‘normal’ for most folk. They search the dead chain-wielding creatures. Now that it is light, Romdar is able to identify them: “They’re shadar-kai, fey from the Plane of Shadow.” A search finds only a few coins- 22 gold, to be precise- but Grom decides to take the shadar-kai spiked chains. “They’re fairly valuable,” he points out. “We’ll be in a city before long; we were within spitting distance of the Elsir Vale as it was, before we turned around to go talk to these soldiers.” He frowns. “I don’t like that we’re traveling away from my people now; let’s try to get this over with in a hurry.” “Yeah, let’s,” agrees Severin. The party continues along their way, starting to edge back into the Deadgrass Lands. Before long, they spy a patrol up ahead, with a number of garen-mounted soldiers leading the way. “Hail!” Barouk calls. “This is a bad idea,” mutters Severin. [i][b]Next Time:[/b][/i][b][/b] Is Severin right? What happens when Barouk tries to turn the authorities in to the authorities?? *Back at the beginning of this thread- the very first post, in fact! :) [/QUOTE]
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