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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6102968" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 61 - ATTEMPTED REPOSSESSIONS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <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 style="margin-left: 20px"> Telgrane, human conjurer</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thunderwolf, human fighter</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Old Clem, human commoner/expert (fisherman)</p><p></p><p>This adventure was an attempt to tie up multiple loose ends. One one hand, I had Feron Dru walking around with a stone carving of a winged tiger in her <em>Heward's handy haversack</em> that she had apparently forgotten all about - she had found it all the way back in adventure 18, "Rana Mor." At the same time, I had three pieces of the <em>wand of infinity</em> still unassembled (and carried by three different PCs) from adventure 42, "Ex Keraptis Cum Amore," and a lichlike baelnorn who had remanifested since being destroyed who would be determined to get the pieces back (or at least one of them, so that they couldn't all be assembled together). And finally, I had an idea for how to make Chalkan's status as an arcane archer a part of a plotline.</p><p></p><p>"Attempted Repossessions" also marks the beginning of Dan and Vicki's youngest son, Joey, as a full-fledged player in our campaign. By this point he was 8 years old, the same age Jacob had been when we first started this campaign (and, incidentally, the same age Logan had been many years ago when I introduced AD&D 2nd Edition to both him and his then 10-year-old brother, Stuart). Rather than go the same route we had taken with Vicki - namely, put the current roster of PCs on hold and start everybody off at 1st level - we decided to have him roll up a single 8th-level PC and have him run that character exclusively. There were several reasons for this: although he had been playing "pretend D&D" with us for years, we had gradually morphed his "Joey rules" into rules very similar to the actual D&D rules, so he was much more familiar with the game than Vicki was when we introduced her to the campaign. I figured an 8th-level PC run through every adventure would catch up rather quickly in the XP department, and doing so would give him a single PC on which to focus his attention instead of having it split between two alternating PCs like the rest of the players were doing. I went with an 8th-level PC because Joey was 8, and up to this point, whenever he asked what level his "pretend PC" was I always made it the same level as Joey's age.</p><p></p><p>Dan and I decided that a fighter was the way to go for Joey's first PC - it was the easiest class to learn, and the group could always use another front-line fighter. Joey rolled up a PC with his dad's supervision between game sessions, and he decided his PC was a human fighter named <strong>Thunderwolf</strong>. I had come up with an idea as to how to integrate Thunderwolf into Wing Three in such a way as to make it plausible that he'd be adventuring with them every time without being a full-fledged member of the Adventurers Guild. And with that, we were off on Thunderwolf's first adventure.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Guildmaster Farthingale bustled up the stairs to the general living area of Wing Three, a young man in step behind him. "Your attention, please!" he harrumphed at the group talking there. "This is my nephew, Thunderwolf - my sister's kid - and I'd like you to show him the ropes as far as adventuring goes. I expect great things from him in time, and I expect he'll do best under the guidance of one of our most powerful Wings." He turned to Thunderwolf, slapped him heartily on the side of the arm, and said, "You'll do fine. Let me know if you have any problems." And with a nod at the Wing Three members, the Guildmaster turned on his heel and made his way back down the stairs.</p><p></p><p>Feron was the first to greet the newcomer. "Hello," she said, smiling sweetly, and made the introductions. Thunderwolf shook hands with everyone, and even Cal was surprised at the firmness of his grip. He was a fairly fresh-faced youngster, but for all that he seemed to be a seasoned fighter.</p><p></p><p>"Come join us for breakfast," offered Telgrane, ushering the young man into the kitchen. The brief meal was spent talking over past adventures; Thunderwolf had a voracious appetite for stories of derring-do and was clearly excited to be joining a group of such experienced heroes.</p><p></p><p>After the five had finished up their meal, Chalkan scraped together some scrambled eggs and bacon onto an extra plate, gathered up a fork and a hard roll, and called over his shoulder, "I'll be right back - I'm going to bring this down to Old Clem!"</p><p></p><p>Old Clem, if the past was any indication, would be down in the stables attending to the group's horses and various guard animals, just as he did the first thing every morning in the city. Only after he'd seen to the animals' needs did he ever worry about his own breakfast, and it wasn't unusual for Chalkan to beat him to the punch by bringing him down something to eat. As Chalkan entered the stables, however, Old Clem was nowhere to be seen. "Odd," he said aloud to himself - and then he saw the parchment stuck to the door to his own horse's stall by an arrow. Setting down the plate of food and plucking the arrow from the stall door, Chalkan read the words scribed upon the piece of parchment. They were written in Elven in a flowing script, and read:Chalkan raced back up to the others, the plate of food long forgotten.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"Hmm. 'The death arrow's war-song,'" translated Feron upon reading the author's signature. "Somebody's got a rather high opinion of himself." She knew that many elves chose their own names upon reaching adulthood, casting aside the names they had been given at birth.</p><p></p><p>"We've got to rescue Old Clem!" said Chalkan, gathering up his adventuring gear.</p><p></p><p>"We will, without a doubt," agreed Cal calmly. "But we need a plan - we can't just go racing down there all pell-mell. Feron, can you scry on Old Clem?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, but it'll take about an hour to set up and do so," she replied.