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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6089104" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 57 - RESCUE FROM AFAR</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rale Bodkin, human rogue</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Telgrane, human conjurer</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter</p><p></p><p>This adventure was unlike anything I'd ever done before. I had come up with an idea for a cool type of magic item, and wrote the whole adventure around a handful of such things. In doing so, I created the seeds for a bunch of adventures to follow.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>It was a typically boisterous time at the Pit-Fight, a local tavern on the outskirts of the Styes. It was late in the evening, but there was still a large crowd around the pit, where a fierce battle raged between a dire wolverine and an owlbear. Between the roars of the fighting beasts down in the pit below and the cheering spectators ringing the rails above, it was a particularly noisy night.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, above the noise of the combat, there came a piercing scream. Rale had just enough time to turn and see a young woman in a long, white nightgown materialize out of nowhere at the edge of the rails, her hair and nightwear blazing in flames, before she lost her balance and plummeted into the pit below, where the bloodthirsty combatants ripped at each others’ flesh amid growls and roars. She landed on her back in the sand, scattering a handful of items at her side, and had the good sense to start rolling around to douse the flames. However, doing so brushed her up against the owlbear, who fortunately kept its gaze focused on the snarling dire wolverine attempting to rip it to pieces.</p><p></p><p>The reaction of the crowd above was varied. Some called for the beastmasters to put an end to the fight. Others called for the fight to be suspended, due to the interference of the noncombatant. Others started making wagers as to whether the foolish girl would be killed by the owlbear or the dire wolverine.</p><p></p><p>As if unaware of the danger represented by the two fighting beasts around her, the young woman made a mad scramble to gather up the items she had dropped in her fall, grabbing them to her as if her very life depended on it. They she started floating up out of the pit, a fact she barely noticed as she snagged the last of the items, which looked like narrow wands with small octagons at the far end. Only then did she look around her in puzzlement as she levitated up and over the upper edge of the pit, to come to a standing stop in the corner, right next to a dashing young wizard in fancy robes and a short mustache and goatee.</p><p></p><p>"It's a good thing I had a <em>telekinesis</em> spell readied today," said Telgrane, introducing himself to the frazzled young lady.</p><p></p><p>"You're a wizard!" she exclaimed. "I need your help! My master--the manor--assassins--!"</p><p></p><p>"Calm down," reassured Telgrane, waving his companions over to him. He took Rale's drink from his hands and offered it to the young lady, much to the dislike of the astonished rogue. "Here, drink this, then tell us what's the problem." By this time, Galrich, Aerik, and Feron had wandered over to see what was up.</p><p></p><p>"Is there someplace safe where we can talk?" asked the woman after guzzling down Rale's ale.</p><p></p><p>"We can take you back to our Headquarters," suggested Telgrane, while removing his cloak and wrapping it around the woman's shoulders - she was, after all, wearing only her nightgown.</p><p></p><p>"Then we must hurry," she decided, heading for the door. "I'll tell you what I know on the way there."</p><p></p><p>The woman's story was an unusual one. She introduced herself as <strong>Rebecca Starfall</strong>, an apprentice to <strong>Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle</strong>, an Archmage who lived in a manor on the outskirts of Greyhawk City. Living there with them was <strong>Delmond Ravensbrook</strong>, another apprentice, and the Doctor's good friend of many years, <strong>Pinwhistle</strong>.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not sure how they got past the building's defenses," continued Rebecca, "but somehow the manor was infiltrated tonight by assassins. They've got Dr. Greymantle and Delmond, and are torturing them for information. Apparently they've subdued Pinwhistle as well, leaving only me to stop them. And they would have gotten me, too, no doubt, if I hadn't already been awakened by <strong>Mr. Scruffles</strong> – that’s my cat familiar – when they showed up.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not very powerful, as wizards go, and I haven't prepared any spells yet today, but I do know the layout of the manor and where Thag – I mean, Dr. Greymantle" – and here she blushed furiously – "keeps a lot of his equipment. I know he'll reward you if you can rescue him and the others from the assassins currently attacking the manor's inhabitants.</p><p></p><p>"Along those lines, we normally have a magical field up around the manor, preventing anyone from teleporting in or slipping in from other planes. I know it was in place when we all turned in for the night, and it’s still up now, so I don’t know how the assassins managed to get in, but with the field up, there's no way I know of that we can get inside. However, I believe we can help Dr. Greymantle and the others...with these." And with that, she laid the oddly-shaped wands upon the table in Wing Three's common living area.</p><p></p><p>"These are <em>telepresence control rods</em>," explained Rebecca, sorting through them by the silhouettes inscribed in the octagonal surfaces. "Beetle, marmoset, elephant, fairy, viper, and centipede. Each one is linked to a small figurine back in the manner. You control it like this." And with that, she picked up one of the rods - the beetle - and held it up to her forehead, closing her eyes. "Just by concentrating, I can see through the beetle construct's eyes, see what it sees, and move it around. It looks like I'm on the fireplace, looking out into the living room area."</p><p></p><p>Everyone grabbed up a control rod and followed her example. Feron picked up the marmoset. "I'm high up," she declared, "looking out over a kitchen area."</p><p></p><p>"I think you're up on the pantry cupboard," remarked Rebecca. "Look over to your right, you should be able to see two of the assassins in the living room, trying to get to through the door to the hangar."</p><p></p><p>"I see them," Feron confirmed. "Two elves."</p><p></p><p>"I see them too!" exclaimed Rale, who was looking through the eyes of an elephant figurine that had been left underneath a sofa. "But it can't be--they're dead!"