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
Wing Three
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="Richards" data-source="post: 6058802" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 35 - THE NEGABOMB</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p><p> </p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Gwendolyn Fine, human wizard</p><p></p><p>I had come up with the concept of "The Negabomb" and was unsure of where I wanted to have it begin, since wherever the negabomb went off would cause that particular piece of real estate to be shunted off to another plane. I was originally thinking of centering it around Dundernoggin's Magic Shoppe, since the lich behind it was specifically looting magic items, but I didn't really want to destroy that building since I was planning on using it throughout the rest of the campaign. Then I recalled "The Menagerie," and the "Gwen's Relics" shop that the PCs had already visited - and which, of course, I had already done up a full-fledged map for when they went through that adventure. Having it start off there cut my preparation time significantly, and had the added benefit of adding a bit of verisimilitude to my campaign.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"If Dundernoggin ever finds out about this, we'll never hear the end of it," commented Feron.</p><p></p><p>"Well, if he doesn't want us visiting the competition," remarked Cal, "then he should make sure his prices are lower than theirs. Hey, did you hear about the bulk savings on healing potions they have here?"</p><p></p><p>"Do you think we should pick some up for Rale?" asked Feron.</p><p></p><p>"Nah - he's a big boy; if he wanted some he should have come with us," replied Cal. "I think he's still miffed that Gwendolyn wouldn't just give him that <em>iron flask</em> after he helped save her store from that snake-thingie."</p><p></p><p>"Ooh, look!" exclaimed Feron, her eye catching another sale item. "A wand bracer! That'd come in handy!"</p><p></p><p>The group slowly split up, each wandering off to investigate whatever trinkets caught their eye. Chalkan was examining a list of divine spell scrolls that were available, mentally deciding which ones he'd have the best chances of using with what little training he'd had as a cleric. Feron was trying on the wand bracer, seeing how it attached to her forearm and how easy it would be to grab up a given wand. Akari was examining a nonmagical tome describing the basic tenets of the major religions of the area. Cal was purchasing potions from one of the salesgirls, and taking the opportunity to try to hit on her in the process. Gwendolyn Fine, the shop's proprietor, was explaining the pros and cons of healing via wands versus potions to one of another half-dozen customers in the shop, when her attention was drawn the the ceiling. "What the Hells--?" she sputtered.</p><p></p><p>A purple, glowing hole had opened up in the ceiling and from it dropped a small black sphere. The sphere bounced a few times on the floor of the shop, came to a rest against a display rack of various material spell components, and then exploded in a wave of energy. The blast knocked those in its immediate vicinity off their feet, and the energy wave expanded out in all directions, passing through solid objects as if they weren't there. In an instant, the ambient sunlight filtering in from the doors and windows of the shop was extinguished and an eerie wailing was heard from the vicinity of the front door – it took a moment to register, but this was the sound of the air in the shop rushing outside. At the same time, everyone in the shop felt a sapping of energy throughout their bodies, as if something were siphoning off their very life energy.</p><p></p><p>Several of the shop's visitors succumbed at once, their bodies crumbling to dust and being replaced with eerie, ghostlike forms that looked around them with hate-filled eyes.</p><p></p><p>“Crap!” yelled Gwen amidst the chaos of the shop’s environs. “We’ve gotta go extradimensional – now!” She rushed behind the counter and opened a drawer, pulling out a small model of a house and placing it on the countertop. “In here, quick!” she called, activating a command word while touching the tiny house’s rooftop. “Hurry!” And with that she was gone.</p><p></p><p>Akari was the closest to the small house model, but he took a deep breath and helped those nearby get to safety. Feron touched the house and disappeared, followed by Chalkan. Cal was supporting the salesclerk he had been hitting on, trying to drag her unconscious form with him over to the counter, but she died and converted to wraith form in his arms. He stepped back and blasted her with a blast of positive energy from his holy symbol of Kord, and she died for a second time in just over twice as many seconds.</p><p></p><p>"It looks like we're it!" called Akari, looking around and seeing the rest of the customers assuming wraith form. He and Cal reached for the house model nearly simultaneously, and both disappeared from the shop as well.</p><p></p><p>They found themselves in a sumptuous dwelling, with thick carpeting beneath their feet and magical golden lighting in sconces along the walls. Gwendolyn stood there in the entry hall, Chalkan and Feron behind her. "Are you it?" she asked. "Anybody else still alive out there?"</p><p></p><p>"We're it," Cal confirmed, and Gwendolyn said another word, apparently deactivating the model house to prevent any of the wraiths from entering behind them.</p><p></p><p>"What's going on? Where are we?" Feron wanted to know.