</p><p></p><p>"An hour?" yelled Chalkan. "We don't have--"</p><p></p><p>"We have plenty of time," interrupted Cal. "The note said for you to meet this guy at noon, and it's only ten miles south of the city. We'll have Feron get her scrying attempt ready, while the rest of us go down to the stables and look around - maybe we can learn something about who took Old Clem that way. Then we can gear up, Feron can see what we'll be facing, and we'll head on out there to the rescue. Okay?"</p><p></p><p>"Okay," Chalkan replied begrudgingly. He was eager to rush to the rescue, but he could see the wisdom in Cal's words.</p><p></p><p>Close examination of the dust in the stables indicated signs of a brief struggle, with up to four assailants - all elves, more than likely, judging by the size of their footprints. There was no blood, so with any luck Old Clem hadn't been actually harmed.</p><p></p><p>When Feron was ready for the scrying attempt, she cast her spell in the small grove behind the Headquarters building, and the other four heroes gathered around her eagerly. The pool of water rippled, and then the group could see Old Clem.</p><p></p><p>He was not looking well. An expression of fear covered his face, and he was lying on what looked to be a large log, his arms extended perpendicular to his body. Ropes secured each wrist to a side-beam of wood jutting out from the larger log. His hands fluttered around, trying to find a way free of the bonds.</p><p></p><p>A voice emanated from the image in the pond; Chalkan and Feron recognized it as "Hold his hand still!" in Elven. A hand pressed down upon Old Clem's fingers, pinning them fast to the wood. And then what was unmistakably Old Clem's voice cried out in pain as an arrow suddenly <em>thunked</em> into place, piercing the center of his palm. Blood pooled in his palm as he screamed to the sounds of elven laughter. Feron turned away at the sound of a second <em>thunk!</em> at his other hand, and the image dissipated.</p><p></p><p>Even Cal's cool demeanor had vanished. "Let's go!" he cried out to the others, racing to the stables.</p><p></p><p>Lacking the ability to <em>teleport</em> directly to Old Clem at the moment, the group saddled up their mounts and headed south out of Greyhawk City. They knew the old abandoned fort that the note referenced, and stopped short a good half mile before the bend in the road that would make the fort - and the beginning of the forest - visible. There, Telgrane cast a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> on the whole group and Feron unpacked the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em>. Cal, Telgrane, Infernia, and Thunderwolf each entered the <em>dollhouse</em>, leading all of the horses in with them, and then Feron replaced it into her <em>Heward's handy haversack</em> and wildshaped into a timber wolf. As Chalkan had left his own timber wolf animal companion, Toronous, behind at the Guild, she would easily be mistaken for Chalkan's pet - or so they hoped. Feron's own animal companion, Felix, flew on ahead and reported back that there were half a dozen hawks circling high above in the sky, directly above the abandoned fort.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan and Feron loped quickly to the bend in the road, and saw the fort ahead of them. It had seen better days, but despite some crumbling stones at its upper level it still seemed safe enough. An elven figure stood atop its battlements, and the crouching shadows of several others up there with him confirmed he was not alone. Oddly, a stout wooden pole was balanced along the top of the fort and projected out into the open air, its bottom sharpened to a blunt point.</p><p></p><p>"Hold it right there!" called down a voice from the top of the fort, in the Elven language. "Place Vlaegoroth's bow, quiver, and bracers on the ground at your feet, and step away!" the voice demanded.</p><p></p><p>"I want to see that Old Clem's still alive!" Chalkan called back, as he slowly placed <em>Rilisivae Athelgala</em> on the ground and made a big - and slow - production out of removing the quiver from his back.</p><p></p><p>The shadowy figure above motioned to the others up there with him, and they hoisted the end of the wooden pole up from the roof. It tipped over the front edge of the fort's roof, its sharpened end finding the pre-dug hole awaiting it on the ground below, and the whole thing tipped upright. Old Clem, crucified by arrows through his palms at the top of the pole, groaned in pain and his head slumped to the side. Almost immediately, two small hawks rose up from beyond the fort’s battlements and perched on either side of Old Clem's wrists, looking down at Chalkan as if in disdain. "He's alive enough!" called down Elandimor.</p><p></p><p>As Chalkan slowly stripped off his <em>bracers of archery</em>, he stealthily looked around at his foes. Besides Elandimor, there looked to be two others on the roof with him, and another two at the arrow slits on either side of the wooden door of the fort, each with bows drawn and an arrow nocked in his direction. He silently passed this information on to Feron through the <em>telepathic bond</em>; the others were currently subsumed into Feron's wolf form inside the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em>, and couldn't communicate with Chalkan and Feron - they'd have to be updated when Feron resumed her normal form.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, the door to the fort opened and an elven woman approached Chalkan. She wore leather armor and carried an elven longbow, with a longsword sheathed at her hip. As she approached, Chalkan could see that she was quite beautiful - and oddly familiar, as if he'd seen her before. She scowled as she approached Chalkan. "No sudden moves," she warned. "Elandimor and the others have got you in their sights, so if you try anyth--oh <em>crap</em>, your name is Chalkan, isn't it?"</p><p></p><p>The sudden question startled Chalkan, who started to ask the elf if she knew him when she interrupted him with another outburst.</p><p></p><p>"Mom is going to <em>freak!</em>"</p><p></p><p>About this time, Feron became aware of a drumming sound coming from the distance. She looked around with her lupine eyesight, but didn't see anything. The sound was just at the edge of her awareness - thump-thump-THUMP-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-thump....