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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6110153" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 63 - PREEMPTIVE REGICIDE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, tiefling paladin of Hieroneous</p> <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"> Thunderwolf, human fighter</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter</p><p></p><p>A Guild page walked into the Wing Three common area and gestured to Galrich. "The Guildmaster wants to see you, alone," he said.</p><p></p><p>"What for?" asked Galrich.</p><p></p><p>"I have no idea," admitted the page. "But I was sent to fetch you and bring you to his office. And...he looked kind of mad."</p><p></p><p>"I'll be comin' with," said Aerik, jumping up to stand beside Galrich.</p><p></p><p>Galrich puzzled over why Guildmaster Farthingale would be mad at him during their walk to his office. Nothing came immediately to mind. Then he mentally shrugged; he'd find out when he found out.</p><p></p><p>"Step in here," the Guildmaster said sternly when Galrich approached - he'd been standing at the door, waiting for him. "What I have to say to you is for your ears only. If you wish to share it with Aerik after we've spoken, that's your business," he said, scowling in the direction of the dwarven fighter before returning his attention to Galrich. "Have a seat, I'll be right with you," he said brusquely, closing the door on Aerik so they wouldn't be disturbed. Aerik's hands curled into fists, but he accepted this as the Guildmaster's prerogative, and figured his liege would be safe enough in the midst of the Adventurers Guild Headquarters. Still, he vowed to stand guard immediately outside the door until Galrich's business with the Guildmaster was finished.</p><p></p><p>Unseen by Galrich, the Guildmaster slipped a disk out from under his vest and applied it to the door. Pressing it in the middle, he activated a rune, which then glowed slightly.</p><p></p><p>"I have had a serious complaint about you, Galrich, one that paints this entire Guild in a bad light," Farthingale began, his face in a scowl, as he turned to face the seated half-orc. Pulling a folded letter from his vest, he plopped it on his desk in front of the barbarian, then started to pace in agitation. "Go ahead, read the statement for yourself," he said sternly. "I understand that reading is now one of your many abilities."</p><p></p><p>Galrich had indeed been spending much of his free time with Aerik, who had patiently and painstakingly been teaching the illiterate half-orc how to read. Aerik had started his liege with reading and writing the Common tongue, promising him that once he mastered Common, Aerik would teach him to read, write, and speak Dwarven (and then he'd <em>really</em> be civilized!). Galrich looked down at the letter and read it slowly, moving his lips as he puzzled out its contents. He read:Galrich focused on reading the poorly-written note with an intense focus - so intense, in fact, that he failed to notice that Farthingale had stopped his pacing behind Galrich's chair and was standing there, studying him intently. As Galrich continued to read, the portly Guildmaster slowly reached into his vest and pulled out a dagger. It was an ornate-looking dagger, with an oval jewel at the end of its hilt. Having determined the optimal location for a surprise death attack, Farthingale plunged the entirety of the dagger's blade into Galrich's back. The half-orc cried out in alarm and leaped to his feet; Farthingale seemed surprised that the half-orc didn't keel over dead on the spot. Still holding the weapon in his grip, the blade was ripped out of the barbarian's back when Galrich spun around, a look of surprise and fury on his face.</p><p></p><p>Farthingale spat out a few arcane syllables and disappeared from view.</p><p></p><p>Galrich tilted his head, and could hear his would-be assassin breathing. <em>So he's just invisible, he hasn't teleported away,</em> Galrich thought. He glanced around the room for a weapon; seeing none, he improvised. Kicking the chair out of his way, he squatted down and lifted Farthingale's desk up and over his head, figuring he could throw it the length of the room and he'd virtually guarantee striking the untrustworthy Guildmaster, invisible or no.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, it was the fake complaint letter that did him in. Unseen, it had slipped to the floor when Galrich first leapt up in surprise. Unnoticed, he had stepped on it when he lifted up the desk. His foot suddenly slipped out from underneath him, and he fell backwards, the heavy desk collapsing on top of him. Galrich roared in frustration and pain; the invisible Farthingale couldn't help but chuckle softly to himself as he studied his oafish foe to line up another assassination attempt.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, outside in the hallway, Aerik stood quietly on his self-imposed guard duty. The disk Farthingale had slipped onto the door not only activated an <em>arcane lock</em> spell, but a localized <em>silence</em> spell as well, ensuring that any sounds made in the Guildmaster's office wouldn't leave the room.</p><p></p><p>Galrich toppled the desk off of him and stood up, ruining the assassin's plan to stab him in a particularly vulnerable spot. He let his fury guide him (for after all, he had seldom in his life allowed his intelligence to guide him, and it didn't seem like such a great idea to start now), and lifted the desk over his head again for a second attempt. This time he succeeded; throwing the desk the length of the small room hit the invisible Farthingale and sent him toppling; the desk shattered into several pieces as a result. Galrich scooped up a splintered desk leg and wielded it one-handed like a club, sniffing around for his foe.</p><p></p><p>A chunk of desk went sprawling away, and Farthingale popped into view as he tried stabbing his dagger into Galrich's side. The half-orc dodged the blow and sent the desk leg crashing down onto the Guildmaster's head. Farthingale dropped to one knee, and lost concentration enough to drop his disguise as well, for his features started flowing, and his enormous girth started deflating like a balloon losing air. When he stood up again, he no longer looked like Guildmaster Farthingale, but rather like the doppelganger he truly was.</p><p></p><p>The doppelganger assassin struck out at Galrich again with the dagger, but Galrich hadn't given him time to prepare for a death-strike, so although the thrust cut deep and caused another heavily-bleeding wound, Galrich still remained on his feet and fighting. He head-butted the assassin, then stabbed the splintered end of the desk leg through the doppelganger's throat, killing him instantly.</p><p></p><p>Galrich walked calmly to the door and tried to open it. When it resisted, he pulled the disk off the door and flung it aside, then opened the door without a problem.</p><p></p><p>"So how'd it go?" asked Aerik cheerfully, before getting a good look at Galrich's bleeding form and the completely trashed office behind him. "Moradin's beard!" cried the dwarf. "What happened in here?"</p><p></p><p>Galrich sent Aerik to go fetch the others, and the dwarf reluctantly raced off to do as he was bid. Cal was off at his temple, but Aerik brought Feron back to heal his wounded liege, and Akari, Rale, and Thunderwolf accompanied the druid to see what had happened to Galrich.</p><p></p><p>"So...how long has my uncle been a doppelganger?" Thunderwolf wanted to know.</p><p></p><p>"We don't know that anything's happened to your uncle," replied Feron gently. "The doppelganger probably just assumed his form so he could walk around unimpeded. In fact, we should probably go find out where Farthingale is, and if he's all right."</p><p></p><p>"On it," said Rale, ducking back out of Farthingale's office. Akari, in the meantime, examined the doppelganger's body. Besides the ominous-looking dagger, he found a medallion around the creature's neck. Pulling it off, he examined it closely. "Any ideas?" he asked to the group at large.