</p><p></p><p>"Who?" asked Aerik, who had taken the viper. "I can't see anything!"</p><p></p><p>"Um, you might be in a kitchen drawer," said Rebecca. "Here, try this one." She passed over the beetle control rod, and Aerik peered through the beetle's eyes at two young elves. One was clad in tight-fitting black leather armor, with a wide assortment of knives and daggers protruding from sheaths on her belt, in her boots, on her back, and on her forearms. The other was a white-clad sorceress, with a strange lump of something on her shoulder. She was looking down at the door and pointing, apparently offering suggestions to the thief. Her hair was as white as her cloak, and cut in an odd bowl shape that gave her head the appearance of a mushroom cap.</p><p></p><p>"I see 'em," replied the dwarf. "So who are they?"</p><p></p><p>"They're the assassins that Gareth sent after us!" exclaimed Rale. "Only we killed them!"</p><p></p><p>"So they were resurrected," commented Aerik. "It happens."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, but no fair!" complained Rale.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane had chosen the fairy, and saw that he was perched on a shelf in the living room. He saw the two elves as well, and recognized them. "It's them all right," he said. "Were there perhaps four assassins in all?" he asked Rebecca.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, I think so," the apprentice confirmed.</p><p></p><p>"I imagine the other two are Bunny and Barbie, then, given that those two are Kitten and Candi."</p><p></p><p>"Which one's the one in white?"</p><p></p><p>"That's Kitten."</p><p></p><p>"She's the one who blasted me with a flame spell," Rebecca said. "I had made it safely to the kitchen, and was reading the words of a <em>teleport</em> scroll to get me to the Pit-Fight - it was the only place I could think of that might have adventurers who could help me - when she got me. I imagine I must have been quite the fright, popping in like that, all aflame!"</p><p></p><p>"Hey, I think I'm in a glass case," interrupted Galrich. "And how come we can't hear what they're saying?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, you're in a display case, with some small statues and figurines," confirmed Rebecca. "And the magical constructs only allow us to see and feel through them, not hear, or taste, or smell. But they can't hear us, either."</p><p></p><p>"So is that all we can do?" asked Telgrane.</p><p></p><p>It turned out that each figurine had different properties, as Rebecca quickly explained. The fairy could fly and turn invisible. The marmoset was a good climber and had excellent manual dexterity. The beetle could store visual images that could be played back later, and it could walk on walls. So could the centipede, but it had something even more useful: if it bit somebody on the back of the neck, it could <em>dominate</em> them. The viper had two ampules of poison that could be loaded into its back, which could them be injected into anyone it bit. The elephant was the biggest of the figurines, and very strong.</p><p></p><p>"Okay, then, what's the plan?" asked Galrich. Rebecca had everybody remove their various control rods, and return their attention to their current whereabouts, mainly the Wing Three living area. She quickly sketched out a map of the Greymantle manor, showing Dr. Greymantle's room, Delmond's room, and her own room upstairs, and Pinwhistle's quarters downstairs. Each of the other three were likely being tortured in their own rooms, so they could try to rescue them. Optionally, Rebecca pointed out that Dr. Greymantle had an <em>apparatus of Kwalish</em> in the garage by the horse-carriage that he had been working on, so if they could make their way there they might be able to pilot it against the assassins.</p><p></p><p>"I've got a better idea," said Galrich. "I wanna bite one of those assassins on the neck and remote control them like I'm doing this centipede!"</p><p></p><p>"You'll have to get out of that glass display case first," Rebecca commented. "And I don't know if the centipede is strong enough to do so on its own." Galrich tried, and was dismayed that as strong as he was in real life, it made no difference to the strength of the centipede construct.</p><p></p><p>"Okay, here's what we'll do," suggested Telgrane. "Rebecca, you take the beetle and head down the hall to check on both Greymantle and Delmond, see who's with them, and what they're up to. Feron, you get to the kitchen drawer that Aerik's viper is in, open it up, load it up with poison, and we'll let Aerik go bite Candi on the leg, maybe put her out of action. I'll fly over to the glass display cabinet and free Galrich's centipede, and then he can climb up to the ceiling and drop down on Kitten, and then he can use her as his proxy to go kill the others."</p><p></p><p>"What about me?" asked Rale, piloting the elephant under the sofa.</p><p></p><p>"You act as lookout," replied Telgrane. "Keep Kitten and Candi in view, and let us know if they spot any of us."</p><p></p><p>"Got it," replied Rale.</p><p></p><p>"Then let's go," said Telgrane, mentally turning his fairy construct invisible and flying over to the glass display case across the living room, where he could see a metal centipede pushing in vain against the glass door. What he didn't see - but what Rale saw clearly through the eyes of his lookout elephant construct - was that the lump on Kitten's shoulder lifted its head and looked over at the invisible fairy as it flew past. By the time Telgrane had maneuvered the fairy over to the glass door of the display case and pulled it open with the centipede's help, the white drake had leapt off its mistress's shoulder and flew straight for the invisible fairy.</p><p></p><p>"Incoming!" called out Rale, but he was a bit too late, for the drake swatted the fairy with one set of claws, sending the invisible fairy flying into the leg of a chair. Its delicate wings must have shattered, for all of a sudden Telgrane could no longer get it to fly.</p><p></p><p>"It's still after me!" called out Telgrane. "It must be able to see me!"</p><p></p><p>"Over here, quick!" yelled Rale. "Under the sofa!" Telgrane maneuvered the fairy across the floor from the chair to the sofa, running past the elephant figurine. When the drake followed, Rale grabbed it around the neck with the elephant's trunk and held it tight. Kitten looked over at her drake with a frown, assumed it was after a mouse or something, and looked back at the door, which Candi was having no luck with picking.