</p><p></p><p>The elven woman quickly gathered up her composure. "Okay, quickly here, Chalkan - my name is <strong>Caeline Laniela</strong>, and I'm your older sister. Elandimor is not a big fan of humans or those with human blood, and he's incensed that you've got Vlaegoroth's stuff, which he sees as rightfully his. I don't suppose you'd just let him have that stuff, would you?"</p><p></p><p>"You're my sister?" asked Chalkan, dumbfoundedly.</p><p></p><p>"Focus, kid, focus! And keep it down; I don't want Elandimor finding out! Yes, I'm your sister - well, half-sister, anyway - and I was meaning to come by and visit you and Mom one of these years, but I forgot how fast you half-humans grow. So let's save the catching up for sometime later, when we don't have a bunch of elven rangers ready to poke us full of holes, okay? Now, here's what we're going to do--"</p><p></p><p>Caeline didn't get to finish her thought. The drumming had been growing increasingly louder, and Feron was surprised to see a group of eight dark-skinned drummers suddenly manifest in a ring around her, Chalkan, and Caeline. They were grim-faced, wearing feathers in their hair, war-paint on their faces, and simple loincloths, and pounded on animal-skin drums with their hands: Thump-thump-THUMP-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-thump....</p><p></p><p>Neither Chalkan nor Caeline seemed to notice. When a female suddenly appeared in the midst of these drummers, her face painted into the visage of a skull and a tiger at her side, Feron suddenly realized who she was facing: Saeng Ki, the witch-woman they had encountered in Rana Mor.</p><p></p><p>"Look out!" called Feron, as she shifted back to her own normal form, not wanting to face this new threat while wearing the shape of a timber wolf.</p><p></p><p>The elven rangers who had Chalkan in their sights didn't see the ghostly intruders, but they did see Chalkan's pet wolf suddenly transform into a half-elven woman in dragonhide plate. "Treachery!" cried Elandimor from the fort's roof, and let fly with his arrow. The others followed suit.</p><p></p><p>"Chalkan!" cried Caeline, diving to tackle her little half-brother out of harm's way. She did so, but throwing herself into harm's way like that came at a cost, and the arrows meant for Chalkan suddenly sprouted from her own back - including the pitch-black <em>arrow of elf slaying</em> from Elandimor's bow. A bit of blood trickled from her mouth, and she died with an unimpressive "Crap!" as her final epitaph.</p><p></p><p>Feron, distracted by the ghosts apparently only she could see, took two arrows herself. These came not from the fort in front of her but rather from the trees off to her right; apparently there were two other elven rangers stationed there that they had missed. But she couldn't worry about them now; there were ghosts to fight, and for that she needed Cal! She shrugged the <em>Heward's handy haversack</em> off of her shoulders and dropped it to the ground, where the <em>dollhouse</em> peeked out from the flap. Now that her carried items were no longer subsumed into her lupine form, the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> kicked back in and Feron did her best to catch the others up on the situation.</p><p></p><p>Cal was the first to leap from the <em>dollhouse</em> and regain his normal size. He looked around for the ghosts but saw nothing; puzzled, he turned to Feron with a question on his lips. Feron instinctively grabbed for his shoulder, and upon touching him he too saw the ring of drummers, the witch-woman, and the snarling ghost-tiger. Saeng Ki was raising her arm back, ready to snap a whip at Feron, when Cal blasted her with his holy symbol. She dissipated with an unvoiced scream.</p><p></p><p>Apparently Saeng Ki had been somehow shielding the other ghosts from everyone else's view but Feron's, for all at once the elves and the heroes - some of them just now emerging from the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em> - saw the ring of drummers and the tiger. Elandimor and his archers weren't sure what these newcomers were all about, but he was more concerned with killing Chalkan and his companions and the other archers followed his lead. Feron cast a quick <em>entangle</em> spell at the two archers in the forest, and was pleased to see that that kept them busy enough for her not to have to worry about them for awhile. Then she reached into her <em>haversack</em> and felt the cold stone of the winged tiger statue.</p><p></p><p>Merely touching the statue took Feron to an all-white plane of seeming nothingness. A small speck appeared in the distance, just at it had when she had first found the statue among the ruins of Rana Mor. As the speck got closer, it took on the form of a winged tiger, who padded up to the druid and spoke directly into her mind.</p><p></p><p>"I have waited patiently here for your call, but it has never come," the tiger said without making a sound.</p><p></p><p>"I...had forgotten that I had found you," admitted Feron. "I take it that Saeng Ki was trying to get you back?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes," replied the winged tiger. "As I served her once before, she would have had me serve her once again, to protect the ruins of a city already fallen to rubble."</p><p></p><p>"Will she be back?" asked Feron.</p><p></p><p>"As long as you have not claimed me as your own, she is free to win me back," replied the tiger.</p><p></p><p>"I claim you as my own!" said Feron. "Will that do it?"</p><p></p><p>"Not by itself," said the tiger. "You must do two things: you must give me a name by which you will call me, and you must summon me to the material world, by casting a summoning spell through the statue."</p><p></p><p>"I'll do it!" said Feron. "Now come on -- we've got to get back to the others!"</p><p></p><p>"There is no rush," admonished the tiger, stretching lazily. "This is a realm of the mind; time does not pass here as it does there. But very well, let us go." Feron found herself back in the material world, and sure enough, no time had apparently passed during her conversation with the great beast. She spoke the words to a <em>summon nature's ally V</em> spell, and cast it at the stone statue of the winged tiger. "I call you forth, <strong>Linus</strong>!" she said - and in an instant, the statue was gone, and in its place stood the winged tiger. "I am here to serve, Mistress," Linus spoke telepathically to Feron. "What would you have me do?"