</p><p></p><p>"It's magical," replied Feron, activating a <em>detect magic</em> spell. "Conjuration magic, short-lived. Probably a one-shot teleportation device. And there's something magical on his belt." Tucked inside the doppelganger's belt was a folded-up bag, which quick experimentation proved to be a <em>bag of holding</em>. "So the plan was obviously kill Galrich, stuff his body into the <em>bag of holding</em>, and then use the amulet to teleport to safety. Or maybe to teleport to a specific location, to turn over the body and get paid?" Akari guessed.</p><p></p><p>About this time Rale returned back. "Farthingale's at a meeting this morning with some of the Guild sponsors," he reported. "He's across town, and if he didn't show, you know those noble types would've been over here bitching about him wasting their valuable time by now. I'm sure he's fine," he concluded to a worried-looking Thunderwolf.</p><p></p><p>"There you are!" exclaimed a Guild page, approaching Farthingale's office. He had a dwarf in tow, whom Aerik immediately recognized as a member of the Kordovian militia. "Vandergrotten's escaped from his cell, and we think he's off to kill Lord Galrich to prevent him from taking the throne!" exclaimed the tired-looking dwarf, who had ridden nonstop from Kordovia to Greyhawk City to deliver this message.</p><p></p><p>"How timely," commented Rale.</p><p></p><p>Still, all of the pieces were falling into place, and a plan of action was quickly decided upon. Feron would use her <em>thousand faces</em> druidic power to look like Farthingale, and use the amulet to teleport to wherever it was preprogrammed to take her, presumably to Vandergrotten. She'd have Galrich playing dead inside the <em>bag of holding</em>, but more importantly she'd have the other heroes hidden inside the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em> in the magical bag, and once they'd made their way to Vandergrotten they'd let him know exactly what they thought of his attempt on Galrich's life. It was as good a plan as they were likely to come up with in what they assumed was limited time; Vandergrotten would no doubt expect his doppelganger assassin to slay Galrich and report back immediately. So the group entered the <em>dollhouse</em>, and Galrich held onto it as he climbed inside the <em>bag of holding</em>.</p><p></p><p>"The air's all stuffy in here," complained Galrich.</p><p></p><p>"So hold your breath," suggested Feron, as she morphed her face into the likeness of the Guildmaster. "You won't be in there but a moment." Galrich complied, Feron picked up the magical bag, put the assassin's dagger in her belt, and activated the amulet.</p><p></p><p>She immediately found herself standing before the raised drawbridge of a small keep, with a 10-foot-wide moat separating her from the stone structure. Several armed individuals stood up at the ramparts of the keep, weapons pointed in her direction.</p><p></p><p>"Did you get him?" called down a familiar voice from above; Feron recognized it at once as that of Lord Targus Vandergrotten. In response, Feron dropped the <em>bag of holding</em> at her feet and dragged Galrich's prone form out of the opening. His lower half was still in the bag, and nobody could see that he held the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em> in one hand inside the bag.</p><p></p><p>"I'll send someone down," Vandergrotten called, and in a few minutes the drawbridge started lowering, cresting the moat with a thud. A heavily-armored warrior approached, a cocked crossbow aimed not quite at Feron, but close enough for it to be an unvoiced threat. "Vandergrotten wants the dagger," the warrior said. Without hesistation, Feron handed it over.</p><p></p><p>The warrior turned it over in one hand. "Ain't the gem supposed to be glowing?" he demanded. "I thought Lord Vandergrotten said the gem was supposed to glow when it had a soul imprisoned in it." He raised the crossbow to point at Feron, still wearing the form of Guildmaster Farthingale, the form the assassin had taken to make his attempt on Galrich's life. Feron remained still, saying nothing. "I'm gonna have to have Vandergrotten look at this. You stay right where you are for now." And the warrior backed cautiously away from Feron, the drawbridge starting to raise once he had made it inside the keep.</p><p></p><p>"We're busted!" called out Feron to the others, as she shifted into eagle form and flew inside the keep above the closing drawbridge. Galrich immediately sprang to his feet and raced for the drawbridge, leaping onto the edge as it rose and pulling himself up and over it.</p><p></p><p>Aerik was the first out of the <em>Daern's dollhouse</em>, and he raced after his liege in a doomed attempt to keep up with the headstrong barbarian he was supposed to keep from danger until he assumed the throne of Kordovia. Akari, Rale, and Thunderwolf emerged behind him, to the sudden onslaught of arrows and bolts being fired from above.</p><p></p><p>"It's a trick!" called Vandergrotten from above. "Kill them! A hundred gold to the man who kills that blasted orc!" Sadly for the men up on the ramparts, Galrich was currently shielded from their ranged weapons on the raising drawbridge, and thus their dreams of a sudden bonus were put on hold.</p><p></p><p>Feron resumed her half-elven form once inside the keep and attacked one of two men furiously cranking away at the chains that raised the drawbridge. He turned to face her, and apparently raising the drawbridge was a two-man job, for the second man on the other side of the drawbridge struggled to make progress in vain, for not only was the iron-bound wooden drawbridge heavy, but added to its weight was that of a fully armored half-orc barbarian loaded up with a virtual arsenal of weapons. Despite the second man's best efforts, the drawbridge slowly started lowering again.</p><p></p><p>"You cannot hope to overcome my forces," sneered Vandergrotten from above, "especially when I have allies such as this!" And as he spoke, a Gargantuan blue dragon came flapping from behind the castle, to land on the ground before the drawbridge, smack-dab in the midst of the quartet of heroes there. Akari wasted no time, striking at the dragon with <em>Hoardmaster</em>, but his swings were deftly dodged by the nimble-footed beast. The dragon, it turn, raised its head back and struck down at the paladin with its snapping jaws, but Akari evaded just as deftly and the dragon's teeth snapped together having caught nothing but air. Aerik, seeing his liege was safe on the drawbridge for the moment, raced over to attack the dragon, his dwarven waraxe gleaming.</p><p></p><p>Rale took the opportunity to scurry around behind the dragon, to place himself in a flanking position with Akari, but more importantly to use the massive beast's form as a shield from the arrows and bolts raining down on the heroes from the defenders up on the keep's ramparts. He tried stabbing at the beast's tail with a pair of short swords and missed - it was as if the cursed beast was always a few inches away from where it appeared to be! Thunderwolf fared no better, swinging and missing with Xanthros to the disgust of both.</p><p></p><p>After several minutes of this, during which time none of the quartet of heroes had managed to hit the dragon even once, and it inexplicably had fared no better at its attacks against them, Akari came to a humiliating conclusion: they were wasting their time on an illusion! He called to the others to ignore the dragon and raced over to the drawbridge, which was starting to slowly rise again now that Galrich's bulk was no longer on it. But then Galrich and Feron managed to slay the two men stationed at the drawbridge's cranking mechanisms and the drawbridge slammed back down, much to Vandergrotten's consternation. "Get some men down there!" he commanded. "Get that drawbridge back up! And kill that gods-be-damned orc! I'll deal with the others!"</p><p></p><p>At a mental summons from the spellcaster, a pile of dirt erupted from the ground, and out crawled a buried mechanism. As it reached its full height, the group could see that it was an iron golem juggernaut, much of the same design they had seen "piloted" by Dr. Praetorius's disembodied brain some months before. This one seemed to be fully autonomous, however, although it took commands from Vandergrotten.