</p><p></p><p>By that time, Galrich had scurried the centipede up the wall, across the ceiling, and directly above Kitten. He dropped, letting gravity direct the multilimbed construct onto the sorcerer's shoulder, then scurried it over to the back of her neck and chomped its mouthparts into her flesh. "Got her!" he cried in triumph, as the sorceress stiffened in surprise. Then, controlling the sorceress as well as the centipede construct, Galrich maneuvered Kitten over to the sofa, where she bent down, grabbed up the white drake, and casually wrung its neck. Then he had her fling it behind the sofa, out of view.</p><p></p><p>"This is great!" he enthused.</p><p></p><p>While all of this was going on, Feron had had the marmoset figurine jump down off of the pantry cabinet, scurry across the counter top over to the drawer where the viper was kept, and helped Aerik open the drawer. She jumped the marmoset into the drawer, scrounged around until she found the two poison vials, inserted one of them into the back of the viper's head, and Aerik slithered the viper across the kitchen counter, down to the floor, and over to Candi's leg, where he gave her a quick bite. The metallic fangs in the viper construct bit deep into the elf rogue's leg, pumping venom into it. The elf jumped and shrieked in surprise, but then was further surprised to see Kitten bearing down on her with a dagger raised in one hand. She raised an arm to try to resist, but the paralytic poison did its work and she was too sluggish to stop Kitten from dragging the dagger across her throat, ending her life for a second time.</p><p></p><p>"Dr. Greymantle's tied to his bed, being tortured by a human assassin," reported Rebecca with a shiver in her voice. "Delmond's tied to his bed, being tortured by a drow."</p><p></p><p>"I'm on it!" said Galrich, marching Kitten down the hallway leading to the bedrooms.</p><p></p><p>"I'll go see about freeing Pinwhistle," said Feron, hopping her marmoset down the stairs.</p><p></p><p>"Aerik, you're with me," said Rale, marching his elephant from under the sofa and heading down to the beginning of the bedroom hallway. "We'll be tripping hazards, as needed."</p><p></p><p>"Aye," replied the dwarf, slithering the viper into position. Telgrane, his fairy construct invisible but unable to fly, positioned it where he could see down the hallway without being seen, and acted as lookout.</p><p></p><p>Barbie looked up as Kitten approached, and apparently asked something of the sorceress as she entered. Galrich, being unable to read lips, had no idea what was said, and didn't think he could bluff his way through any attempt at conversation, so he leapt Kitten at the human assassin and attempted stabbing her with Kitten's dagger. Barbie, however, had trained as a fighter before becoming an assassin and easily rolled out of the way. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew enough to know that Kitten had been compromised, and was thus expendable. She pulled the longsword from her scabbard and attacked her erstwhile partner in crime.</p><p></p><p>Galrich didn't particularly care who won that fight, and when Barbie was eventually victorious he simply climbed the centipede construct off of Kitten, scampered it under Greymantle's bed, and then up the fighter's leg once she returned her attention to her bound captive. Before long, the centipede had taken over Barbie's body, and Dr. Greymantle was visibly astonished when his tormentor suddenly stopped carving into his chest with a dagger, sat upright, and then began cutting him free from his bonds. A look of understanding crossed his face when Barbie turned and lifted her blond hair off of the back of her neck, exposing the metal centipede positioned there.</p><p></p><p>Feron, in the meantime, had entered Pinwhistle's room and was astonished to see that he was some sort of a construct as well. "Oh, right, I didn't explain about Pinwhistle," said Rebecca sheepishly. "He's Dr. Greymantle's oldest friend, but he died long before Delmond and I met him. Pinwhistle's a kind of living construct, containing the original Pinwhistle's memories and intelligence. Believe it or not, he was a gnome." Feron looked up at the fierce-looking device, easily some seven feet tall, and had a hard time believing there was a gnomish intelligence inside the vicious-looking thing. "Is there supposed to be some sort of disk on his chest?" she asked, observing the three-inch metal disk shooting arcs of electricity out in all directions every several seconds. Pinwhistle's otherwise unmoving form twitched and grimaced where he stood.</p><p></p><p>"No," replied Rebecca. "It's probably immobilizing him!"</p><p></p><p>Feron used the marmoset figurine to scamper up the construct's body. When she got it to his chest, she grabbed it with both hands and pulled. Then she got a shock - quite literally - as the energy flowed through the marmoset figurine, through the control rod, and into the elven druid. Back at Headquarters, Feron fell back off her chair and collapsed onto the ground. Telgrane detached himself from the fairy construct long enough to see that she was okay. She was, and both heroes plugged themselves back into their respective constructs. Feron was pleased to see that the marmoset had managed to pull the immobilization disk off of Pinwhistle, a fact that Telgrane was able to confirm when he saw the massive construct stomping up the stairs.</p><p></p><p>At that point, everyone converged into Delmond's bedroom. Bunny, the drow assassin, was shocked to see her attempts to pry information out of a noncompliant victim interrupted by not only Pinwhistle and Greymantle, but also, oddly enough, Barbie. She whirled her blade at the trio, but Pinwhistle got the drop on her with a spell, dropping a <em>flame strike</em> spell onto her head, which kept her busy enough for the living construct to cross over to the other side of the bed - which took him all of two strides - and grab the startled drow around the throat with a massive fist. Then he looked over at Dr. Greymantle, who gave a slight nod of permission, and he throttled the life out of his captive.</p><p></p><p>While Dr. Greymantle removed the bonds from Delmond's feet and hands, Galrich walked Barbie over to the kitchen table and sat her at a chair. When Dr. Greymantle returned with Delmond, he brought the bonds with him and tied Barbie securely to the chair. Then he had Pinwhistle confirm that their captive assassin was bound sufficiently tightly, while he gathered up a piece of paper and a quill pen and started writing. Several of the constructs gathered around to see what he was writing.</p><p></p><p>His first sentence was "Rebecca, I assume that's you?" As Rebecca was still maneuvering the beetle over to the kitchen, Feron had the marmoset give Greymantle a quick head nod and a thumbs-up. Greymantle resumed writing.</p><p></p><p>"You're all right?" was the second sentence. Again, Feron responded in the affirmative.