</p><p></p><p>"We're in a <em>Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion</em>," replied Gwendolyn. "The little house model is a permanent spell effect - activate the command word and anyone touching it comes in here. This is an extradimensional space, so we've got plenty of air and food for the next 24 hours. After that, we’re in trouble, because the effect wears off, and we get booted back outside, where we all start getting drained again. We'll have to have a plan by then as to what we're going to do. Any of you ever go planehopping? I'm pretty sure my whole shop just got shunted over to the Negative Energy Plane. I could tell by the life-sapping I felt, and the fact that the air was escaping the building. There's no air on the Negative Energy Plane."</p><p></p><p>"How did this happen?" Cal asked.</p><p></p><p>"There was a black ball thrown through a hole in the ceiling right before we got shunted. Somebody caused this to happen, although why they'd want my shop floating around in the Negative Energy Plane is anybody's guess. You don't think this is the work of one of my competitors?" she asked, thinking aloud.</p><p></p><p>"It's kind of a drastic measure to take," observed Akari. "So what's our plan?"</p><p></p><p>"Let me think," said Gwendolyn, mentally cataloguing the magic items she had in the shop and which ones could be of help. "Okay, we've got several possibilities. Long-term, I have an arcane scroll of <em>attune form</em> that can attune our bodies to the Negative Energy Plane, so we can walk around without suffocating or getting life-sucked into a wraith. Problem is, the scrolls are in the back room; I doubt we could make it back there on our own in time. Closer at hand, I've got an <em>ioun stone</em> that allows its wielder to exist without air, a <em>necklace of adaptation</em> that does the same, and a <em>bottle of air</em> that can be passed back and forth between the others. Each is in various locked drawers behind the counter; I've got the keys right here," she said, displaying a set of keys on a chain around her neck. "Oh, hey, I've got a <em>scarab of protection</em> in another drawer back there; that'll protect the wearer from the energy draining effect of the plane for a little while at least before crumbling into dust. And I've got some healing potions of various potencies; we should probably grab those up while we can. You never know when those will come in handy. Let's see, as far as getting back home, I have an <em>obsidian steed</em>, but it's temperamental and only supports one rider at a time. Still, I suppose the rest of us can stay in the <em>mansion</em> while the rider gets us back home."</p><p></p><p>"So some of us pop back out, grab a means of surviving long enough to go get the scroll from your back room, meet up back here, and then you can cast the spell on all of us," Cal said. After some discussion, it was decided that the scouting party would consist of Cal for his undead turning ability, Akari for the same reason but also because he'd recently upgraded <em>Hoardmaster</em> to be an <em>undead bane</em> sword, and Gwendolyn, because she knew the exact location of the scrolls in her back storage room. Unfortunately, all of the scrolls were stored in scroll cases and kept lumped together in a crate; it would be easiest to fetch the whole crate and sort them out back in the safety of the <em>Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion</em>. Feron and Chalkan wished the others luck, each secretly just a little bit pleased that they didn't have to go out into that environment.</p><p></p><p>Before they left, Cal healed himself, Akari, and Gwendolyn, restoring all of the life energy that had been drained from them. He also applied some buffing spells that he thought might be useful, like a <em>stoneskin</em> upon himself. Then Gwendolyn said the command word that allowed them to exit the <em>mansion</em>, they each took a deep breath, and they found themselves back out in her magic shop.</p><p></p><p>The place had changed in her absence, and not for the better. Several wraiths noticed the three almost immediately, and while Cal focused his attention (and the positive energy from his holy symbol) on them, Akari and Gwen noticed that the shop was being ransacked by humanoid skeletons. Each held a large sack in its bony digits and was stuffing as many magic items as it could into the sack. Gwendolyn quietly led Akari to the locked drawers, opened them up, and tossed an <em>ioun stone</em> at Akari's head, where it orbited silently. She snatched up the <em>bottle of air</em> for herself and gave Cal the <em>necklace of adaptation</em>, figuring she'd give the items that didn't involve active holding to the two that would most likely be doing any melee fighting. While she was at it, she grabbed the house model and stuffed it on a lower shelf behind the counter, where it would likely be unnoticed by the looting skeletons. Then she tried leading Akari into the back room, but they were noticed and attacked by a skeleton. Akari fended it off with <em>Hoardmaster</em>, successfully cutting it in two, when an even larger skeleton stepped into view. This one was half again the height of a man, with a horse skull in place of a man's head and an extra joint in his skeletal legs. "What have we here?" it called out upon spotting the trio. "Adventurers? Here in my domain? Die, fools!" And with that, the remaining wraiths attacked the trio en masse. Cal used another turning attempt to blast the closest into dust, Akari stepped up and fended the next off with his sword, and Gwendolyn took the opportunity to scoot out of battle and go running to the back room, using one of Akari's sunrods to light her way, taking swigs of air from her magical bottle as she did so.