</p><p></p><p>Feron took a moment between killing the winch-mechanism warrior on the left and readying herself for the wave of soldiers and mercenaries spilling out of one of the low buildings inside the keep to cast a quick summoning spell, targeted outside the keep in the general direction of the iron golem juggernaut Vandergrotten had activated. A Huge earth elemental crawled up out of the ground beside the massive automaton, and the two behemoths started trading blows. It was an easy and effective way of canceling out the threat of the juggernaut, freeing the heroes to concentrate their efforts elsewhere. Aerik, Akari, Rale, and Thunderwolf raced to the now-open drawbridge and scrambled inside the keep, where Feron and Galrich were in the midst of hand-to-hand combat with a handful of soldiers who had apparently been eating in the ground-level kitchen when the keep was attacked. Worse yet, the two squat towers in the corners of the wall that held the drawbridge were apparently where the barracks were lodged, for more soldiers started racing down the stairs and trying to enter the fray from the doors leading out of the towers and into the keep's open grounds. Galrich moved through the combat and took position at one of these doors, slaying anyone who appeared, and Rale and Thunderwolf took the other, doing likewise.</p><p></p><p>Vandergrotten summoned another guardian: at his spoken command, a thick, metal chain popped up out of the depths of the moat and raised up like a snake. It continued rising, higher and higher, as its apparent base unwound from the length of the moat's circumference. By the time it had reached the back of the keep, it towered above its highest ramparts; by the time it had reached the front again its lead end seemed to topple forward onto the ground as if unable to support the weight of its entire length. As the rest of the heavy chains collapsed into a heap, however, the heap started taking on a somewhat humanoid form, and by the time the tail end of the chain had fallen into place a chain golem stood just outside the open drawbridge. It stomped its way forward.</p><p></p><p>The heroes had several reactions to the appearance of this new combatant. Rale fought even fiercer against the foes in the eastern tower, but only so he could actually enter the tower himself and do his fighting inside a room that was hopefully too small for the massive chain golem to enter. He was up against three foes at once - and more where they came from, standing on the stairway ready to attack him when their comrades in front of him fell - but felt much safer indoors fighting a nonmagical threat for once. Thunderwolf, much to Xanthros's disappointment, sheathed his sentient sword and drew his bow, shooting arrows at the chain golem, to little effect. Aerik had fought his way to his liege's side at the western tower's doorway, only to have Galrich tell him to hold off the enemies there while he attacked the chain golem with his own greatsword. Feron saw the opportunity to cause the metal construct some serious harm with a <em>rusting grasp</em> spell, and at Akari's urging - "I've got them!" - she left his side and turned to attack the chain golem, leaving the tiefling paladin to hold off half a dozen soldiers on his own. He probably would have been fine, had one of them not turned and opened the last of the stable's eight doors, releasing Vandergrotten's own personal mount into the fray - a half-dragon manticore, by the look of it.</p><p></p><p>"Tsukitora, I need you!" called out Akari to the heavens, and in a flash his snow-white griffon mount appeared at his side, taking a swipe at the nearest soldier and making his way instinctively towards the draconic manticore.</p><p></p><p>The chain golem, in the meantime, was holding its own. Feron had done it the most damage with her <em>rusting grasp</em> spell, but she just had the one of those prepared and it was fending off most of the other attacks, even those of a magical nature. It, in turn, was doing some serious damage with its pounding fists; had Feron not had a <em>stoneskin</em> spell protecting her, she'd have easily been smashed to a pulp. Galrich had taken a few hits from the massive golem, and only his half-orcish constitution and bullheadedness - and the deep fires of his burning rage - was keeping him in the fight.</p><p></p><p>"We've got to get to Vandergrotten!" called out Akari, leaping onto Tsukitora's back. The two had managed to fight off the soldiers on the ground level and had even slain the draconic manticore. The tiefling paladin steered his mount up into the air, attracting a virtual swarm of arrows from all sides as the defenders on the keep's ramparts all took aim at this new target. Both Akari and his mount took several hits, but the griffon flew unerringly toward the top of the eastern tower, where Vandergrotten could be seen waving his hands around in a complicated spell gesture. Akari leapt from his mount onto the battlements and charged his wizardly foe.</p><p></p><p>An armor-clad fighter stepped into Akari's way, and he took the brunt of Akari's attack instead of the wizard - who, to Akari's surprise, paid no attention at all to the fact that Akari was there to kill him; he continued his spellcasting without even acknowledging the paladin's presence. The reason for this became apparent once Akari had slain the fighter and thrust <em>Hoardmaster</em>'s blade harmlessly through the wizard's midsection. "Another illusion!" cursed the tiefling, as other fighters up on the battlements raced to take him out.</p><p></p><p>Galrich, down below, saw that Akari was hogging all the fun, and raced over to the set of stone stairs leading up to the battlements. On his way there he casually decapitated a mercenary who had just exited the privies, having apparently been otherwise occupied by a specific biological need when the battle suddenly erupted just outside the outhouse. He raced up the steps without any regard to the chain golem still running amok below, or his dwarven bodyguard whom he had once again left behind. Aerik gave a cry of alarm and followed after his liege, leaving the western tower door unguarded. The few remaining mercenaries who had been in the western tower came gratefully spilling out, only to be faced with Thunderwolf, who had realized the futility in fighting the chain golem and had returned to wielding Xanthros against foes he could actually harm. He crossed the open grounds from the eastern tower to the western tower and gave them all a fight they'd remember - for the few seconds of life remaining to them.</p><p></p><p>When Galrich reached the top of the stairs, there were several opponents ready there to fight him off. Feron wildshaped into an eagle again and flew to the top of the battlements at the southwestern tower, resuming her form in time to deal with the rush of combatants guarding that tower's battlements. Aerik raced up the stairs in pursuit of his errant liege, leaving Thunderwolf to finish off the soldiers from the northwestern tower and Rale to finish off those few remaining soldiers from the northeastern tower. Akari battled on above the northeastern tower, drawing several other foes towards him but unable to find the elusive Vandergrotten, while his battle mount landed and tore apart those who would attack Akari from behind.</p><p></p><p>And that left nobody actively battling the chain golem. It demonstrated a surprising ability, firing off its own right hand, which untangled and slammed a fist made of chains into Feron, throwing her forward onto the battlements before it "rewound" the links and reformed its seemingly solid arm. Those mercenaries in Feron's vicinity took the opportunity to fire arrows into the downed druidess, but her <em>stoneskin</em> spell was still intact and it fended off most of the damage from the arrows. Then Feron cast a <em>call lightning storm</em>, the sky turned dark, and bolts of lightning came crashing down upon her enemies. This included the chain golem, until she realized that the power of her electrical spells were being channeled into the chain golem as healing energy, actively repairing it in the process. <em>That's why druids tend to deal with natural enemies</em>, she thought to herself, concentrating on striking down the human warriors before her.