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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6121161" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 66 - YOU BASTARD!</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian</p><p></p><p>Adventures 66 and 67 were written - and played through - concurrently. This one was written pretty much as a standalone solo adventure for Cal; not wanting to have the other players sit around the table watching Dan run his cleric PC on a solo adventure, I wrote a different adventure for their PCs to run through during the same time, and I even had the two mini-adventures occurring at the same time in the game world, because I thought it would be cool if I could arrange for a crossover event between the two adventures. It didn't quite work out that way, but it was still pretty fun.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>A Guild page entered the common area of Wing Three's living quarters and approached Cal. "Guildmaster Farthingale would like a word with you in private," he reported. "He's awaiting you in his office."</p><p></p><p>Cal frowned as he walked down the hallway toward Farthingale's office, recalling that the last time one of the the Wing Three adventurers had been summoned to the Guildmaster's office it had been a trap, with not Farthingale waiting inside but a doppelganger assassin wearing his form. Cal hadn't prayed for his spells yet this morning, but he was a cleric of Kord, Lord of Strength, and he mentally assessed that he could take on a doppelganger by himself, even unarmed and without spells prepared as he was.</p><p></p><p>It turned out his hypothesis would remain untested, for it was indeed the real Guildmaster Farthingale waiting for him, not an impostor. "Well, Cal my boy, you’re quite the celebrity around here, I must say," Farthingale chuckled. "But then, I suppose being involved with the direct manifestation of one of the gods will do that for a fellow, won't it?" He smiled over at Cal.</p><p></p><p>"Well then, to business. As you know, the Adventurers Guild has several investors who have supported us over the years and put in large sums of money to cover some of our operating costs. In return, they occasionally request that we support them in some of their various endeavors – spellcasting, tracking, any of our multiple forms of expertise, really. We have had such a request, from one of our most prestigious – and financially supportive, I might add – investors. He has the need of someone who can cast some of the higher-end divinations, and he has asked for you by name. He's hired on adventurers from your Wing before on two separate occasions, although I don't know that he's ever met you personally. But in any case, that's really all that I know about the specifics of his request. You're to report to his manor, Stanwyck House, for dinner tonight. He's asked that you come alone; apparently the matter you'll be helping him with requires a bit of discretion, and he'd like to keep the number of people 'in the know,' as it were, as low as possible. You're to have as many divination spells ready as possible, which might indicate the nature of the assistance requested.</p><p></p><p>"I don’t need to remind you how important it is to keep backers like Lord Stanwyck happy, Cal. For the good of our Guild, I ask you to do all you can to assist him in his endeavors. Dinner is served at 8 bells, but you're to arrive an hour early for drinks." And with a hearty slap on the side of the arm, Cal was summarily dismissed from the Guildmaster's newly-refurbished office.</p><p></p><p>Cal returned to his own quarters and prepared his spells for the day. Despite Lord Stanwyck's demand that Cal prepare only divination spells, he took the precaution of preparing a few other spells that he felt might be handy in a contingency.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day went rather quickly. Some of the other members of the group received an invitation to meet Rebecca and Delmond for dinner and drinks at the Pit-Fight; that sounded like a lot more fun to Cal than helping Lord Spencer Stanwyck with whatever problem he needed dealing with - and for free, most likely. But Cal kept to the plan, and by seven bells Cal was being ushered into the grand foyer of Stanwyck Manor by the elderly butler, Carstairs. Cal's cloak was taken and hung up in a closet, and then he was led to an elegantly furnished study with a large portrait over the fireplace of a distinguished-looking man with white streaks in his beard and at his temples.</p><p></p><p>"Quite the likeness, don't you think?" asked Lord Stanwyck as he walked into the room and approached a sideboard laid out with brandy glasses and a flask of an expensive vintage. "Brandy?" he offered, pouring one for himself. Cal respectably declined, wanting to keep a clear head, and falling back on his usual instincts of not trusting anybody he didn't have to - especially here in a non-combat encounter, where he didn't have his armor or weapons, nor his most powerful combat spells. If Lord Stanwyck was disappointed, he didn't show it - indeed, he carried on with his conversation, especially as it dealt with his favorite subject: himself.</p><p></p><p>"I had this portrait made by some fancy artist type; there's a copy of it in the Greyhawk Museum of Fine Art. In fact, I hired a few of your Wingmates to get it back for me when it was stolen. Rale was part of that group. He's your ring-partner, isn't he?" Cal confirmed he was.</p><p></p><p>"I like Rale," offered up Lord Stanwyck. "You wanna know why? Because Rale likes money. I can understand that, and I respect that. I've hired him twice, now, you know: once to kill off the group who kidnapped my son, Edmont, and once to get my portrait back. And he came through both times. And you know why? Because I paid him well to do what I wanted him to do for me." Lord Stanwyck nodded to himself as if agreeing with his own deductions.</p><p></p><p>"Now, take your spellcasters," he continued. "You got your sorcerers; they hardly count, because their spells come to them naturally. Being born a sorcerer's no different than being born left-handed, or with red hair, or what-have-you. Total luck of the draw.</p><p></p><p>"Your wizards, though, they gotta figure out spellcasting for themselves. They end up spending their days with their noses buried in spellbooks, working out how to cast those spells that they do. And I gotta respect that, too. I was never one for that sort of thing myself, but I can see they gotta work hard to get their spells. I know all about hard work; it isn't easy keeping one's fortune alive and intact, let alone growing, like I do. Different kind of work, but I understand hard work.