</p><p></p><p>Surprisingly, the skeletal equiceph did not seem eager to leap into battle with the two remaining adventurers. It called its skeletons back with the loot they had gathered thus far, and sent a second wave of wraiths at Cal and Akari as he led his skeletal minions out the front door and onto the broad back of a dragon turtle zombie that waited just outside. "None may long defy the will of <strong>Darklord Drago von Mordak</strong>!" he called back to the adventurers, who were busy fighting off this new batch of wraiths. "I'll be back after you've fallen to my slaves, and you've joined my army of undead!" And with that the dragon turtle zombie whirled and flew off away from the shop. By the time Cal and Akari had destroyed the last of the wraiths, the Darklord was long gone. Fortunately, by that time Gwendolyn had returned with the small crate of scroll cases, and she led the two back into the <em>Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion</em>, where Akari was once again restored to his full level of life energy by the last of Cal's <em>restoration</em> spells. The trio explained what had happened to Feron and Chalkan, and Gwendolyn further explained their next course of action.</p><p></p><p>"The skeletons cleaned me out pretty good. They had already taken the <em>stone horse</em> by the time we popped out, so that's no longer a way back home. However, they also took a rather expensive magical sword, and I've got a rune hidden on most of my more expensive stuff. I can track it with this," she said, pulling a thin wand out from her sleeve. "So let's go - I want my stuff back from that bonehead!" She said the command word that opened the door to the outside world, everybody stepped out, and Gwendolyn quickly cast an <em>attune form</em> spell from the proper scroll that prevented the inherent qualities of the Negative Energy Plane from draining their life energy or suffocating them in its airless vacuum. She picked up the house statue and dropped it into her pack, so it would be with them if they needed it again. Then, stepping outside of the shop (a circular area around the shop sat atop a solid hemisphere of ground that had been ripped from Greyhawk City when the negabomb activated), they leaped off into nothingness and with the right kind of concentration started "falling" in the direction indicated by the shop owner's tracking wand. It was actually kind of a fun way to travel once you got the hang of it.</p><p></p><p>While "falling" in the direction of the sword, the group attracted the attention of one of the plane's few denizens, a sentient ball of negative energy known as a xeg-yi which was driven to attack them due to their light sources. They made quick work of the odd creature, and after an unknown amount of time practically ran into a solid chunk of matter that floated in the Negative Energy Plane in the same manner as Gwen's Relics. This was a semispherical clump of stone, with a dock jutting out from one side. As they approached, they could see a flickering light coming from an open doorway at the top of the stone stairs leading up from the dock. This was the first light they'd seen on this plane that they weren't responsible for, so they were drawn to it like a moth.</p><p></p><p>Akari peeked through the open doorway. The entire room was filled with flames. He felt an intense heat emanating from the room, which looked to be 30 feet square and carved out of the stone of the floating “island.” At two-inch intervals covering the ceiling and all of the wall surfaces jutted metal spikes, glowing red-hot from the heat of the magical flames, which seem to continue to burn without any visible fuel. Akari couldn’t actually see the floor, but he assumed the metal spikes continued there as well.</p><p></p><p>"This doesn't make any sense," complained Feron. "What are open flames doing in the middle of the Negative Energy plane?" She focused her concentration with her eyes closed, then looked at the flames again and smirked. "I knew it!" she crowed. "It's an illusion!" She stepped boldly into the room, only to find that the central area of the room did in fact contain real spikes, and although they weren't red-hot, they still hurt significantly when you stepped on them. Feron stepped back and cast a healing spell upon her foot.</p><p></p><p>"So where's the door?" asked Chalkan, sliding both feet along the floor to ensure he didn't step onto any spikes. The others followed suit, slowly "skating" into the room. Feron looked around, studying the walls, then said "This way!" and walked through an apparent wall. The others followed her, stepping into a stairwell leading up to a higher level of the complex. The top of the stairs was an apparent dead end, until Cal found a section of wall that was illusory. "I guess the Darklord's not much for doors," he commented, walking through and into a large, open room. This room had one familiar feature: the dragon turtle zombie, who turned and attacked. It was slow, but it was also massive and unafraid of pain, and it managed to do a bit of damage with its serrated beak before Cal was able to turn it with the power of his holy symbol. The great undead beast turned around and moved through the one wall of the room that was jagged and natural looking; this too proved to be an <em>illusory wall</em> made to hug the contours of the massive slab of rock from which the Darklord's Keep had been carved. The group opted not to pursue it, but to search for other doors out of this "hangar."</p><p></p><p>Two were found: one led to a workshop of sorts, and from there a storage area, while the other led to another upper level via a spiral staircase, like everything else seen thus far carved out of the very rock. The group opted to go up the stairs, Akari in the lead.