</p><p></p><p>"The man up there," she said, pointing up at Old Clem. "Can you free him?"</p><p></p><p>"I can," replied Linus, and spread his striped wings to fly up to the top of the pole.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan, in the meantime, grabbed his bracers back up and slid them on his arms, then wielded Vlaegoroth's <em>whitewood whisper-bow</em> once again, sending a few arrows streaking up at Elandimor. The full-blooded elven arcane archer, in retaliation, set one of his own arrows ablaze and shot it at the base of the pole upon which Old Clem was impaled. The pole must have been coated in oil, for it quickly burst into flames which started eating their way up higher, towards the unconscious hireling.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane cast a <em>stinking cloud</em> spell at the top of the fort, catching all three elves on the roof at once, and then those on the lower floor later when gravity pulled the cloud down to them. It was quite an effective spell, apparently killing Elandimor's two allies on the roof and one of the ground-floor archers; the other one burst out of the door, choking and coughing.</p><p></p><p>Thunderwolf was in combat with the ghost-tiger and doing rather well for himself when another turning attempt by Cal wiped away half of the drummers. At that point, it became apparent to the remaining drummers that their cause was for naught, for Thunderwolf and Infernia soon made quick work of the tiger. The four remaining ghost-drummers stopped their rhythmic drumming all at once, looked at each other in confirmation, and then disappeared in unison, letting themselves slide into the Ethereal Plane and begin their long trek back to the ruins of Rana Mor, their mission - to free the winged tiger statue taken from their ruins - a failure.</p><p></p><p>At about this time, the last combatant entered the fray. Daestas, a baelnorn from the volcanic mountain range weeks to the north, had tracked the members of Wing Three to this area and his recent divinations told him that today - and during this battle - was the most advantageous time to try to steal back one of the pieces of the <em>wand of infinity</em>. It didn't really matter which one he grabbed, as getting away with even one of the three would prevent the dangerous item from being reassembled. Feron had the <em>stone of life</em>, but it was stowed somewhere in her <em>haversack</em>, out of easy reach; Telgrane had the <em>rod of the gods</em>, but he disdained its feeble powers so much that it was buried at the bottom of his own, nonmagical backpack; however, Cal wore his <em>gem of seeing</em> on a chain around his neck, so it looked like that would be the easiest one to grab.</p><p></p><p>Daestas, invisible, walked up behind Cal and cast a <em>hold person</em> on him, expecting to simply grab the gem from around his neck and make his escape. Cal was much more powerful than when the baelnorn had last met him, though, and the cleric easily shrugged off the spell's intended effect. Then he spun around, saw the undead creature reaching out at him, and blasted him with another turning attempt. Power flowed through his holy symbol of Kord, and while Daestas was able to resist the effect, he was out in the open against a group of adventurers much more powerful than he remembered. He didn't last long against the combined might of Cal's mace and Feron's spells, his undead body crumbling to a heap on the ground as his undead spirit raced back to the volcanic mountains, where another body would form soon enough.</p><p></p><p>Linus had ripped out the arrows piercing Old Clem's palms and chewed his way through the ropes binding the elderly hireling's wrists, and grabbed him up by the collar in his teeth and flew him gently to the ground, just as the flames reached the spot where Old Clem's legs had dangled. Elandimor cursed loudly, and whistled for his aerial steed. Above him, one of the circling birds of prey descended; however, while the others were normal hawks, Elandimor's was a giant eagle. It swooped down by the top of the abandoned fort, and the arcane archer leaped onto his broad back. He was willing to admit his failure to gain Vlaegoroth's items for himself, but he was an elf, and there would be other times to gain that which he deserved. The important thing now was to survive to try again later.</p><p></p><p>As Elandimor flew off into the distance upon his giant eagle, Chalkan fired off a few shots in his direction. When they missed, he called out to Telgrane over the <em>telepathic link</em>, and the conjurer obliged his friend by firing a spell at the vanishing arcane archer. The <em>fireball</em> struck Elandimor on the back, and the resulting fiery explosion burned both him and his aerial mount to a crisp. They plummeted to the forest below.</p><p></p><p>The three remaining elves were soon dispatched, especially as two of them were still bound up in Feron's <em>entangle</em> spell and the third was on his hands and knees just outside the fort's ground-level door, choking and wheezing from Telgrane's <em>cloudkill</em> spell. Cal revived Old Clem with a bevy of healing spells, and the cantankerous fisherman sat up and flexed his fingers, amazed at the lack of scars where the arrows had pierced his flesh. "I think we should bring up the matter of hazard pay," suggested Old Clem with a gleam in his eye.</p><p></p><p>Chalkan and Feron tracked Elandimor's remains to ensure he was really dead, then returned and retrieved Caeline's body, placing it reverently into the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em>. Chalkan fully intended to pay to have her restored to life.</p><p></p><p>After all, if he didn't, his mom would <em>freak</em>!</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>And thus, with this adventure, we took care of two of Pinwhistle's divinations. The first was Chalkan's: "Beware he who pulls the strings of the Slayer, for he means your death," in which "the Slayer" was the <em>arrow of elf slaying</em>. The second was Feron's: "Even the fiercest of cats may eventually acknowledge a master – but never two."