</p><p></p><p>Akari realized that Vandergrotten was hiding behind a <em>greater invisibility</em> spell when he was suddenly attacked from the air by a barrage of <em>magic missiles</em> which couldn't have come from anywhere else. "To me, Tsukitora!" he called, and his battle mount flapped over, allowing the tiefling to leap upon its broad back. Akari flew the griffon up into the air above the keep, scanning quickly around for any indication of his foe's location. In his determination to find the invisible wizard, he fell prey to one of the chain golem's long-reaching slam attacks, and he was pitched sideways off of his griffon's back, but his <em>ring of feather falling</em> kept him from falling any great distance, and Tsukitora had the presence of mind to fly back under his slowly-descending rider until Akari was once again in place on the griffon's back.</p><p></p><p>Another blast struck the paladin unerringly, and he let loose with <em>Deathstriker</em>, throwing the enchanted hammer at where he thought Vandergrotten would have to be to have hit him with another <em>magic missile</em> barrage from that angle. He heard a cry of pain that indicated he had thrown with accuracy, but by that time Galrich and Aerik had reached the top of the battlements and were fighting their way to the front of the keep, and Vandergrotten saw, lying unused in the hand of the man he had sent to fetch Galrich's corpse from what he had thought was the doppelganger assassin he had hired, the <em>assassin's soul dagger</em>. Still invisible, he landed on the battlements, took up the blade, and crept towards the hated half-orc who would one day be his king - if he didn't do something to prevent such a vile occurrence from happening.</p><p></p><p>Once again that day, Galrich felt the blade of a dagger piercing his back, and he instinctively whirled around and punched at his assailant. In this case, his instincts steered him right, for before he had time to notice there was nobody there his fist had pounded straight into Vandergrotten's invisible face, breaking his invisible nose and causing him to crumple into an invisible heap on the battlements. It was only when Aerik tripped over his invisible form that they realized what they had done: captured the wizard who had tried to have Galrich slain before he could ascend to the throne of Kordovia.</p><p></p><p>Aerik was assigned the task of keeping the wizard unconscious, a task he promptly devoted himself to with gusto - and the occasional kick to the invisible gut. By that time, the iron juggernaut had been destroyed by the earth elemental Feron had called, and it spent its last few moments on the material plane hammering away at the chain golem. Feron converted another of her prepared spells to calling forth another earth elemental, and together they took care of the iron construct.</p><p></p><p>That left only the clearing up of the remaining mercenaries, all of whom were up on the battlements of the keep, those who had been off-duty having already been slain as they attempted to exit the two front towers. Rale and Thunderwolf, who had attended to that duty, raced across the courtyard and up the stairs to the battlements, but by the time they had gotten there the fighting was all but over. The heroes had to give it to their opponents: they were either fiercely loyal to Lord Vandergrotten, or else realized they faced the death sentence for allying against the future King of Kordovia and figured they had nothing to lose, for they all fought to the death, to the man.</p><p></p><p>In the end, the only one remaining was Lord Targus Vandergrotten himself. He was tightly bound and gagged, while Aerik - the only one of the bunch who was from Kordovia - got his bearings and figured out exactly where they were. He announced that this was the abandoned Old Bailey Keep, apparently having had gone through some recent renovations to make it a hideout for the escaped Lord Vandergrotten. Galrich promised that when he was king, this would be renamed Battershield Keep and presented to his loyal bodyguard for his services. Aerik, for once, was speechless, not knowing what to say.</p><p></p><p>A quick search of the premises found little in the way of treasure, save for additional weapons and armor. Vandergrotten had a small chest under his bed, which yielded a couple hundred gold pieces of emergency funds and an oversized key. The key was magical in nature, and had a series of letters engraved on eight rings along its central shaft; these rings could be rotated to line up the letters in various ways, but nobody could determine its exact use, and at the moment the heroes had other things to deal with.</p><p></p><p>A trussed and badly beaten Vandergrotten was taken to the capitol city and presented to an astonished Lord Hammershard, who was pleased to see that the escaped prisoner had been recaptured. Apparently the doppelganger had been instrumental in Vandergrotten's escape, having impersonated one of the dwarven militia in charge of guarding the prisoner. He had slain another dwarf and freed Vandergrotten, then apparently gone after Galrich in an attempt to slay the future king before he could take the throne. The group could only assume that the dagger, whose gem was apparently supposed to glow once it had slain its victim and imprisoned his soul, would then be hidden away to prevent Galrich from being <em>raised</em> or <em>resurrected</em>. It made perfect sense, in a bloodthirsty way, that Vandergrotten would stoop to such measures, given that the Gods Above had already given their blessing to Kordovia being ruled by the half-orc son of their previous Queen.</p><p></p><p>Vandergrotten was taken immediately before a court of Kordovian nobility, and Lord Hammershard himself pronounced sentence, which was carried out by an eager dwarven militia member glad to double as an executioner. This met with Rale's hearty approval. "This is exactly why you always want to make sure your enemies are <em>dead</em>, not just captured!" he explained to Galrich with a satisfied grin.</p><p></p><p>Galrich couldn't disagree.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>This was a fun adventure. Given that we generally have anywhere from a month to six weeks between gaming sessions, and after having found the abandoned tower I made for "Attempted Repossessions" to have been easy to make, I had come up with the idea to make four such towers, then the walls between, and then the buildings inside that. It took me about four sheets of cardboard from old desk calendars, but I did it. The longest time was spent drawing individual bricks onto each 1" square (I wanted it to be as easy to use as a normal geomorph), which admittedly got to be mind-numbingly dull after awhile. My original plan was to make it all detachable for easy storage, but that proved to be impractical, as the sides fit into the four towers perfectly fine but the top section didn't stay in place as well as I had hoped, and it needed to be glued down. But I kept all of the interior buildings detachable, to I could use the outer keep "shell" as other small castles in the future, replacing the interior buildings (the stables, kitchen building, middens, and well) to make a slightly different configuration.</p><p></p><p>Logan, of course, saw that I was making a scale-model castle in my man-cave, so I did like I always did: I swore him to secrecy. When the time came to go through this adventure, I left the castle in a large bag in the back of my van, along with the strips of "moat" I had cut to size from blue poster board. When the PCs teleported to the keep, I unrolled the full sheet of calendar paper on which I had drawn the outline of the keep, and made a big deal about having left my moat in the van. So I slipped outside quickly, grabbed up the castle and the moat, and left the castle at the top of the stairs out of view from the kitchen, and placed the moat around the geomorph map. Then, as the PCs made their plans, I snuck back to the stairs, grabbed up the castle, and plunked it into place on top of the calendar map, much to their amazement.</p><p></p><p>We had a blast fighting all of those forces at once, and I think I'll have to come up with a way to use that castle again sometime in the future.