</p><p></p><p>Not surprisingly, this led to an apparent dead end; even less surprisingly, there was an open doorway at the top covered in an <em>illusory wall</em> spell. Walking through it, with <em>Hoardmaster</em> in one hand and a sunrod in the other, Akari found quite a scene before him. The upper level was all one massive room, rectangular in shape but with the entire wall to the right all jagged and rough, just like the wall in the dragon turtle zombie hangar below. This room was also a hangar of sorts, only the vessel it contained was unlike any Akari had ever seen. It was crafted of fused bones, and the skeleton of a triceratops had obviously been the starting point for the vessel, for its size, shape, and build were obvious to any who had seen such a beast (as indeed Akari had, on the lizardman-infested island Balama had taken them to against their will). Other bones, from a wide variety of creatures, had been used to create the outer walls of the craft, and so tight was the fit that you couldn't see between any two bones into the craft's interior. The vessel stood unmoving on its four dinosaur legs. Before it stood the Darklord Drago von Mordak, the skeletal equiceph the group had encountered leading a raiding party of skeletons inside Gwen's Relics. He held a staff made of bone, and a quick use of his inherent ability to detect evil confirmed to Akari that the creature before him was utterly evil - oddly enough, his evil being particularly concentrated from his knees on down. At the Darklord's side stood a clay golem, awaiting orders.</p><p></p><p>The first order came immediately: "Slay them!" cried the Darklord, stepping back behind the safety of his dinosaur vessel as the clay golem moved forward menacingly. Akari pounced into battle with the golem, as Cal, Feron, and Chalkan entered the room and spread out. This proved to be a wise idea, as the Darklord shot a <em>fireball</em> at the group, but only caught Feron and Cal in the blast, the others already having moved out of range.</p><p></p><p>Another command from the skeletal equiceph showed that the dinosaur craft was somewhat sentient, as a command to attack the intruders caused it to shudder to awkward life and attempt to gore the closest - Chalkan - with its impressive set of horns. While the undead vessel and the clay golem kept the intruders at bay, Drago von Mordak took an opportunity to cast a protective spell upon himself. Not liking that idea, Feron cast a <em>dispel magic</em> spell upon him, and got quite a surprise, for the "skeletal equiceph" itself was an illusion covering the less-impressive-looking bones of a gnome lich.</p><p></p><p>Akari and Cal took it upon themselves to take care of the clay golem, which they had learned from prior experience could be a tough foe, leaving Feron and Chalkan to attack the diminutive lich while everyone tried to stay out of range of the slow-moving undead vessel. The gnome lich seemed to feel much less powerful now that his impressive alter ego had been taken from him, and he fought defensively, trying to hide using <em>invisibility</em> and keeping his distance with <em>expeditious retreat</em>. Still, Chalkan's spell-enhanced arrows and Feron's ranged spells were able to keep up with him no matter how far away he got, and before too long he opted to make a run for it inside his undead vessel. Just as Cal and Akari were dropping the clay golem, the gnome lich was opening a side hatch in the triceratops vessel and climbing aboard. Feron tried grappling him, but he was remarkably agile for such a little guy. The vessel was apparently run by consuming magic items, as the gnome had popped a pair of magical gauntlets into an arcane furnace inside the construct, powering it up to open an extraplanar gate to make good his escape. Feron, unable to grab hold of the slippery lich, snatched the gauntlets out of the furnace and threw them behind her, preventing the vessel from being able to sustain the gate long enough to slip through.</p><p></p><p>Akari, meanwhile, had learned that <em>Hoardmaster</em>'s <em>undead bane</em> ability worked just fine against the animated dinosaur skeleton vessel, and was slowly chopping one of the vessel's front legs off. It finally snapped in twain, spilling the vessel over onto its side, and allowing Feron to grab up the gnome lich, pop the hatch back open (it had slammed shut during the tussle), and toss the gnome back out onto the hangar floor.</p><p></p><p>"You cannot stop me!" squeaked the gnome from his prone position. "I'm the Darklord Drago von Mor--" The rest of his final statement was cut off by the sound of Cal's heavy mace smashing in the lich's skull.</p><p></p><p>After that, it was a simple matter of going through the Darklord's Keep and grabbing up the stolen magic items he had taken from Gwendolyn Fine's shop. Most of them were in the storage room just beyond his workshop, where he had crafted the negabomb that had shunted her shop to where he could easily plunder it. Gwendolyn was particularly pleased to find her <em>obsidian steed</em>, as this was the group's only current way back home. (Cal was powerful enough to know the <em>plane shift</em> spell, but he didn't have it currently prepared and their <em>attune form</em> spell would wear off before he was able to rest up and prepare it.) In his library, they found a journal with notes about the construction of the extraplanar craft, and something much more interesting: the "Darklord's" real name, <strong>Toofles Pigwilligan</strong>.</p><p></p><p>"I think I'd use a pseudonym too, given the circumstances," snickered Chalkan.</p><p></p><p>When everyone was ready to depart, it was a simple matter for Gwendolyn to activate the <em>obsidian steed</em> and ride it back to the prime material plane with the four members of Wing Three basking in luxury inside the <em>Mordenkainen's magnifient mansion</em>, the house statue sitting inside her pack. They ended up on a random road somewhere, and walked together to the next town. Gwendolyn's magic shop was no more, but she had the majority of what "the Darklord" had plundered from her - it was enough to rebuild again elsewhere, and Gwendolyn had no desire to return to Greyhawk City to have to explain the semispherical hole in the ground where her shop used to be, or to have to explain to their families what had happened to the workers and customers who had been shunted with the shop to the Negative Energy Plane. Granted, none of it had been Gwendolyn's fault, but she wasn't eager to have to explain any of it to anyone; much easier to start again somewhere else and seek her fortunes elsewhere. As a thanks for helping her once again and for saving her life, she let the group keep some of what they had been using of hers: Cal kept the <em>necklace of adaptation</em>, for instance. Then, having figured out exactly where they were from the townspeople they met up with, the four adventurers headed back to Greyhawk City on foot, while Gwendolyn rode her <em>obsidian steed</em> in the opposite direction.