</p><p></p><p>I made the keep out of cardboard, and used a pencil as the tree trunk that Old Clem was bound to (using a rubber band to hold him in place). The battle map I had prepared had a marking where a hole had been dug in front of the fort, and I had made a "pencil stabilizer" to hold it upright in place when Elandimor and his men tipped Old Clem's tree trunk up off the fort's roof.</p><p></p><p>Joey seemed to enjoy his first adventure, and did a good job keeping track of what was going on. At one point he verbally regretted not having brought his "pretend PC" on this adventure, as that PC had some item drawn on his equipment sheets that Thunderwolf could have used, but he pressed on and did a good job nonetheless.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6102968, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 61 - ATTEMPTED REPOSSESSIONS[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer Feron Dru, half-elf druid Telgrane, human conjurer Thunderwolf, human fighter[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Old Clem, human commoner/expert (fisherman)[/INDENT] This adventure was an attempt to tie up multiple loose ends. One one hand, I had Feron Dru walking around with a stone carving of a winged tiger in her [i]Heward's handy haversack[/i] that she had apparently forgotten all about - she had found it all the way back in adventure 18, "Rana Mor." At the same time, I had three pieces of the [i]wand of infinity[/i] still unassembled (and carried by three different PCs) from adventure 42, "Ex Keraptis Cum Amore," and a lichlike baelnorn who had remanifested since being destroyed who would be determined to get the pieces back (or at least one of them, so that they couldn't all be assembled together). And finally, I had an idea for how to make Chalkan's status as an arcane archer a part of a plotline. "Attempted Repossessions" also marks the beginning of Dan and Vicki's youngest son, Joey, as a full-fledged player in our campaign. By this point he was 8 years old, the same age Jacob had been when we first started this campaign (and, incidentally, the same age Logan had been many years ago when I introduced AD&D 2nd Edition to both him and his then 10-year-old brother, Stuart). Rather than go the same route we had taken with Vicki - namely, put the current roster of PCs on hold and start everybody off at 1st level - we decided to have him roll up a single 8th-level PC and have him run that character exclusively. There were several reasons for this: although he had been playing "pretend D&D" with us for years, we had gradually morphed his "Joey rules" into rules very similar to the actual D&D rules, so he was much more familiar with the game than Vicki was when we introduced her to the campaign. I figured an 8th-level PC run through every adventure would catch up rather quickly in the XP department, and doing so would give him a single PC on which to focus his attention instead of having it split between two alternating PCs like the rest of the players were doing. I went with an 8th-level PC because Joey was 8, and up to this point, whenever he asked what level his "pretend PC" was I always made it the same level as Joey's age. Dan and I decided that a fighter was the way to go for Joey's first PC - it was the easiest class to learn, and the group could always use another front-line fighter. Joey rolled up a PC with his dad's supervision between game sessions, and he decided his PC was a human fighter named [b]Thunderwolf[/b]. I had come up with an idea as to how to integrate Thunderwolf into Wing Three in such a way as to make it plausible that he'd be adventuring with them every time without being a full-fledged member of the Adventurers Guild. And with that, we were off on Thunderwolf's first adventure. - - - Guildmaster Farthingale bustled up the stairs to the general living area of Wing Three, a young man in step behind him. "Your attention, please!" he harrumphed at the group talking there. "This is my nephew, Thunderwolf - my sister's kid - and I'd like you to show him the ropes as far as adventuring goes. I expect great things from him in time, and I expect he'll do best under the guidance of one of our most powerful Wings." He turned to Thunderwolf, slapped him heartily on the side of the arm, and said, "You'll do fine. Let me know if you have any problems." And with a nod at the Wing Three members, the Guildmaster turned on his heel and made his way back down the stairs. Feron was the first to greet the newcomer. "Hello," she said, smiling sweetly, and made the introductions. Thunderwolf shook hands with everyone, and even Cal was surprised at the firmness of his grip. He was a fairly fresh-faced youngster, but for all that he seemed to be a seasoned fighter. "Come join us for breakfast," offered Telgrane, ushering the young man into the kitchen. The brief meal was spent talking over past adventures; Thunderwolf had a voracious appetite for stories of derring-do and was clearly excited to be joining a group of such experienced heroes. After the five had finished up their meal, Chalkan scraped together some scrambled eggs and bacon onto an extra plate, gathered up a fork and a hard roll, and called over his shoulder, "I'll be right back - I'm going to bring this down to Old Clem!" Old Clem, if the past was any indication, would be down in the stables attending to the group's horses and various guard animals, just as he did the first thing every morning in the city. Only after he'd seen to the animals' needs did he ever worry about his own breakfast, and it wasn't unusual for Chalkan to beat him to the punch by bringing him down something to eat. As Chalkan entered the stables, however, Old Clem was nowhere to be seen. "Odd," he said aloud to himself - and then he saw the parchment stuck to the door to his own horse's stall by an arrow. Setting down the plate of food and plucking the arrow from the stall door, Chalkan read the words scribed upon the piece of parchment. They were written in Elven in a flowing script, and read:Chalkan raced back up to the others, the plate of food long forgotten. - - - "Hmm. 