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and at the beginning, when Galrich was fighting the invisible doppelganger, Jacob asked if he could have his raging barbarian pick up a desk and throw it across the room, figuring it would almost have to hit the assassin, given the relative sizes of the desk (large) and the room (small). I initially applied the standard -4 to hit for an improvised weapon, but then decided that it <em>would</em> be pretty hard for him to miss, so I just spur-of-the-moment ruled that he'd hit with anything but a natural "1." Jacob then proceeded to roll exactly that, leading to Galrich's uncharacteristic pratfall and gusts of laughter from all of the rest of us.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6110153, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 63 - PREEMPTIVE REGICIDE[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, tiefling paladin of Hieroneous Feron Dru, half-elf druid Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian Rale Bodkin, human rogue Thunderwolf, human fighter[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter[/INDENT] A Guild page walked into the Wing Three common area and gestured to Galrich. "The Guildmaster wants to see you, alone," he said. "What for?" asked Galrich. "I have no idea," admitted the page. "But I was sent to fetch you and bring you to his office. And...he looked kind of mad." "I'll be comin' with," said Aerik, jumping up to stand beside Galrich. Galrich puzzled over why Guildmaster Farthingale would be mad at him during their walk to his office. Nothing came immediately to mind. Then he mentally shrugged; he'd find out when he found out. "Step in here," the Guildmaster said sternly when Galrich approached - he'd been standing at the door, waiting for him. "What I have to say to you is for your ears only. If you wish to share it with Aerik after we've spoken, that's your business," he said, scowling in the direction of the dwarven fighter before returning his attention to Galrich. "Have a seat, I'll be right with you," he said brusquely, closing the door on Aerik so they wouldn't be disturbed. Aerik's hands curled into fists, but he accepted this as the Guildmaster's prerogative, and figured his liege would be safe enough in the midst of the Adventurers Guild Headquarters. Still, he vowed to stand guard immediately outside the door until Galrich's business with the Guildmaster was finished. Unseen by Galrich, the Guildmaster slipped a disk out from under his vest and applied it to the door. Pressing it in the middle, he activated a rune, which then glowed slightly. "I have had a serious complaint about you, Galrich, one that paints this entire Guild in a bad light," Farthingale began, his face in a scowl, as he turned to face the seated half-orc. Pulling a folded letter from his vest, he plopped it on his desk in front of the barbarian, then started to pace in agitation. "Go ahead, read the statement for yourself," he said sternly. "I understand that reading is now one of your many abilities." Galrich had indeed been spending much of his free time with Aerik, who had patiently and painstakingly been teaching the illiterate half-orc how to read. Aerik had started his liege with reading and writing the Common tongue, promising him that once he mastered Common, Aerik would teach him to read, write, and speak Dwarven (and then he'd [i]really[/i] be civilized!). Galrich looked down at the letter and read it slowly, moving his lips as he puzzled out its contents. He read:Galrich focused on reading the poorly-written note with an intense focus - so intense, in fact, that he failed to notice that Farthingale had stopped his pacing behind Galrich's chair and was standing there, studying him intently. As Galrich continued to read, the portly Guildmaster slowly reached into his vest and pulled out a dagger. It was an ornate-looking dagger, with an oval jewel at the end of its hilt. Having determined the optimal location for a surprise death attack, Farthingale plunged the entirety of the dagger's blade into Galrich's back. The half-orc cried out in alarm and leaped to his feet; Farthingale seemed surprised that the half-orc didn't keel over dead on the spot. Still holding the weapon in his grip, the blade was ripped out of the barbarian's back when Galrich spun around, a look of surprise and fury on his face. Farthingale spat out a few arcane syllables and disappeared from view. Galrich tilted his head, and could hear his would-be assassin breathing. [i]So he's just invisible, he hasn't teleported away,[/i] Galrich thought. He glanced around the room for a weapon; seeing none, he improvised. Kicking the chair out of his way, he squatted down and lifted Farthingale's desk up and over his head, figuring he could throw it the length of the room and he'd virtually guarantee striking the untrustworthy Guildmaster, invisible or no. Unfortunately, it was the fake complaint letter that did him in. Unseen, it had slipped to the floor when Galrich first leapt up in surprise. Unnoticed, he had stepped on it when he lifted up the desk. His foot suddenly slipped out from underneath him, and he fell backwards, the heavy desk collapsing on top of him. Galrich roared in frustration and pain; the invisible Farthingale couldn't help but chuckle softly to himself as he studied his oafish foe to line up another assassination attempt. Meanwhile, outside in the hallway, Aerik stood quietly on his self-imposed guard duty. The disk Farthingale had slipped onto the door not only activated an [i]arcane lock[/i] spell, but a localized [i]silence[/i] spell as well, ensuring that any sounds made in the Guildmaster's office wouldn't leave the room. Galrich toppled the desk off of him and stood up, ruining the assassin's plan to stab him in a particularly vulnerable spot. He let his fury guide him (for after all, he had seldom in his life allowed his intelligence to guide him, and it didn't seem like such a great idea to start now), and lifted the desk over his head again for a second attempt. This time he succeeded; throwing the desk the length of the small room hit the invisible Farthingale and sent him toppling; the desk shattered into several pieces as a result. Galrich scooped up a splintered desk leg and wielded it one-handed like a club, sniffing around for his foe. A chunk of desk went sprawling away, and Farthingale popped into view as he tried stabbing his dagger into Galrich's side. The half-orc dodged the blow and sent the desk leg crashing down onto the Guildmaster's head. Farthingale dropped to one knee, and lost concentration enough to drop his disguise as well, for his features started flowing, and his enormous girth started deflating like a balloon losing air. When he stood up again, he no longer looked like Guildmaster Farthingale, but rather like the doppelganger he truly was. The doppelganger assassin struck out at Galrich again with the dagger, but Galrich hadn't given him time to prepare for a death-strike, so although the thrust cut deep and caused another heavily-bleeding wound, Galrich still remained on his feet and fighting. He head-butted the assassin, then stabbed the splintered end of the desk leg through the doppelganger's throat, killing him instantly. Galrich walked calmly to the door and tried to open it. When it resisted, he pulled the disk off the door and flung it aside, then opened the door without a problem. "So how'd it go?" asked Aerik cheerfully, before getting a good look at Galrich's bleeding form and the completely trashed office behind him. "Moradin's beard!" cried the dwarf. "What happened in here?" Galrich sent Aerik to go fetch the others, and the dwarf reluctantly raced off to do as he was bid. Cal was off at his temple, but Aerik brought Feron back to heal his wounded liege, and Akari, Rale, and Thunderwolf accompanied the druid to see what had happened to Galrich. "So...how long has my uncle been a doppelganger?" Thunderwolf wanted to know. "We don't know that anything's happened to your uncle," replied Feron gently. "The doppelganger probably just assumed his form so he could walk around unimpeded. In fact, we should probably go find out where Farthingale is, and if he's all right." "On it," said Rale, ducking back out of Farthingale's office. Akari, in the meantime, examined the doppelganger's body. Besides the ominous-looking dagger, he found a medallion around the creature's neck. Pulling it off, he examined it closely. "Any ideas?" he asked to the group at large. "It's magical," replied Feron, activating a [i]detect