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6058802, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 35 - THE NEGABOMB[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Feron Dru, half-elf druid[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Gwendolyn Fine, human wizard[/INDENT] I had come up with the concept of "The Negabomb" and was unsure of where I wanted to have it begin, since wherever the negabomb went off would cause that particular piece of real estate to be shunted off to another plane. I was originally thinking of centering it around Dundernoggin's Magic Shoppe, since the lich behind it was specifically looting magic items, but I didn't really want to destroy that building since I was planning on using it throughout the rest of the campaign. Then I recalled "The Menagerie," and the "Gwen's Relics" shop that the PCs had already visited - and which, of course, I had already done up a full-fledged map for when they went through that adventure. Having it start off there cut my preparation time significantly, and had the added benefit of adding a bit of verisimilitude to my campaign. - - - "If Dundernoggin ever finds out about this, we'll never hear the end of it," commented Feron. "Well, if he doesn't want us visiting the competition," remarked Cal, "then he should make sure his prices are lower than theirs. Hey, did you hear about the bulk savings on healing potions they have here?" "Do you think we should pick some up for Rale?" asked Feron. "Nah - he's a big boy; if he wanted some he should have come with us," replied Cal. "I think he's still miffed that Gwendolyn wouldn't just give him that [i]iron flask[/i] after he helped save her store from that snake-thingie." "Ooh, look!" exclaimed Feron, her eye catching another sale item. "A wand bracer! That'd come in handy!" The group slowly split up, each wandering off to investigate whatever trinkets caught their eye. Chalkan was examining a list of divine spell scrolls that were available, mentally deciding which ones he'd have the best chances of using with what little training he'd had as a cleric. Feron was trying on the wand bracer, seeing how it attached to her forearm and how easy it would be to grab up a given wand. Akari was examining a nonmagical tome describing the basic tenets of the major religions of the area. Cal was purchasing potions from one of the salesgirls, and taking the opportunity to try to hit on her in the process. Gwendolyn Fine, the shop's proprietor, was explaining the pros and cons of healing via wands versus potions to one of another half-dozen customers in the shop, when her attention was drawn the the ceiling. "What the Hells--?" she sputtered. A purple, glowing hole had opened up in the ceiling and from it dropped a small black sphere. The sphere bounced a few times on the floor of the shop, came to a rest against a display rack of various material spell components, and then exploded in a wave of energy. The blast knocked those in its immediate vicinity off their feet, and the energy wave expanded out in all directions, passing through solid objects as if they weren't there. In an instant, the ambient sunlight filtering in from the doors and windows of the shop was extinguished and an eerie wailing was heard from the vicinity of the front door – it took a moment to register, but this was the sound of the air in the shop rushing outside. At the same time, everyone in the shop felt a sapping of energy throughout their bodies, as if something were siphoning off their very life energy. Several of the shop's visitors succumbed at once, their bodies crumbling to dust and being replaced with eerie, ghostlike forms that looked around them with hate-filled eyes. “Crap!” yelled Gwen amidst the chaos of the shop’s environs. “We’ve gotta go extradimensional – now!” She rushed behind the counter and opened a drawer, pulling out a small model of a house and placing it on the countertop. “In here, quick!” she called, activating a command word while touching the tiny house’s rooftop. “Hurry!” And with that she was gone. Akari was the closest to the small house model, but he took a deep breath and helped those nearby get to safety. Feron touched the house and disappeared, followed by Chalkan. Cal was supporting the salesclerk he had been hitting on, trying to drag her unconscious form with him over to the counter, but she died and converted to wraith form in his arms. He stepped back and blasted her with a blast of positive energy from his holy symbol of Kord, and she died for a second time in just over twice as many seconds. "It looks like we're it!" called Akari, looking around and seeing the rest of the customers assuming wraith form. He and Cal reached for the house model nearly simultaneously, and both disappeared from the shop as well. They found themselves in a sumptuous dwelling, with thick carpeting beneath their feet and magical golden lighting in sconces along the walls. Gwendolyn stood there in the entry hall, Chalkan and Feron behind her. "Are you it?" she asked. "Anybody else still alive out there?" "We're it," Cal confirmed, and Gwendolyn said another word, apparently deactivating the model house to prevent any of the wraiths from entering behind them. "What's going on? Where are we?" Feron wanted to know. "We're in a [i]Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion[/i]," replied Gwendolyn. "The little house model is a permanent spell effect - activate the command word and anyone touching it comes in here. This is an extradimensional space, so we've got plenty of air and food for the next 24 hours. After that, we’re in trouble, because the effect