</p><p></p><p>"Do you have a means of returning here if I drop the field?" Greymantle inquired next. Again, Feron responded for the group, and then everybody released themselves from their constructs. Rale went upstairs to wake Delphyne, who could <em>teleport</em> them directly to Greymantle's manor. She complained that she'd never been there before, but after peeking through the eyes of a construct and getting a good look at the kitchen, she announced she should be able to <em>teleport</em> everyone over there without any problem. By that time, the others had awakened, and wanted to see what all was going on.</p><p></p><p>As a result, nine adventurers and Rebecca all <em>teleported</em> from Wing Three of the Adventurers Guild to Dr. Greymantle's kitchen and living room area. Introductions were made all around, and the Archmage thanked them for their help.</p><p></p><p>"What did they want?" asked Galrich.</p><p></p><p>"They were interrogating me on several subjects," replied Greymantle. "They wanted to know how to turn off the field surrounding the manor, which prevented anyone from gaining access. And they wanted to know how to get through the door to the hangar."</p><p></p><p>"What's in the hangar?" asked Rale.</p><p></p><p>"An experimental craft I'm working on," replied the Archmage. "I call it the <em>Planar Scout</em>, and it's about ready for its maiden voyage. I imagine these four were hired to steal it."</p><p></p><p>"Who hired you?" asked Rebecca, looking down at a bound Barbie, her mind once again her own now that the centipede construct had been removed from the back of her neck.</p><p></p><p>"Don't know, don't care, wouldn't tell you if I knew," snarled the assassin. "We got hired by a proxy - standard procedure in our circles, for this very reason."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah?" asked Pinwhistle, leaning in towards the bound captive and doing his best to look intimidating, an admittedly easy task for the seven-foot-tall construct, crafted from equal parts stone, wood, and metal. "Well, let's just see what we can find out about yer boss, anyway." He began the words of a divination spell, casting his mind across the planes to answer the questions he had. "Hrrm," he muttered some time later, a sound of irritation in his voice.</p><p></p><p>"What have you learned, old friend?" asked Dr. Greymantle.</p><p></p><p>"Not much," admitted Pinwhistle. "These four were apparently hired by 'the unliving woman who has never died, hidden behind the door that doesn't belong.'"</p><p></p><p>"That's the problem with the gods," grumbled the Archmage. "They can't ever bother to be clear; everything's always cloaked in shadows and mystery."</p><p></p><p>"Let's not start this again," grumbled Pinwhistle, apparently not eager to resume an argument that had been going on between the two for years.</p><p></p><p>"Indeed," agreed Greymantle, turning his attention back to his bound captive. "Anything you'd like to tell us?" he asked Barbie. "Anything at all?" The assassin just glared her best glare at him, and said nothing. "I surmised as much," admitted Greymantle, and at a nod to Pinwhistle the massive construct snapped Barbie's neck, leaving her to collapse forward, quite dead. He looked up at Rebecca's squeal of surprise, and scowled at his apprentice. "We've all had a rather unpleasant evening," snapped the Archmage, visibly irritated. "She tortured us and would have killed us without any qualms at all, but for your own intervention; she has earned such a fate for herself by her own actions. But I must say, well done, Rebecca! That was some quick thinking indeed!" Greymantle's apprentice colored visibly at the praise.</p><p></p><p>"And many thanks to you as well!" the Archmage repeated, shaking each of the adventurers' hands in turn. He opened another drawer in his kitchen and pulled out a box of gems, presenting one to each of the heroes. These were <em>ioun stones</em>, and he passed them out in accordance with his own ideas about which would be the most useful based on his deductions about their respective roles as adventurers. "When the <em>Planar Scout</em> is ready for its first flight, you'll have to accompany us!"</p><p></p><p>As a final reward, Pinwhistle used his additional questions from his divination spells to inquire about the futures of the adventurers. Here's what he came up with: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">AERIK: "None need carry an anvil for his whole life; but placing it in the correct spot at the correct time makes for years of harmonious forge work."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">AKARI: "Remember always that a book by its cover should not be judged, nor the heart of a man by his physical appearance."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">CAL: "To those subsisting on sips of water, the mere chance for a taste of nectar may be too great a temptation to pass up."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">CHALKAN: "Beware he who pulls the strings of the Slayer, for he means your death."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DELPHYNE: "Coventry has spent far too long in slumber; 'tis time it was awakened."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">FERON: "Even the fiercest of cats may eventually acknowledge a master – but never two."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">GALRICH: "No more than a warrior without a blade is a wizard powerless without spells, has he friends to see him through hardship."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">RALE: "The woman who will one day give you her hand will die before you can put your ring upon it."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">TELGRANE: "The burning desire in your heart will keep you alive when all seems lost."</li> </ul><p>- - - </p><p></p><p>This whole adventure was an experiment. The bulk of it was spent running the constructs throughout Dan and Vicki's house, which by a fortunate coincidence was the exact same layout of the Greymantle Manor. I had originally written the adventure with five constructs (one each for my four players plus one for Rebecca), when I realized that Joey would expect to have one too. So I hurriedly created another <em>telepresence control rod</em>, the elephant. (I actually built these props, using chopsticks from my local Chinese restaurant, which I poked through 3D octagons I built from cardboard, and upon which I drew the relevant creature's silhouette.) However, when I placed all six rods on the table, everybody just grabbed one and Joey ended up with the viper. We ran the whole adventure with Joey running a character, and it wasn't until the end of the session that I realized Joey had done an excellent job paying attention to what was happening in the game, running his character (even if his character in this session was a plastic snake I bought for a dollar at Wal-Mart).