magic[/i] spell. "Conjuration magic, short-lived. Probably a one-shot teleportation device. And there's something magical on his belt." Tucked inside the doppelganger's belt was a folded-up bag, which quick experimentation proved to be a [i]bag of holding[/i]. "So the plan was obviously kill Galrich, stuff his body into the [i]bag of holding[/i], and then use the amulet to teleport to safety. Or maybe to teleport to a specific location, to turn over the body and get paid?" Akari guessed. About this time Rale returned back. "Farthingale's at a meeting this morning with some of the Guild sponsors," he reported. "He's across town, and if he didn't show, you know those noble types would've been over here bitching about him wasting their valuable time by now. I'm sure he's fine," he concluded to a worried-looking Thunderwolf. "There you are!" exclaimed a Guild page, approaching Farthingale's office. He had a dwarf in tow, whom Aerik immediately recognized as a member of the Kordovian militia. "Vandergrotten's escaped from his cell, and we think he's off to kill Lord Galrich to prevent him from taking the throne!" exclaimed the tired-looking dwarf, who had ridden nonstop from Kordovia to Greyhawk City to deliver this message. "How timely," commented Rale. Still, all of the pieces were falling into place, and a plan of action was quickly decided upon. Feron would use her [i]thousand faces[/i] druidic power to look like Farthingale, and use the amulet to teleport to wherever it was preprogrammed to take her, presumably to Vandergrotten. She'd have Galrich playing dead inside the [i]bag of holding[/i], but more importantly she'd have the other heroes hidden inside the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i] in the magical bag, and once they'd made their way to Vandergrotten they'd let him know exactly what they thought of his attempt on Galrich's life. It was as good a plan as they were likely to come up with in what they assumed was limited time; Vandergrotten would no doubt expect his doppelganger assassin to slay Galrich and report back immediately. So the group entered the [i]dollhouse[/i], and Galrich held onto it as he climbed inside the [i]bag of holding[/i]. "The air's all stuffy in here," complained Galrich. "So hold your breath," suggested Feron, as she morphed her face into the likeness of the Guildmaster. "You won't be in there but a moment." Galrich complied, Feron picked up the magical bag, put the assassin's dagger in her belt, and activated the amulet. She immediately found herself standing before the raised drawbridge of a small keep, with a 10-foot-wide moat separating her from the stone structure. Several armed individuals stood up at the ramparts of the keep, weapons pointed in her direction. "Did you get him?" called down a familiar voice from above; Feron recognized it at once as that of Lord Targus Vandergrotten. In response, Feron dropped the [i]bag of holding[/i] at her feet and dragged Galrich's prone form out of the opening. His lower half was still in the bag, and nobody could see that he held the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i] in one hand inside the bag. "I'll send someone down," Vandergrotten called, and in a few minutes the drawbridge started lowering, cresting the moat with a thud. A heavily-armored warrior approached, a cocked crossbow aimed not quite at Feron, but close enough for it to be an unvoiced threat. "Vandergrotten wants the dagger," the warrior said. Without hesistation, Feron handed it over. The warrior turned it over in one hand. "Ain't the gem supposed to be glowing?" he demanded. "I thought Lord Vandergrotten said the gem was supposed to glow when it had a soul imprisoned in it." He raised the crossbow to point at Feron, still wearing the form of Guildmaster Farthingale, the form the assassin had taken to make his attempt on Galrich's life. Feron remained still, saying nothing. "I'm gonna have to have Vandergrotten look at this. You stay right where you are for now." And the warrior backed cautiously away from Feron, the drawbridge starting to raise once he had made it inside the keep. "We're busted!" called out Feron to the others, as she shifted into eagle form and flew inside the keep above the closing drawbridge. Galrich immediately sprang to his feet and raced for the drawbridge, leaping onto the edge as it rose and pulling himself up and over it. Aerik was the first out of the [i]Daern's dollhouse[/i], and he raced after his liege in a doomed attempt to keep up with the headstrong barbarian he was supposed to keep from danger until he assumed the throne of Kordovia. Akari, Rale, and Thunderwolf emerged behind him, to the sudden onslaught of arrows and bolts being fired from above. "It's a trick!" called Vandergrotten from above. "Kill them! A hundred gold to the man who kills that blasted orc!" Sadly for the men up on the ramparts, Galrich was currently shielded from their ranged weapons on the raising drawbridge, and thus their dreams of a sudden bonus were put on hold. Feron resumed her half-elven form once inside the keep and attacked one of two men furiously cranking away at the chains that raised the drawbridge. He turned to face her, and apparently raising the drawbridge was a two-man job, for the second man on the other side of the drawbridge struggled to make progress in vain, for not only was the iron-bound wooden drawbridge heavy, but added to its weight was that of a fully armored half-orc barbarian loaded up with a virtual arsenal of weapons. Despite the second man's best efforts, the drawbridge slowly started lowering again. "You cannot hope to overcome my forces," sneered Vandergrotten from above, "especially when I have allies such as this!" And as he spoke, a Gargantuan blue dragon came flapping from behind the castle, to land on the ground before the drawbridge, smack-dab in the midst of the quartet of heroes there. Akari wasted no time, striking at the dragon with [i]Hoardmaster[/i], but his swings were deftly dodged by the nimble-footed beast. The dragon, it turn, raised its head back and struck down at the paladin with its snapping jaws, but Akari evaded just as deftly and the dragon's teeth snapped together having caught nothing but air. Aerik, seeing his liege was safe on the drawbridge for the moment, raced over to attack the dragon, his dwarven waraxe gleaming. Rale took the opportunity to scurry around behind the dragon, to place himself in a flanking position with Akari, but more importantly to use the massive beast's form as a shield from the arrows and bolts raining down on the heroes from the defenders up on the keep's ramparts. He tried stabbing at the beast's tail with a pair of short swords and missed - it was as if the cursed beast was always a few inches away from where it appeared to be! Thunderwolf fared no better, swinging and missing with Xanthros to the disgust of both. After several minutes of this, during which time none of the quartet of heroes had managed to hit the dragon even once, and it inexplicably had fared no better at its attacks against them, Akari came to a humiliating conclusion: they were wasting their time on an illusion! He called to the others to ignore the dragon and raced over to the drawbridge, which was starting to slowly rise again now that Galrich's bulk was no longer on it. But then Galrich and Feron managed to slay the two men stationed at the drawbridge's cranking mechanisms and the drawbridge slammed back down, much to Vandergrotten's consternation. "Get some men down there!" he commanded. "Get that drawbridge back up! And kill that gods-be-damned orc! I'll deal with the others!" At a mental summons from the spellcaster, a pile of dirt erupted from the ground, and out crawled a buried mechanism. As it reached its full height, the group could see that it was an iron golem juggernaut, much of the same design they had seen "piloted" by Dr. Praetorius's disembodied brain some months before. This one seemed to be fully autonomous, however, although it took commands from Vandergrotten. Feron took a moment between killing the winch-mechanism warrior on the left and readying herself for the wave of soldiers and mercenaries spilling out of one of the low buildings inside the keep to cast a quick summoning spell, targeted outside the keep in the general direction of the iron golem