wears off, and we get booted back outside, where we all start getting drained again. We'll have to have a plan by then as to what we're going to do. Any of you ever go planehopping? I'm pretty sure my whole shop just got shunted over to the Negative Energy Plane. I could tell by the life-sapping I felt, and the fact that the air was escaping the building. There's no air on the Negative Energy Plane." "How did this happen?" Cal asked. "There was a black ball thrown through a hole in the ceiling right before we got shunted. Somebody caused this to happen, although why they'd want my shop floating around in the Negative Energy Plane is anybody's guess. You don't think this is the work of one of my competitors?" she asked, thinking aloud. "It's kind of a drastic measure to take," observed Akari. "So what's our plan?" "Let me think," said Gwendolyn, mentally cataloguing the magic items she had in the shop and which ones could be of help. "Okay, we've got several possibilities. Long-term, I have an arcane scroll of [i]attune form[/i] that can attune our bodies to the Negative Energy Plane, so we can walk around without suffocating or getting life-sucked into a wraith. Problem is, the scrolls are in the back room; I doubt we could make it back there on our own in time. Closer at hand, I've got an [i]ioun stone[/i] that allows its wielder to exist without air, a [i]necklace of adaptation[/i] that does the same, and a [i]bottle of air[/i] that can be passed back and forth between the others. Each is in various locked drawers behind the counter; I've got the keys right here," she said, displaying a set of keys on a chain around her neck. "Oh, hey, I've got a [i]scarab of protection[/i] in another drawer back there; that'll protect the wearer from the energy draining effect of the plane for a little while at least before crumbling into dust. And I've got some healing potions of various potencies; we should probably grab those up while we can. You never know when those will come in handy. Let's see, as far as getting back home, I have an [i]obsidian steed[/i], but it's temperamental and only supports one rider at a time. Still, I suppose the rest of us can stay in the [i]mansion[/i] while the rider gets us back home." "So some of us pop back out, grab a means of surviving long enough to go get the scroll from your back room, meet up back here, and then you can cast the spell on all of us," Cal said. After some discussion, it was decided that the scouting party would consist of Cal for his undead turning ability, Akari for the same reason but also because he'd recently upgraded [i]Hoardmaster[/i] to be an [i]undead bane[/i] sword, and Gwendolyn, because she knew the exact location of the scrolls in her back storage room. Unfortunately, all of the scrolls were stored in scroll cases and kept lumped together in a crate; it would be easiest to fetch the whole crate and sort them out back in the safety of the [i]Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion[/i]. Feron and Chalkan wished the others luck, each secretly just a little bit pleased that they didn't have to go out into that environment. Before they left, Cal healed himself, Akari, and Gwendolyn, restoring all of the life energy that had been drained from them. He also applied some buffing spells that he thought might be useful, like a [i]stoneskin[/i] upon himself. Then Gwendolyn said the command word that allowed them to exit the [i]mansion[/i], they each took a deep breath, and they found themselves back out in her magic shop. The place had changed in her absence, and not for the better. Several wraiths noticed the three almost immediately, and while Cal focused his attention (and the positive energy from his holy symbol) on them, Akari and Gwen noticed that the shop was being ransacked by humanoid skeletons. Each held a large sack in its bony digits and was stuffing as many magic items as it could into the sack. Gwendolyn quietly led Akari to the locked drawers, opened them up, and tossed an [i]ioun stone[/i] at Akari's head, where it orbited silently. She snatched up the [i]bottle of air[/i] for herself and gave Cal the [i]necklace of adaptation[/i], figuring she'd give the items that didn't involve active holding to the two that would most likely be doing any melee fighting. While she was at it, she grabbed the house model and stuffed it on a lower shelf behind the counter, where it would likely be unnoticed by the looting skeletons. Then she tried leading Akari into the back room, but they were noticed and attacked by a skeleton. Akari fended it off with [i]Hoardmaster[/i], successfully cutting it in two, when an even larger skeleton stepped into view. This one was half again the height of a man, with a horse skull in place of a man's head and an extra joint in his skeletal legs. "What have we here?" it called out upon spotting the trio. "Adventurers? Here in my domain? Die, fools!" And with that, the remaining wraiths attacked the trio en masse. Cal used another turning attempt to blast the closest into dust, Akari stepped up and fended the next off with his sword, and Gwendolyn took the opportunity to scoot out of battle and go running to the back room, using one of Akari's sunrods to light her way, taking swigs of air from her magical bottle as she did so. Surprisingly, the skeletal equiceph did not seem eager to leap into battle with the two remaining adventurers. It called its skeletons back with the loot they had gathered thus far, and sent a second wave of wraiths at Cal and Akari as he led his skeletal minions out the front door and onto the broad back of a dragon turtle zombie that waited just outside. "None may long defy the will of [b]Darklord Drago von Mordak[/b]!" he called back to the adventurers, who were busy fighting off this new batch of wraiths. "I'll be back after you've fallen to my slaves, and you've joined my army of undead!" And with that the dragon turtle zombie whirled and flew off away from the shop. By