</p><p></p><p>However, it was still kind of early at the end of this adventure, so we started up the next adventure and then I stopped it at an appropriate stopping point. That night, when I sent out my standard XP email, I pointed out how well Joey had played with us, noted that he was now eight years old (the same age Jacob had been when we first started this campaign), and offered to have him create a PC of his own (a real one, not his pretend one, "D. Andy," which was traditionally represented by a Star Wars mini), and have him join the group for good. Dan and Vicki both thought it was a good idea, but asked me to hold off until the completion of the adventure we had just started, since it took place in the Abyss and dealt with a bunch of demons, which they didn't feel was the best setting for Joey to jump into our campaign. But more on Joey's status as a player in a couple more writeups.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6089104, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 57 - RESCUE FROM AFAR[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Feron Dru, half-elf druid Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian Rale Bodkin, human rogue Telgrane, human conjurer[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter[/INDENT] This adventure was unlike anything I'd ever done before. I had come up with an idea for a cool type of magic item, and wrote the whole adventure around a handful of such things. In doing so, I created the seeds for a bunch of adventures to follow. - - - It was a typically boisterous time at the Pit-Fight, a local tavern on the outskirts of the Styes. It was late in the evening, but there was still a large crowd around the pit, where a fierce battle raged between a dire wolverine and an owlbear. Between the roars of the fighting beasts down in the pit below and the cheering spectators ringing the rails above, it was a particularly noisy night. Suddenly, above the noise of the combat, there came a piercing scream. Rale had just enough time to turn and see a young woman in a long, white nightgown materialize out of nowhere at the edge of the rails, her hair and nightwear blazing in flames, before she lost her balance and plummeted into the pit below, where the bloodthirsty combatants ripped at each others’ flesh amid growls and roars. She landed on her back in the sand, scattering a handful of items at her side, and had the good sense to start rolling around to douse the flames. However, doing so brushed her up against the owlbear, who fortunately kept its gaze focused on the snarling dire wolverine attempting to rip it to pieces. The reaction of the crowd above was varied. Some called for the beastmasters to put an end to the fight. Others called for the fight to be suspended, due to the interference of the noncombatant. Others started making wagers as to whether the foolish girl would be killed by the owlbear or the dire wolverine. As if unaware of the danger represented by the two fighting beasts around her, the young woman made a mad scramble to gather up the items she had dropped in her fall, grabbing them to her as if her very life depended on it. They she started floating up out of the pit, a fact she barely noticed as she snagged the last of the items, which looked like narrow wands with small octagons at the far end. Only then did she look around her in puzzlement as she levitated up and over the upper edge of the pit, to come to a standing stop in the corner, right next to a dashing young wizard in fancy robes and a short mustache and goatee. "It's a good thing I had a [i]telekinesis[/i] spell readied today," said Telgrane, introducing himself to the frazzled young lady. "You're a wizard!" she exclaimed. "I need your help! My master--the manor--assassins--!" "Calm down," reassured Telgrane, waving his companions over to him. He took Rale's drink from his hands and offered it to the young lady, much to the dislike of the astonished rogue. "Here, drink this, then tell us what's the problem." By this time, Galrich, Aerik, and Feron had wandered over to see what was up. "Is there someplace safe where we can talk?" asked the woman after guzzling down Rale's ale. "We can take you back to our Headquarters," suggested Telgrane, while removing his cloak and wrapping it around the woman's shoulders - she was, after all, wearing only her nightgown. "Then we must hurry," she decided, heading for the door. "I'll tell you what I know on the way there." The woman's story was an unusual one. She introduced herself as [b]Rebecca Starfall[/b], an apprentice to [b]Dr. Pythagoras Greymantle[/b], an Archmage who lived in a manor on the outskirts of Greyhawk City. Living there with them was [b]Delmond Ravensbrook[/b], another apprentice, and the Doctor's good friend of many years, [b]Pinwhistle[/b]. "I'm not sure how they got past the building's defenses," continued Rebecca, "but somehow the manor was infiltrated tonight by assassins. They've got Dr. Greymantle and Delmond, and are torturing them for information. Apparently they've subdued Pinwhistle as well, leaving only me to stop them. And they would have gotten me, too, no doubt, if I hadn't already been awakened by [b]Mr. Scruffles[/b] – that’s my cat familiar – when they showed up. "I'm not very powerful, as wizards go, and I haven't prepared any spells yet today, but I do know the layout of the manor and where Thag – I mean, Dr. Greymantle" – and here she blushed furiously – "keeps a lot of his equipment. I know he'll reward you if you can rescue him and the others from the assassins currently attacking the manor's inhabitants. "Along those lines, we normally have a magical field up around the manor, preventing anyone from teleporting in or slipping in from other planes. I know it was in place when we all turned in for the night, and it’s still up now, so I don’t know how the assassins managed to get in, but with the field up, there's no way I know of that we can get inside. However, I believe we can help Dr. Greymantle and the others...with these." And with that, she laid the oddly-shaped wands upon the table in Wing Three's common living area. "These are [i]telepresence control rods[/i]," explained Rebecca, sorting through them by the silhouettes inscribed in the octagonal surfaces. "Beetle, marmoset, elephant, fairy, viper, and centipede. Each one is linked to a small figurine back in the manner. You control it like this." And with that, she picked up one of the rods - the beetle - and held it up to her forehead, closing her eyes. "Just by concentrating, I can see through the beetle construct's eyes, see what it sees, and move it around. It looks like I'm on the fireplace, looking out into the living room area." Everyone grabbed up a control rod and followed her example. Feron picked up