juggernaut Vandergrotten had activated. A Huge earth elemental crawled up out of the ground beside the massive automaton, and the two behemoths started trading blows. It was an easy and effective way of canceling out the threat of the juggernaut, freeing the heroes to concentrate their efforts elsewhere. Aerik, Akari, Rale, and Thunderwolf raced to the now-open drawbridge and scrambled inside the keep, where Feron and Galrich were in the midst of hand-to-hand combat with a handful of soldiers who had apparently been eating in the ground-level kitchen when the keep was attacked. Worse yet, the two squat towers in the corners of the wall that held the drawbridge were apparently where the barracks were lodged, for more soldiers started racing down the stairs and trying to enter the fray from the doors leading out of the towers and into the keep's open grounds. Galrich moved through the combat and took position at one of these doors, slaying anyone who appeared, and Rale and Thunderwolf took the other, doing likewise. Vandergrotten summoned another guardian: at his spoken command, a thick, metal chain popped up out of the depths of the moat and raised up like a snake. It continued rising, higher and higher, as its apparent base unwound from the length of the moat's circumference. By the time it had reached the back of the keep, it towered above its highest ramparts; by the time it had reached the front again its lead end seemed to topple forward onto the ground as if unable to support the weight of its entire length. As the rest of the heavy chains collapsed into a heap, however, the heap started taking on a somewhat humanoid form, and by the time the tail end of the chain had fallen into place a chain golem stood just outside the open drawbridge. It stomped its way forward. The heroes had several reactions to the appearance of this new combatant. Rale fought even fiercer against the foes in the eastern tower, but only so he could actually enter the tower himself and do his fighting inside a room that was hopefully too small for the massive chain golem to enter. He was up against three foes at once - and more where they came from, standing on the stairway ready to attack him when their comrades in front of him fell - but felt much safer indoors fighting a nonmagical threat for once. Thunderwolf, much to Xanthros's disappointment, sheathed his sentient sword and drew his bow, shooting arrows at the chain golem, to little effect. Aerik had fought his way to his liege's side at the western tower's doorway, only to have Galrich tell him to hold off the enemies there while he attacked the chain golem with his own greatsword. Feron saw the opportunity to cause the metal construct some serious harm with a [i]rusting grasp[/i] spell, and at Akari's urging - "I've got them!" - she left his side and turned to attack the chain golem, leaving the tiefling paladin to hold off half a dozen soldiers on his own. He probably would have been fine, had one of them not turned and opened the last of the stable's eight doors, releasing Vandergrotten's own personal mount into the fray - a half-dragon manticore, by the look of it. "Tsukitora, I need you!" called out Akari to the heavens, and in a flash his snow-white griffon mount appeared at his side, taking a swipe at the nearest soldier and making his way instinctively towards the draconic manticore. The chain golem, in the meantime, was holding its own. Feron had done it the most damage with her [i]rusting grasp[/i] spell, but she just had the one of those prepared and it was fending off most of the other attacks, even those of a magical nature. It, in turn, was doing some serious damage with its pounding fists; had Feron not had a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell protecting her, she'd have easily been smashed to a pulp. Galrich had taken a few hits from the massive golem, and only his half-orcish constitution and bullheadedness - and the deep fires of his burning rage - was keeping him in the fight. "We've got to get to Vandergrotten!" called out Akari, leaping onto Tsukitora's back. The two had managed to fight off the soldiers on the ground level and had even slain the draconic manticore. The tiefling paladin steered his mount up into the air, attracting a virtual swarm of arrows from all sides as the defenders on the keep's ramparts all took aim at this new target. Both Akari and his mount took several hits, but the griffon flew unerringly toward the top of the eastern tower, where Vandergrotten could be seen waving his hands around in a complicated spell gesture. Akari leapt from his mount onto the battlements and charged his wizardly foe. An armor-clad fighter stepped into Akari's way, and he took the brunt of Akari's attack instead of the wizard - who, to Akari's surprise, paid no attention at all to the fact that Akari was there to kill him; he continued his spellcasting without even acknowledging the paladin's presence. The reason for this became apparent once Akari had slain the fighter and thrust [i]Hoardmaster[/i]'s blade harmlessly through the wizard's midsection. "Another illusion!" cursed the tiefling, as other fighters up on the battlements raced to take him out. Galrich, down below, saw that Akari was hogging all the fun, and raced over to the set of stone stairs leading up to the battlements. On his way there he casually decapitated a mercenary who had just exited the privies, having apparently been otherwise occupied by a specific biological need when the battle suddenly erupted just outside the outhouse. He raced up the steps without any regard to the chain golem still running amok below, or his dwarven bodyguard whom he had once again left behind. Aerik gave a cry of alarm and followed after his liege, leaving the western tower door unguarded. The few remaining mercenaries who had been in the western tower came gratefully spilling out, only to be faced with Thunderwolf, who had realized the futility in fighting the chain golem and had returned to wielding Xanthros against foes he could actually harm. He crossed the open grounds from the eastern tower to the western tower and gave them all a fight they'd remember - for the few seconds of life remaining to them. When Galrich reached the top of the stairs, there were several opponents ready there to fight him off. Feron wildshaped into an eagle again and flew to the top of the battlements at the southwestern tower, resuming her form in time to deal with the rush of combatants guarding that tower's battlements. Aerik raced up the stairs in pursuit of his errant liege, leaving Thunderwolf to finish off the soldiers from the northwestern tower and Rale to finish off those few remaining soldiers from the northeastern tower. Akari battled on above the northeastern tower, drawing several other foes towards him but unable to find the elusive Vandergrotten, while his battle mount landed and tore apart those who would attack Akari from behind. And that left nobody actively battling the chain golem. It demonstrated a surprising ability, firing off its own right hand, which untangled and slammed a fist made of chains into Feron, throwing her forward onto the battlements before it "rewound" the links and reformed its seemingly solid arm. Those mercenaries in Feron's vicinity took the opportunity to fire arrows into the downed druidess, but her [i]stoneskin[/i] spell was still intact and it fended off most of the damage from the arrows. Then Feron cast a [i]call lightning storm[/i], the sky turned dark, and bolts of lightning came crashing down upon her enemies. This included the chain golem, until she realized that the power of her electrical spells were being channeled into the chain golem as healing energy, actively repairing it in the process. [i]That's why druids tend to deal with natural enemies[/i], she thought to herself, concentrating on striking down the human warriors before her. Akari realized that Vandergrotten was hiding behind a [i]greater invisibility[/i] spell when he was suddenly attacked from the air by a barrage of [i]magic missiles[/i] which couldn't have come from anywhere else. "To me, Tsukitora!" he called, and his battle mount flapped over, allowing the tiefling to leap upon its broad back. Akari flew the griffon up into the air above the keep, scanning quickly around for any indication of his