the time Cal and Akari had destroyed the last of the wraiths, the Darklord was long gone. Fortunately, by that time Gwendolyn had returned with the small crate of scroll cases, and she led the two back into the [i]Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion[/i], where Akari was once again restored to his full level of life energy by the last of Cal's [i]restoration[/i] spells. The trio explained what had happened to Feron and Chalkan, and Gwendolyn further explained their next course of action. "The skeletons cleaned me out pretty good. They had already taken the [i]stone horse[/i] by the time we popped out, so that's no longer a way back home. However, they also took a rather expensive magical sword, and I've got a rune hidden on most of my more expensive stuff. I can track it with this," she said, pulling a thin wand out from her sleeve. "So let's go - I want my stuff back from that bonehead!" She said the command word that opened the door to the outside world, everybody stepped out, and Gwendolyn quickly cast an [i]attune form[/i] spell from the proper scroll that prevented the inherent qualities of the Negative Energy Plane from draining their life energy or suffocating them in its airless vacuum. She picked up the house statue and dropped it into her pack, so it would be with them if they needed it again. Then, stepping outside of the shop (a circular area around the shop sat atop a solid hemisphere of ground that had been ripped from Greyhawk City when the negabomb activated), they leaped off into nothingness and with the right kind of concentration started "falling" in the direction indicated by the shop owner's tracking wand. It was actually kind of a fun way to travel once you got the hang of it. While "falling" in the direction of the sword, the group attracted the attention of one of the plane's few denizens, a sentient ball of negative energy known as a xeg-yi which was driven to attack them due to their light sources. They made quick work of the odd creature, and after an unknown amount of time practically ran into a solid chunk of matter that floated in the Negative Energy Plane in the same manner as Gwen's Relics. This was a semispherical clump of stone, with a dock jutting out from one side. As they approached, they could see a flickering light coming from an open doorway at the top of the stone stairs leading up from the dock. This was the first light they'd seen on this plane that they weren't responsible for, so they were drawn to it like a moth. Akari peeked through the open doorway. The entire room was filled with flames. He felt an intense heat emanating from the room, which looked to be 30 feet square and carved out of the stone of the floating “island.” At two-inch intervals covering the ceiling and all of the wall surfaces jutted metal spikes, glowing red-hot from the heat of the magical flames, which seem to continue to burn without any visible fuel. Akari couldn’t actually see the floor, but he assumed the metal spikes continued there as well. "This doesn't make any sense," complained Feron. "What are open flames doing in the middle of the Negative Energy plane?" She focused her concentration with her eyes closed, then looked at the flames again and smirked. "I knew it!" she crowed. "It's an illusion!" She stepped boldly into the room, only to find that the central area of the room did in fact contain real spikes, and although they weren't red-hot, they still hurt significantly when you stepped on them. Feron stepped back and cast a healing spell upon her foot. "So where's the door?" asked Chalkan, sliding both feet along the floor to ensure he didn't step onto any spikes. The others followed suit, slowly "skating" into the room. Feron looked around, studying the walls, then said "This way!" and walked through an apparent wall. The others followed her, stepping into a stairwell leading up to a higher level of the complex. The top of the stairs was an apparent dead end, until Cal found a section of wall that was illusory. "I guess the Darklord's not much for doors," he commented, walking through and into a large, open room. This room had one familiar feature: the dragon turtle zombie, who turned and attacked. It was slow, but it was also massive and unafraid of pain, and it managed to do a bit of damage with its serrated beak before Cal was able to turn it with the power of his holy symbol. The great undead beast turned around and moved through the one wall of the room that was jagged and natural looking; this too proved to be an [i]illusory wall[/i] made to hug the contours of the massive slab of rock from which the Darklord's Keep had been carved. The group opted not to pursue it, but to search for other doors out of this "hangar." Two were found: one led to a workshop of sorts, and from there a storage area, while the other led to another upper level via a spiral staircase, like everything else seen thus far carved out of the very rock. The group opted to go up the stairs, Akari in the lead. Not surprisingly, this led to an apparent dead end; even less surprisingly, there was an open doorway at the top covered in an [i]illusory wall[/i] spell. Walking through it, with [i]Hoardmaster[/i] in one hand and a sunrod in the other, Akari found quite a scene before him. The upper level was all one massive room, rectangular in shape but with the entire wall to the right all jagged and rough, just like the wall in the dragon turtle zombie hangar below. This room was also a hangar of sorts, only the vessel it contained was unlike any Akari had ever seen. It was crafted of fused bones, and the skeleton of a triceratops had obviously been the starting point for the vessel, for its size, shape, and build were obvious to any who had seen such a beast (as indeed Akari had, on the lizardman-infested island Balama had taken them to against their will). Other bones, from a wide variety of creatures, had been used to create the outer walls of the craft, and so tight