'The death arrow's war-song,'" translated Feron upon reading the author's signature. "Somebody's got a rather high opinion of himself." She knew that many elves chose their own names upon reaching adulthood, casting aside the names they had been given at birth. "We've got to rescue Old Clem!" said Chalkan, gathering up his adventuring gear. "We will, without a doubt," agreed Cal calmly. "But we need a plan - we can't just go racing down there all pell-mell. Feron, can you scry on Old Clem?" "Yes, but it'll take about an hour to set up and do so," she replied. "An hour?" yelled Chalkan. "We don't have--" "We have plenty of time," interrupted Cal. "The note said for you to meet this guy at noon, and it's only ten miles south of the city. We'll have Feron get her scrying attempt ready, while the rest of us go down to the stables and look around - maybe we can learn something about who took Old Clem that way. Then we can gear up, Feron can see what we'll be facing, and we'll head on out there to the rescue. Okay?" "Okay," Chalkan replied begrudgingly. He was eager to rush to the rescue, but he could see the wisdom in Cal's words. Close examination of the dust in the stables indicated signs of a brief struggle, with up to four assailants - all elves, more than likely, judging by the size of their footprints. There was no blood, so with any luck Old Clem hadn't been actually harmed. When Feron was ready for the scrying attempt, she cast her spell in the small grove behind the Headquarters building, and the other four heroes gathered around her eagerly. The pool of water rippled, and then the group could see Old Clem. He was not looking well. An expression of fear covered his face, and he was lying on what looked to be a large log, his arms extended perpendicular to his body. Ropes secured each wrist to a side-beam of wood jutting out from the larger log. His hands fluttered around, trying to find a way free of the bonds. A voice emanated from the image in the pond; Chalkan and Feron recognized it as "Hold his hand still!" in Elven. A hand pressed down upon Old Clem's fingers, pinning them fast to the wood. And then what was unmistakably Old Clem's voice cried out in pain as an arrow suddenly [i]thunked[/i] into place, piercing the center of his palm. Blood pooled in his palm as he screamed to the sounds of elven laughter. Feron turned away at the sound of a second [i]thunk![/i] at his other hand, and the image dissipated. Even Cal's cool demeanor had vanished. "Let's go!" he cried out to the others, racing to the stables. Lacking the ability to [i]teleport[/i] directly to Old Clem at the moment, the group saddled up their mounts and headed south out of Greyhawk City. They knew the old abandoned fort that the note referenced, and stopped short a good half mile before the bend in the road that would make the fort - and the beginning of the forest - visible. There, Telgrane cast a [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] on the whole group and Feron unpacked the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i]. Cal, Telgrane, Infernia, and Thunderwolf each entered the [i]dollhouse[/i], leading all of the horses in with them, and then Feron replaced it into her [i]Heward's handy haversack[/i] and wildshaped into a timber wolf. As Chalkan had left his own timber wolf animal companion, Toronous, behind at the Guild, she would easily be mistaken for Chalkan's pet - or so they hoped. Feron's own animal companion, Felix, flew on ahead and reported back that there were half a dozen hawks circling high above in the sky, directly above the abandoned fort. Chalkan and Feron loped quickly to the bend in the road, and saw the fort ahead of them. It had seen better days, but despite some crumbling stones at its upper level it still seemed safe enough. An elven figure stood atop its battlements, and the crouching shadows of several others up there with him confirmed he was not alone. Oddly, a stout wooden pole was balanced along the top of the fort and projected out into the open air, its bottom sharpened to a blunt point. "Hold it right there!" called down a voice from the top of the fort, in the Elven language. "Place Vlaegoroth's bow, quiver, and bracers on the ground at your feet, and step away!" the voice demanded. "I want to see that Old Clem's still alive!" Chalkan called back, as he slowly placed [i]Rilisivae Athelgala[/i] on the ground and made a big - and slow - production out of removing the quiver from his back. The shadowy figure above motioned to the others up there with him, and they hoisted the end of the wooden pole up from the roof. It tipped over the front edge of the fort's roof, its sharpened end finding the pre-dug hole awaiting it on the ground below, and the whole thing tipped upright. Old Clem, crucified by arrows through his palms at the top of the pole, groaned in pain and his head slumped to the side. Almost immediately, two small hawks rose up from beyond the fort’s battlements and perched on either side of Old Clem's wrists, looking down at Chalkan as if in disdain. "He's alive enough!" called down Elandimor. As Chalkan slowly stripped off his [i]bracers of archery[/i], he stealthily looked around at his foes. Besides Elandimor, there looked to be two others on the roof with him, and another two at the arrow slits on either side of the wooden door of the fort, each with bows drawn and an arrow nocked in his direction. He silently passed this information on to Feron through the [i]telepathic bond[/i]; the others were currently subsumed into Feron's wolf form inside the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i], and couldn't communicate with Chalkan and Feron - they'd have to be updated when Feron resumed her normal form. Suddenly, the door to the fort opened and an elven woman approached Chalkan. She wore leather armor and carried an elven longbow, with a longsword sheathed at her hip. As she approached, Chalkan could see that she was quite beautiful - and oddly familiar, as if he'd seen her before. She scowled as she approached Chalkan. "No sudden moves," she warned. "Elandimor and the others have got you in their sights, so if you try anyth--oh [i]crap[/i], your name is Chalkan, isn't it?" The sudden question startled Chalkan, who started to ask the elf if she knew him when she interrupted him with another outburst. "Mom is going to [i]freak![/i]" About this time, Feron became aware of a drumming sound coming from the distance. She looked around with her lupine eyesight, but didn't see anything. The sound was just at the edge of her awareness - thump-thump-THUMP-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-thump.... The elven