the marmoset. "I'm high up," she declared, "looking out over a kitchen area." "I think you're up on the pantry cupboard," remarked Rebecca. "Look over to your right, you should be able to see two of the assassins in the living room, trying to get to through the door to the hangar." "I see them," Feron confirmed. "Two elves." "I see them too!" exclaimed Rale, who was looking through the eyes of an elephant figurine that had been left underneath a sofa. "But it can't be--they're dead!" "Who?" asked Aerik, who had taken the viper. "I can't see anything!" "Um, you might be in a kitchen drawer," said Rebecca. "Here, try this one." She passed over the beetle control rod, and Aerik peered through the beetle's eyes at two young elves. One was clad in tight-fitting black leather armor, with a wide assortment of knives and daggers protruding from sheaths on her belt, in her boots, on her back, and on her forearms. The other was a white-clad sorceress, with a strange lump of something on her shoulder. She was looking down at the door and pointing, apparently offering suggestions to the thief. Her hair was as white as her cloak, and cut in an odd bowl shape that gave her head the appearance of a mushroom cap. "I see 'em," replied the dwarf. "So who are they?" "They're the assassins that Gareth sent after us!" exclaimed Rale. "Only we killed them!" "So they were resurrected," commented Aerik. "It happens." "Yeah, but no fair!" complained Rale. Telgrane had chosen the fairy, and saw that he was perched on a shelf in the living room. He saw the two elves as well, and recognized them. "It's them all right," he said. "Were there perhaps four assassins in all?" he asked Rebecca. "Yes, I think so," the apprentice confirmed. "I imagine the other two are Bunny and Barbie, then, given that those two are Kitten and Candi." "Which one's the one in white?" "That's Kitten." "She's the one who blasted me with a flame spell," Rebecca said. "I had made it safely to the kitchen, and was reading the words of a [i]teleport[/i] scroll to get me to the Pit-Fight - it was the only place I could think of that might have adventurers who could help me - when she got me. I imagine I must have been quite the fright, popping in like that, all aflame!" "Hey, I think I'm in a glass case," interrupted Galrich. "And how come we can't hear what they're saying?" "Yes, you're in a display case, with some small statues and figurines," confirmed Rebecca. "And the magical constructs only allow us to see and feel through them, not hear, or taste, or smell. But they can't hear us, either." "So is that all we can do?" asked Telgrane. It turned out that each figurine had different properties, as Rebecca quickly explained. The fairy could fly and turn invisible. The marmoset was a good climber and had excellent manual dexterity. The beetle could store visual images that could be played back later, and it could walk on walls. So could the centipede, but it had something even more useful: if it bit somebody on the back of the neck, it could [i]dominate[/i] them. The viper had two ampules of poison that could be loaded into its back, which could them be injected into anyone it bit. The elephant was the biggest of the figurines, and very strong. "Okay, then, what's the plan?" asked Galrich. Rebecca had everybody remove their various control rods, and return their attention to their current whereabouts, mainly the Wing Three living area. She quickly sketched out a map of the Greymantle manor, showing Dr. Greymantle's room, Delmond's room, and her own room upstairs, and Pinwhistle's quarters downstairs. Each of the other three were likely being tortured in their own rooms, so they could try to rescue them. Optionally, Rebecca pointed out that Dr. Greymantle had an [i]apparatus of Kwalish[/i] in the garage by the horse-carriage that he had been working on, so if they could make their way there they might be able to pilot it against the assassins. "I've got a better idea," said Galrich. "I wanna bite one of those assassins on the neck and remote control them like I'm doing this centipede!" "You'll have to get out of that glass display case first," Rebecca commented. "And I don't know if the centipede is strong enough to do so on its own." Galrich tried, and was dismayed that as strong as he was in real life, it made no difference to the strength of the centipede construct. "Okay, here's what we'll do," suggested Telgrane. "Rebecca, you take the beetle and head down the hall to check on both Greymantle and Delmond, see who's with them, and what they're up to. Feron, you get to the kitchen drawer that Aerik's viper is in, open it up, load it up with poison, and we'll let Aerik go bite Candi on the leg, maybe put her out of action. I'll fly over to the glass display cabinet and free Galrich's centipede, and then he can climb up to the ceiling and drop down on Kitten, and then he can use her as his proxy to go kill the others." "What about me?" asked Rale, piloting the elephant under the sofa. "You act as lookout," replied Telgrane. "Keep Kitten and Candi in view, and let us know if they spot any of us." "Got it," replied Rale. "Then let's go," said Telgrane, mentally turning his fairy construct invisible and flying over to the glass display case across the living room, where he could see a metal centipede pushing in vain against the glass door. What he didn't see - but what Rale saw clearly through the eyes of his lookout elephant construct - was that the lump on Kitten's shoulder lifted its head and looked over at the invisible fairy as it flew past. By the time Telgrane had maneuvered the fairy over to the glass door of the display case and pulled it open with the centipede's help, the white drake had leapt off its mistress's shoulder and flew straight for the invisible fairy. "Incoming!" called out Rale, but he was a bit too late, for the drake swatted the fairy with one set of claws, sending the invisible fairy flying into the leg of a chair. Its delicate wings must have shattered, for all of a sudden Telgrane could no longer get it to fly. "It's still after me!" called out Telgrane. "It must be able to see me!" "Over here, quick!" yelled Rale. "Under the sofa!" Telgrane maneuvered the fairy across the floor from the chair to the sofa, running past the elephant figurine. When the drake followed, Rale grabbed it around the neck with the elephant's trunk and held it tight. Kitten looked over at her drake with a frown, assumed it was after a mouse or something, and looked back at the door, which Candi was having no luck with picking. By that time, Galrich had scurried the centipede up the wall, across the ceiling, and directly above Kitten. He dropped, letting gravity direct the multilimbed construct onto the sorcerer's shoulder, then scurried it over to the back of her neck and chomped its mouthparts