was the fit that you couldn't see between any two bones into the craft's interior. The vessel stood unmoving on its four dinosaur legs. Before it stood the Darklord Drago von Mordak, the skeletal equiceph the group had encountered leading a raiding party of skeletons inside Gwen's Relics. He held a staff made of bone, and a quick use of his inherent ability to detect evil confirmed to Akari that the creature before him was utterly evil - oddly enough, his evil being particularly concentrated from his knees on down. At the Darklord's side stood a clay golem, awaiting orders. The first order came immediately: "Slay them!" cried the Darklord, stepping back behind the safety of his dinosaur vessel as the clay golem moved forward menacingly. Akari pounced into battle with the golem, as Cal, Feron, and Chalkan entered the room and spread out. This proved to be a wise idea, as the Darklord shot a [i]fireball[/i] at the group, but only caught Feron and Cal in the blast, the others already having moved out of range. Another command from the skeletal equiceph showed that the dinosaur craft was somewhat sentient, as a command to attack the intruders caused it to shudder to awkward life and attempt to gore the closest - Chalkan - with its impressive set of horns. While the undead vessel and the clay golem kept the intruders at bay, Drago von Mordak took an opportunity to cast a protective spell upon himself. Not liking that idea, Feron cast a [i]dispel magic[/i] spell upon him, and got quite a surprise, for the "skeletal equiceph" itself was an illusion covering the less-impressive-looking bones of a gnome lich. Akari and Cal took it upon themselves to take care of the clay golem, which they had learned from prior experience could be a tough foe, leaving Feron and Chalkan to attack the diminutive lich while everyone tried to stay out of range of the slow-moving undead vessel. The gnome lich seemed to feel much less powerful now that his impressive alter ego had been taken from him, and he fought defensively, trying to hide using [i]invisibility[/i] and keeping his distance with [i]expeditious retreat[/i]. Still, Chalkan's spell-enhanced arrows and Feron's ranged spells were able to keep up with him no matter how far away he got, and before too long he opted to make a run for it inside his undead vessel. Just as Cal and Akari were dropping the clay golem, the gnome lich was opening a side hatch in the triceratops vessel and climbing aboard. Feron tried grappling him, but he was remarkably agile for such a little guy. The vessel was apparently run by consuming magic items, as the gnome had popped a pair of magical gauntlets into an arcane furnace inside the construct, powering it up to open an extraplanar gate to make good his escape. Feron, unable to grab hold of the slippery lich, snatched the gauntlets out of the furnace and threw them behind her, preventing the vessel from being able to sustain the gate long enough to slip through. Akari, meanwhile, had learned that [i]Hoardmaster[/i]'s [i]undead bane[/i] ability worked just fine against the animated dinosaur skeleton vessel, and was slowly chopping one of the vessel's front legs off. It finally snapped in twain, spilling the vessel over onto its side, and allowing Feron to grab up the gnome lich, pop the hatch back open (it had slammed shut during the tussle), and toss the gnome back out onto the hangar floor. "You cannot stop me!" squeaked the gnome from his prone position. "I'm the Darklord Drago von Mor--" The rest of his final statement was cut off by the sound of Cal's heavy mace smashing in the lich's skull. After that, it was a simple matter of going through the Darklord's Keep and grabbing up the stolen magic items he had taken from Gwendolyn Fine's shop. Most of them were in the storage room just beyond his workshop, where he had crafted the negabomb that had shunted her shop to where he could easily plunder it. Gwendolyn was particularly pleased to find her [i]obsidian steed[/i], as this was the group's only current way back home. (Cal was powerful enough to know the [i]plane shift[/i] spell, but he didn't have it currently prepared and their [i]attune form[/i] spell would wear off before he was able to rest up and prepare it.) In his library, they found a journal with notes about the construction of the extraplanar craft, and something much more interesting: the "Darklord's" real name, [b]Toofles Pigwilligan[/b]. "I think I'd use a pseudonym too, given the circumstances," snickered Chalkan. When everyone was ready to depart, it was a simple matter for Gwendolyn to activate the [i]obsidian steed[/i] and ride it back to the prime material plane with the four members of Wing Three basking in luxury inside the [i]Mordenkainen's magnifient mansion[/i], the house statue sitting inside her pack. They ended up on a random road somewhere, and walked together to the next town. Gwendolyn's magic shop was no more, but she had the majority of what "the Darklord" had plundered from her - it was enough to rebuild again elsewhere, and Gwendolyn had no desire to return to Greyhawk City to have to explain the semispherical hole in the ground where her shop used to be, or to have to explain to their families what had happened to the workers and customers who had been shunted with the shop to the Negative Energy Plane. Granted, none of it had been Gwendolyn's fault, but she wasn't eager to have to explain any of it to anyone; much easier to start again somewhere else and seek her fortunes elsewhere. As a thanks for helping her once again and for saving her life, she let the group keep some of what they had been using of hers: Cal kept the [i]necklace of adaptation[/i], for instance. Then, having figured out exactly where they were from the townspeople they met up with, the four adventurers headed back to Greyhawk City on foot, while Gwendolyn rode her [i]obsidian steed[/i] in the opposite direction. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
Top