woman quickly gathered up her composure. "Okay, quickly here, Chalkan - my name is [b]Caeline Laniela[/b], and I'm your older sister. Elandimor is not a big fan of humans or those with human blood, and he's incensed that you've got Vlaegoroth's stuff, which he sees as rightfully his. I don't suppose you'd just let him have that stuff, would you?" "You're my sister?" asked Chalkan, dumbfoundedly. "Focus, kid, focus! And keep it down; I don't want Elandimor finding out! Yes, I'm your sister - well, half-sister, anyway - and I was meaning to come by and visit you and Mom one of these years, but I forgot how fast you half-humans grow. So let's save the catching up for sometime later, when we don't have a bunch of elven rangers ready to poke us full of holes, okay? Now, here's what we're going to do--" Caeline didn't get to finish her thought. The drumming had been growing increasingly louder, and Feron was surprised to see a group of eight dark-skinned drummers suddenly manifest in a ring around her, Chalkan, and Caeline. They were grim-faced, wearing feathers in their hair, war-paint on their faces, and simple loincloths, and pounded on animal-skin drums with their hands: Thump-thump-THUMP-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-thump.... Neither Chalkan nor Caeline seemed to notice. When a female suddenly appeared in the midst of these drummers, her face painted into the visage of a skull and a tiger at her side, Feron suddenly realized who she was facing: Saeng Ki, the witch-woman they had encountered in Rana Mor. "Look out!" called Feron, as she shifted back to her own normal form, not wanting to face this new threat while wearing the shape of a timber wolf. The elven rangers who had Chalkan in their sights didn't see the ghostly intruders, but they did see Chalkan's pet wolf suddenly transform into a half-elven woman in dragonhide plate. "Treachery!" cried Elandimor from the fort's roof, and let fly with his arrow. The others followed suit. "Chalkan!" cried Caeline, diving to tackle her little half-brother out of harm's way. She did so, but throwing herself into harm's way like that came at a cost, and the arrows meant for Chalkan suddenly sprouted from her own back - including the pitch-black [i]arrow of elf slaying[/i] from Elandimor's bow. A bit of blood trickled from her mouth, and she died with an unimpressive "Crap!" as her final epitaph. Feron, distracted by the ghosts apparently only she could see, took two arrows herself. These came not from the fort in front of her but rather from the trees off to her right; apparently there were two other elven rangers stationed there that they had missed. But she couldn't worry about them now; there were ghosts to fight, and for that she needed Cal! She shrugged the [i]Heward's handy haversack[/i] off of her shoulders and dropped it to the ground, where the [i]dollhouse[/i] peeked out from the flap. Now that her carried items were no longer subsumed into her lupine form, the [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] kicked back in and Feron did her best to catch the others up on the situation. Cal was the first to leap from the [i]dollhouse[/i] and regain his normal size. He looked around for the ghosts but saw nothing; puzzled, he turned to Feron with a question on his lips. Feron instinctively grabbed for his shoulder, and upon touching him he too saw the ring of drummers, the witch-woman, and the snarling ghost-tiger. Saeng Ki was raising her arm back, ready to snap a whip at Feron, when Cal blasted her with his holy symbol. She dissipated with an unvoiced scream. Apparently Saeng Ki had been somehow shielding the other ghosts from everyone else's view but Feron's, for all at once the elves and the heroes - some of them just now emerging from the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i] - saw the ring of drummers and the tiger. Elandimor and his archers weren't sure what these newcomers were all about, but he was more concerned with killing Chalkan and his companions and the other archers followed his lead. Feron cast a quick [i]entangle[/i] spell at the two archers in the forest, and was pleased to see that that kept them busy enough for her not to have to worry about them for awhile. Then she reached into her [i]haversack[/i] and felt the cold stone of the winged tiger statue. Merely touching the statue took Feron to an all-white plane of seeming nothingness. A small speck appeared in the distance, just at it had when she had first found the statue among the ruins of Rana Mor. As the speck got closer, it took on the form of a winged tiger, who padded up to the druid and spoke directly into her mind. "I have waited patiently here for your call, but it has never come," the tiger said without making a sound. "I...had forgotten that I had found you," admitted Feron. "I take it that Saeng Ki was trying to get you back?" "Yes," replied the winged tiger. "As I served her once before, she would have had me serve her once again, to protect the ruins of a city already fallen to rubble." "Will she be back?" asked Feron. "As long as you have not claimed me as your own, she is free to win me back," replied the tiger. "I claim you as my own!" said Feron. "Will that do it?" "Not by itself," said the tiger. "You must do two things: you must give me a name by which you will call me, and you must summon me to the material world, by casting a summoning spell through the statue." "I'll do it!" said Feron. "Now come on -- we've got to get back to the others!" "There is no rush," admonished the tiger, stretching lazily. "This is a realm of the mind; time does not pass here as it does there. But very well, let us go." Feron found herself back in the material world, and sure enough, no time had apparently passed during her conversation with the great beast. She spoke the words to a [i]summon nature's ally V[/i] spell, and cast it at the stone statue of the winged tiger. "I call you forth, [b]Linus[/b]!" she said - and in an instant, the statue was gone, and in its place stood the winged tiger. "I am here to serve, Mistress," Linus spoke telepathically to Feron. "What would you have me do?" "The man up there," she said, pointing up at Old Clem. "Can you free him?" "I can," replied Linus, and spread his striped wings to fly up to the top of the pole. Chalkan, in the meantime, grabbed his bracers back up and slid