into her flesh. "Got her!" he cried in triumph, as the sorceress stiffened in surprise. Then, controlling the sorceress as well as the centipede construct, Galrich maneuvered Kitten over to the sofa, where she bent down, grabbed up the white drake, and casually wrung its neck. Then he had her fling it behind the sofa, out of view. "This is great!" he enthused. While all of this was going on, Feron had had the marmoset figurine jump down off of the pantry cabinet, scurry across the counter top over to the drawer where the viper was kept, and helped Aerik open the drawer. She jumped the marmoset into the drawer, scrounged around until she found the two poison vials, inserted one of them into the back of the viper's head, and Aerik slithered the viper across the kitchen counter, down to the floor, and over to Candi's leg, where he gave her a quick bite. The metallic fangs in the viper construct bit deep into the elf rogue's leg, pumping venom into it. The elf jumped and shrieked in surprise, but then was further surprised to see Kitten bearing down on her with a dagger raised in one hand. She raised an arm to try to resist, but the paralytic poison did its work and she was too sluggish to stop Kitten from dragging the dagger across her throat, ending her life for a second time. "Dr. Greymantle's tied to his bed, being tortured by a human assassin," reported Rebecca with a shiver in her voice. "Delmond's tied to his bed, being tortured by a drow." "I'm on it!" said Galrich, marching Kitten down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. "I'll go see about freeing Pinwhistle," said Feron, hopping her marmoset down the stairs. "Aerik, you're with me," said Rale, marching his elephant from under the sofa and heading down to the beginning of the bedroom hallway. "We'll be tripping hazards, as needed." "Aye," replied the dwarf, slithering the viper into position. Telgrane, his fairy construct invisible but unable to fly, positioned it where he could see down the hallway without being seen, and acted as lookout. Barbie looked up as Kitten approached, and apparently asked something of the sorceress as she entered. Galrich, being unable to read lips, had no idea what was said, and didn't think he could bluff his way through any attempt at conversation, so he leapt Kitten at the human assassin and attempted stabbing her with Kitten's dagger. Barbie, however, had trained as a fighter before becoming an assassin and easily rolled out of the way. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew enough to know that Kitten had been compromised, and was thus expendable. She pulled the longsword from her scabbard and attacked her erstwhile partner in crime. Galrich didn't particularly care who won that fight, and when Barbie was eventually victorious he simply climbed the centipede construct off of Kitten, scampered it under Greymantle's bed, and then up the fighter's leg once she returned her attention to her bound captive. Before long, the centipede had taken over Barbie's body, and Dr. Greymantle was visibly astonished when his tormentor suddenly stopped carving into his chest with a dagger, sat upright, and then began cutting him free from his bonds. A look of understanding crossed his face when Barbie turned and lifted her blond hair off of the back of her neck, exposing the metal centipede positioned there. Feron, in the meantime, had entered Pinwhistle's room and was astonished to see that he was some sort of a construct as well. "Oh, right, I didn't explain about Pinwhistle," said Rebecca sheepishly. "He's Dr. Greymantle's oldest friend, but he died long before Delmond and I met him. Pinwhistle's a kind of living construct, containing the original Pinwhistle's memories and intelligence. Believe it or not, he was a gnome." Feron looked up at the fierce-looking device, easily some seven feet tall, and had a hard time believing there was a gnomish intelligence inside the vicious-looking thing. "Is there supposed to be some sort of disk on his chest?" she asked, observing the three-inch metal disk shooting arcs of electricity out in all directions every several seconds. Pinwhistle's otherwise unmoving form twitched and grimaced where he stood. "No," replied Rebecca. "It's probably immobilizing him!" Feron used the marmoset figurine to scamper up the construct's body. When she got it to his chest, she grabbed it with both hands and pulled. Then she got a shock - quite literally - as the energy flowed through the marmoset figurine, through the control rod, and into the elven druid. Back at Headquarters, Feron fell back off her chair and collapsed onto the ground. Telgrane detached himself from the fairy construct long enough to see that she was okay. She was, and both heroes plugged themselves back into their respective constructs. Feron was pleased to see that the marmoset had managed to pull the immobilization disk off of Pinwhistle, a fact that Telgrane was able to confirm when he saw the massive construct stomping up the stairs. At that point, everyone converged into Delmond's bedroom. Bunny, the drow assassin, was shocked to see her attempts to pry information out of a noncompliant victim interrupted by not only Pinwhistle and Greymantle, but also, oddly enough, Barbie. She whirled her blade at the trio, but Pinwhistle got the drop on her with a spell, dropping a [i]flame strike[/i] spell onto her head, which kept her busy enough for the living construct to cross over to the other side of the bed - which took him all of two strides - and grab the startled drow around the throat with a massive fist. Then he looked over at Dr. Greymantle, who gave a slight nod of permission, and he throttled the life out of his captive. While Dr. Greymantle removed the bonds from Delmond's feet and hands, Galrich walked Barbie over to the kitchen table and sat her at a chair. When Dr. Greymantle returned with Delmond, he brought the bonds with him and tied Barbie securely to the chair. Then he had Pinwhistle confirm that their captive assassin was bound sufficiently tightly, while he gathered up a piece of paper and a quill pen and started writing. Several of the constructs gathered around to see what he was writing. His first sentence was "Rebecca, I assume that's you?" As Rebecca was still maneuvering the beetle over to the kitchen, Feron had the marmoset give Greymantle a quick head nod and a thumbs-up. Greymantle resumed writing. "You're all right?" was the second sentence. Again, Feron responded in the affirmative. "Do you have a means of returning here if I drop the field?" Greymantle inquired next. Again, Feron responded for the group, and then everybody released themselves from their constructs. Rale went upstairs to wake Delphyne, who could [i]teleport[/i] them directly to Greymantle's manor. She complained that she'd never been there