foe's location. In his determination to find the invisible wizard, he fell prey to one of the chain golem's long-reaching slam attacks, and he was pitched sideways off of his griffon's back, but his [i]ring of feather falling[/i] kept him from falling any great distance, and Tsukitora had the presence of mind to fly back under his slowly-descending rider until Akari was once again in place on the griffon's back. Another blast struck the paladin unerringly, and he let loose with [i]Deathstriker[/i], throwing the enchanted hammer at where he thought Vandergrotten would have to be to have hit him with another [i]magic missile[/i] barrage from that angle. He heard a cry of pain that indicated he had thrown with accuracy, but by that time Galrich and Aerik had reached the top of the battlements and were fighting their way to the front of the keep, and Vandergrotten saw, lying unused in the hand of the man he had sent to fetch Galrich's corpse from what he had thought was the doppelganger assassin he had hired, the [i]assassin's soul dagger[/i]. Still invisible, he landed on the battlements, took up the blade, and crept towards the hated half-orc who would one day be his king - if he didn't do something to prevent such a vile occurrence from happening. Once again that day, Galrich felt the blade of a dagger piercing his back, and he instinctively whirled around and punched at his assailant. In this case, his instincts steered him right, for before he had time to notice there was nobody there his fist had pounded straight into Vandergrotten's invisible face, breaking his invisible nose and causing him to crumple into an invisible heap on the battlements. It was only when Aerik tripped over his invisible form that they realized what they had done: captured the wizard who had tried to have Galrich slain before he could ascend to the throne of Kordovia. Aerik was assigned the task of keeping the wizard unconscious, a task he promptly devoted himself to with gusto - and the occasional kick to the invisible gut. By that time, the iron juggernaut had been destroyed by the earth elemental Feron had called, and it spent its last few moments on the material plane hammering away at the chain golem. Feron converted another of her prepared spells to calling forth another earth elemental, and together they took care of the iron construct. That left only the clearing up of the remaining mercenaries, all of whom were up on the battlements of the keep, those who had been off-duty having already been slain as they attempted to exit the two front towers. Rale and Thunderwolf, who had attended to that duty, raced across the courtyard and up the stairs to the battlements, but by the time they had gotten there the fighting was all but over. The heroes had to give it to their opponents: they were either fiercely loyal to Lord Vandergrotten, or else realized they faced the death sentence for allying against the future King of Kordovia and figured they had nothing to lose, for they all fought to the death, to the man. In the end, the only one remaining was Lord Targus Vandergrotten himself. He was tightly bound and gagged, while Aerik - the only one of the bunch who was from Kordovia - got his bearings and figured out exactly where they were. He announced that this was the abandoned Old Bailey Keep, apparently having had gone through some recent renovations to make it a hideout for the escaped Lord Vandergrotten. Galrich promised that when he was king, this would be renamed Battershield Keep and presented to his loyal bodyguard for his services. Aerik, for once, was speechless, not knowing what to say. A quick search of the premises found little in the way of treasure, save for additional weapons and armor. Vandergrotten had a small chest under his bed, which yielded a couple hundred gold pieces of emergency funds and an oversized key. The key was magical in nature, and had a series of letters engraved on eight rings along its central shaft; these rings could be rotated to line up the letters in various ways, but nobody could determine its exact use, and at the moment the heroes had other things to deal with. A trussed and badly beaten Vandergrotten was taken to the capitol city and presented to an astonished Lord Hammershard, who was pleased to see that the escaped prisoner had been recaptured. Apparently the doppelganger had been instrumental in Vandergrotten's escape, having impersonated one of the dwarven militia in charge of guarding the prisoner. He had slain another dwarf and freed Vandergrotten, then apparently gone after Galrich in an attempt to slay the future king before he could take the throne. The group could only assume that the dagger, whose gem was apparently supposed to glow once it had slain its victim and imprisoned his soul, would then be hidden away to prevent Galrich from being [i]raised[/i] or [i]resurrected[/i]. It made perfect sense, in a bloodthirsty way, that Vandergrotten would stoop to such measures, given that the Gods Above had already given their blessing to Kordovia being ruled by the half-orc son of their previous Queen. Vandergrotten was taken immediately before a court of Kordovian nobility, and Lord Hammershard himself pronounced sentence, which was carried out by an eager dwarven militia member glad to double as an executioner. This met with Rale's hearty approval. "This is exactly why you always want to make sure your enemies are [i]dead[/i], not just captured!" he explained to Galrich with a satisfied grin. Galrich couldn't disagree. - - - This was a fun adventure. Given that we generally have anywhere from a month to six weeks between gaming sessions, and after having found the abandoned tower I made for "Attempted Repossessions" to have been easy to make, I had come up with the idea to make four such towers, then the walls between, and then the buildings inside that. It took me about four sheets of cardboard from old desk calendars, but I did it. The longest time was spent drawing individual bricks onto each 1" square (I wanted it to be as easy to use as a normal geomorph), which admittedly got to be mind-numbingly dull after awhile. My original plan was to make it all detachable for easy storage, but that proved to be impractical, as the sides fit into the four towers perfectly fine but the top section didn't stay in place as well as I had hoped, and it needed to be glued down. But I kept all of the interior buildings detachable, to I could use the outer keep "shell" as other small castles in the future, replacing the interior buildings (the stables, kitchen building, middens, and well) to make a slightly different configuration. Logan, of course, saw that I was making a scale-model castle in my man-cave, so I did like I always did: I swore him to secrecy. When the time came to go through this adventure, I left the castle in a large bag in the back of my van, along with the strips of "moat" I had cut to size from blue poster board. When the PCs teleported to the keep, I unrolled the full sheet of calendar paper on which I had drawn the outline of the keep, and made a big deal about having left my moat in the van. So I slipped outside quickly, grabbed up the castle and the moat, and left the castle at the top of the stairs out of view from the kitchen, and placed the moat around the geomorph map. Then, as the PCs made their plans, I snuck back to the stairs, grabbed up the castle, and plunked it into place on top of the calendar map, much to their amazement. We had a blast fighting all of those forces at once, and I think I'll have to come up with a way to use that castle again sometime in the future. Oh, and at the beginning, when Galrich was fighting the invisible doppelganger, Jacob asked if he could have his raging barbarian pick up a desk and throw it across the room, figuring it would almost have to hit the assassin, given the relative sizes of the desk (large) and the room (small). I initially applied the standard -4 to hit for an improvised weapon, but then decided that it [i]would[/i] be pretty hard for him to miss, so I just spur-of-the-moment ruled that he'd hit with anything but a natural "1." Jacob then proceeded to roll exactly that, leading to Galrich's uncharacteristic pratfall and gusts of laughter from all of the rest of us. [/QUOTE]
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