them on his arms, then wielded Vlaegoroth's [i]whitewood whisper-bow[/i] once again, sending a few arrows streaking up at Elandimor. The full-blooded elven arcane archer, in retaliation, set one of his own arrows ablaze and shot it at the base of the pole upon which Old Clem was impaled. The pole must have been coated in oil, for it quickly burst into flames which started eating their way up higher, towards the unconscious hireling. Telgrane cast a [i]stinking cloud[/i] spell at the top of the fort, catching all three elves on the roof at once, and then those on the lower floor later when gravity pulled the cloud down to them. It was quite an effective spell, apparently killing Elandimor's two allies on the roof and one of the ground-floor archers; the other one burst out of the door, choking and coughing. Thunderwolf was in combat with the ghost-tiger and doing rather well for himself when another turning attempt by Cal wiped away half of the drummers. At that point, it became apparent to the remaining drummers that their cause was for naught, for Thunderwolf and Infernia soon made quick work of the tiger. The four remaining ghost-drummers stopped their rhythmic drumming all at once, looked at each other in confirmation, and then disappeared in unison, letting themselves slide into the Ethereal Plane and begin their long trek back to the ruins of Rana Mor, their mission - to free the winged tiger statue taken from their ruins - a failure. At about this time, the last combatant entered the fray. Daestas, a baelnorn from the volcanic mountain range weeks to the north, had tracked the members of Wing Three to this area and his recent divinations told him that today - and during this battle - was the most advantageous time to try to steal back one of the pieces of the [i]wand of infinity[/i]. It didn't really matter which one he grabbed, as getting away with even one of the three would prevent the dangerous item from being reassembled. Feron had the [i]stone of life[/i], but it was stowed somewhere in her [i]haversack[/i], out of easy reach; Telgrane had the [i]rod of the gods[/i], but he disdained its feeble powers so much that it was buried at the bottom of his own, nonmagical backpack; however, Cal wore his [i]gem of seeing[/i] on a chain around his neck, so it looked like that would be the easiest one to grab. Daestas, invisible, walked up behind Cal and cast a [i]hold person[/i] on him, expecting to simply grab the gem from around his neck and make his escape. Cal was much more powerful than when the baelnorn had last met him, though, and the cleric easily shrugged off the spell's intended effect. Then he spun around, saw the undead creature reaching out at him, and blasted him with another turning attempt. Power flowed through his holy symbol of Kord, and while Daestas was able to resist the effect, he was out in the open against a group of adventurers much more powerful than he remembered. He didn't last long against the combined might of Cal's mace and Feron's spells, his undead body crumbling to a heap on the ground as his undead spirit raced back to the volcanic mountains, where another body would form soon enough. Linus had ripped out the arrows piercing Old Clem's palms and chewed his way through the ropes binding the elderly hireling's wrists, and grabbed him up by the collar in his teeth and flew him gently to the ground, just as the flames reached the spot where Old Clem's legs had dangled. Elandimor cursed loudly, and whistled for his aerial steed. Above him, one of the circling birds of prey descended; however, while the others were normal hawks, Elandimor's was a giant eagle. It swooped down by the top of the abandoned fort, and the arcane archer leaped onto his broad back. He was willing to admit his failure to gain Vlaegoroth's items for himself, but he was an elf, and there would be other times to gain that which he deserved. The important thing now was to survive to try again later. As Elandimor flew off into the distance upon his giant eagle, Chalkan fired off a few shots in his direction. When they missed, he called out to Telgrane over the [i]telepathic link[/i], and the conjurer obliged his friend by firing a spell at the vanishing arcane archer. The [i]fireball[/i] struck Elandimor on the back, and the resulting fiery explosion burned both him and his aerial mount to a crisp. They plummeted to the forest below. The three remaining elves were soon dispatched, especially as two of them were still bound up in Feron's [i]entangle[/i] spell and the third was on his hands and knees just outside the fort's ground-level door, choking and wheezing from Telgrane's [i]cloudkill[/i] spell. Cal revived Old Clem with a bevy of healing spells, and the cantankerous fisherman sat up and flexed his fingers, amazed at the lack of scars where the arrows had pierced his flesh. "I think we should bring up the matter of hazard pay," suggested Old Clem with a gleam in his eye. Chalkan and Feron tracked Elandimor's remains to ensure he was really dead, then returned and retrieved Caeline's body, placing it reverently into the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i]. Chalkan fully intended to pay to have her restored to life. After all, if he didn't, his mom would [i]freak[/i]! - - - And thus, with this adventure, we took care of two of Pinwhistle's divinations. The first was Chalkan's: "Beware he who pulls the strings of the Slayer, for he means your death," in which "the Slayer" was the [i]arrow of elf slaying[/i]. The second was Feron's: "Even the fiercest of cats may eventually acknowledge a master – but never two." I made the keep out of cardboard, and used a pencil as the tree trunk that Old Clem was bound to (using a rubber band to hold him in place). The battle map I had prepared had a marking where a hole had been dug in front of the fort, and I had made a "pencil stabilizer" to hold it upright in place when Elandimor and his men tipped Old Clem's tree trunk up off the fort's roof. Joey seemed to enjoy his first adventure, and did a good job keeping track of what was going on. At one point he verbally regretted not having brought his "pretend PC" on this adventure, as that PC had some item drawn on his equipment sheets that Thunderwolf could have used, but he pressed on and did a good job nonetheless. [/QUOTE]
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