before, but after peeking through the eyes of a construct and getting a good look at the kitchen, she announced she should be able to [i]teleport[/i] everyone over there without any problem. By that time, the others had awakened, and wanted to see what all was going on. As a result, nine adventurers and Rebecca all [i]teleported[/i] from Wing Three of the Adventurers Guild to Dr. Greymantle's kitchen and living room area. Introductions were made all around, and the Archmage thanked them for their help. "What did they want?" asked Galrich. "They were interrogating me on several subjects," replied Greymantle. "They wanted to know how to turn off the field surrounding the manor, which prevented anyone from gaining access. And they wanted to know how to get through the door to the hangar." "What's in the hangar?" asked Rale. "An experimental craft I'm working on," replied the Archmage. "I call it the [i]Planar Scout[/i], and it's about ready for its maiden voyage. I imagine these four were hired to steal it." "Who hired you?" asked Rebecca, looking down at a bound Barbie, her mind once again her own now that the centipede construct had been removed from the back of her neck. "Don't know, don't care, wouldn't tell you if I knew," snarled the assassin. "We got hired by a proxy - standard procedure in our circles, for this very reason." "Yeah?" asked Pinwhistle, leaning in towards the bound captive and doing his best to look intimidating, an admittedly easy task for the seven-foot-tall construct, crafted from equal parts stone, wood, and metal. "Well, let's just see what we can find out about yer boss, anyway." He began the words of a divination spell, casting his mind across the planes to answer the questions he had. "Hrrm," he muttered some time later, a sound of irritation in his voice. "What have you learned, old friend?" asked Dr. Greymantle. "Not much," admitted Pinwhistle. "These four were apparently hired by 'the unliving woman who has never died, hidden behind the door that doesn't belong.'" "That's the problem with the gods," grumbled the Archmage. "They can't ever bother to be clear; everything's always cloaked in shadows and mystery." "Let's not start this again," grumbled Pinwhistle, apparently not eager to resume an argument that had been going on between the two for years. "Indeed," agreed Greymantle, turning his attention back to his bound captive. "Anything you'd like to tell us?" he asked Barbie. "Anything at all?" The assassin just glared her best glare at him, and said nothing. "I surmised as much," admitted Greymantle, and at a nod to Pinwhistle the massive construct snapped Barbie's neck, leaving her to collapse forward, quite dead. He looked up at Rebecca's squeal of surprise, and scowled at his apprentice. "We've all had a rather unpleasant evening," snapped the Archmage, visibly irritated. "She tortured us and would have killed us without any qualms at all, but for your own intervention; she has earned such a fate for herself by her own actions. But I must say, well done, Rebecca! That was some quick thinking indeed!" Greymantle's apprentice colored visibly at the praise. "And many thanks to you as well!" the Archmage repeated, shaking each of the adventurers' hands in turn. He opened another drawer in his kitchen and pulled out a box of gems, presenting one to each of the heroes. These were [i]ioun stones[/i], and he passed them out in accordance with his own ideas about which would be the most useful based on his deductions about their respective roles as adventurers. "When the [i]Planar Scout[/i] is ready for its first flight, you'll have to accompany us!" As a final reward, Pinwhistle used his additional questions from his divination spells to inquire about the futures of the adventurers. Here's what he came up with:[LIST][*]AERIK: "None need carry an anvil for his whole life; but placing it in the correct spot at the correct time makes for years of harmonious forge work." [*]AKARI: "Remember always that a book by its cover should not be judged, nor the heart of a man by his physical appearance." [*]CAL: "To those subsisting on sips of water, the mere chance for a taste of nectar may be too great a temptation to pass up." [*]CHALKAN: "Beware he who pulls the strings of the Slayer, for he means your death." [*]DELPHYNE: "Coventry has spent far too long in slumber; 'tis time it was awakened." [*]FERON: "Even the fiercest of cats may eventually acknowledge a master – but never two." [*]GALRICH: "No more than a warrior without a blade is a wizard powerless without spells, has he friends to see him through hardship." [*]RALE: "The woman who will one day give you her hand will die before you can put your ring upon it." [*]TELGRANE: "The burning desire in your heart will keep you alive when all seems lost."[/LIST] - - - This whole adventure was an experiment. The bulk of it was spent running the constructs throughout Dan and Vicki's house, which by a fortunate coincidence was the exact same layout of the Greymantle Manor. I had originally written the adventure with five constructs (one each for my four players plus one for Rebecca), when I realized that Joey would expect to have one too. So I hurriedly created another [i]telepresence control rod[/i], the elephant. (I actually built these props, using chopsticks from my local Chinese restaurant, which I poked through 3D octagons I built from cardboard, and upon which I drew the relevant creature's silhouette.) However, when I placed all six rods on the table, everybody just grabbed one and Joey ended up with the viper. We ran the whole adventure with Joey running a character, and it wasn't until the end of the session that I realized Joey had done an excellent job paying attention to what was happening in the game, running his character (even if his character in this session was a plastic snake I bought for a dollar at Wal-Mart). However, it was still kind of early at the end of this adventure, so we started up the next adventure and then I stopped it at an appropriate stopping point. That night, when I sent out my standard XP email, I pointed out how well Joey had played with us, noted that he was now eight years old (the same age Jacob had been when we first started this campaign), and offered to have him create a PC of his own (a real one, not his pretend one, "D. Andy," which was traditionally represented by a Star Wars mini), and have him join the group for good. Dan and Vicki both thought it was a good idea, but asked me to hold off until the completion of the adventure we had just started, since it took place in the Abyss and dealt with a bunch of demons, which they didn't feel was the best setting for Joey to jump into our campaign. But more on Joey's status as a player in a couple more writeups. [/QUOTE]
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