</p><p></p><p>"It's you clerics I don't get. Sure, you got your spells, too, but you didn't study hard to figure them out, and they didn't just come naturally to you like it does for sorcerers. You just got down on your knees and begged a god for 'em. Buncha god-beggars, the lot of you. Now, I can see what you're getting out of the deal - spells - but what I don't see is what the gods are getting by throwing a buncha spells your way. Other than you clerics as their puppets, I suppose. I mean, you grovel like that for your spells, you gotta figure that you're bound to do whatever your god tells you to do, or else he pulls the plug on your spellcasting, and then where are you? Nothing more than a common fighter, that's where."</p><p></p><p>Cal kept a lid on the sharp retort that had crept to the tip of his tongue, and answered in a more reasonable tone. "Not at all," he replied evenly. "The relationship between a cleric and his deity is a reciprocal--"</p><p></p><p>"But you're begging for spells, is my point," cut off Lord Stanwyck, and it was only Guildmaster Farthingale's reminder about how much the offensive nobleman aided the Adventurers Guild financially that kept Cal's anger in check. "Perhaps we can put my spells to good use," he suggested. "I believe there was a matter you wanted me to look into...?"</p><p></p><p>"We'll get to that later," shrugged Lord Stanwyck. "After dinner. Now, I understand you actually got to meet your god in person recently. Tell me about that."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, you heard about that?" asked Cal.</p><p></p><p>"I read it in your files," Lord Stanwyck admitted. "One of the perks of throwing money at your Guild is I get to read up on the files they keep on all of you adventuring types."</p><p></p><p>Cal recounted his recent adventure involving the Gauntlet of Kord, which resulted in an avatar of Kord manifesting before the assembled members of the Church of Kord here in the city. Lord Stanwyck seemed fascinated by the fact that Cal had the blood of Kord running in his veins, and asked all kinds of questions about how it felt, if there were any side effects, if there were any physical characteristics beyond an increase in strength and stamina, and so on. The line of questioning continued until Carstairs returned to the study and informed them that dinner was served.</p><p></p><p>Dinner was delicious. The elderly butler brought in several courses of exotic dishes, each more sumptuous than the last. Lord Stanwyck continued with small talk over the course of dinner, until finally, when the last plate was cleared away and Carstairs had retreated from the dining room, he began to get down to business.</p><p></p><p>"Well, I imagine you've been wondering why I asked you here tonight," Lord Spencer said. "I have need of someone with your spellcasting services, and I've been told by your Guildmaster that you can be trusted to be...discrete.</p><p></p><p>"I am close to 60 years of age. My wife died five years ago, when my son Edmont was only two; he died, as you may know, just this past year. Some of your compatriots were involved in the attempt to rescue him from his kidnappers, and while I don’t blame them for his death, the fact remains that he is dead. I have hired numerous clerics to try to revive him, but the stubborn little...well, he refuses to leave the afterlife. I don't suppose there’s any way to force him--? No, I don’t suppose there is; bad idea anyway, never mind.</p><p></p><p>"Anyway, I need an heir, Cal, and I’m too old to start anew with a young wife. However, in my younger days...well, let’s just say there's a good chance that I may have an heir or two running around. At this point, I'd take an illegitimate heir over no heir at all."</p><p></p><p>At this point, Carstairs entered the room with a wooden box and placed it on the table at his master's side. "Thank you, Carstairs, that will be all," Lord Stanwyck said, and waited for the elderly servant to depart. Then, the nobleman got up and opened the lid to the box, pulling out a dirty metal sphere about 3 inches of diameter. "This is all I have left of a woman with whom I once had a dalliance...well," he amended with a smile, "several dalliances, really. She said it belonged to her grandmother. To tell you the truth, I have no idea exactly what it is, but I'm told that if you have something that belongs to the individual you're looking for, it makes scrying on that person that much easier. I was hoping you could scry on the woman – her name was <strong>Angelica</strong> – and see if she has any children. It's possible, just possible, that one of them might be mine." And with this he tossed the sphere over at Cal for him to examine.</p><p></p><p>Actually, it was a bit more than that. Cal instinctive tried to dodge the sphere, which hadn't been tossed for him to catch so much as pitched at him. But hampered by the dining room chair in which he was sitting, pushed up close to the table, Cal was unable to dodge the sphere in time. Lord Stanwyck called out "Bindu!" as the sphere was in midair. Upon striking Cal, it seemed to suddenly explode into entangling strands, which entwined around and around Cal's body, pinning his arms to his sides, his wrists to the chair's armrests, and winding all the way down to his ankles. Cal strained against his bonds to no avail. He tried tapping his Guild ring against a hard surface, to "bink" back to Guild Headquarters, but he didn't have the mobility to do so.</p><p></p><p>So it looked like he was going to have to break his way out. While Lord Stanwyck pulled a thin whistle out of his vest pocket and blew into it - making no sound that Cal could hear - Cal summoned his will for a <em>feat of strength</em>, a part of his heritage as a cleric of Kord. With a sudden surge of power, he strained his muscles against the <em>iron bands of Bilarro</em> which bound him, and actually felt some of the metal strands creak and snap. But he was unable to break completely free; the bands were weakened, but not broken, and the powerful surge of Kordlike strength was leaving his body, its brief moment passed.</p><p></p><p>While he had been straining against his bonds, a drow wizard had <em>teleported</em> directly behind Cal, summoned by Lord Stanwyck's high-pitched whistle. He pulled a small stone from a pouch and set it whirling around Cal's head. Cal recognized it as an <em>ioun stone</em> of some type, but didn't know its exact properties until he tried to talk - and no noise came from his mouth. It was preventing him from speaking, and the bands of steel encompassing his body were preventing him from simply grabbing the circling stone from buzzing around his head.</p><p></p><p>"I'm afraid I've only told you a part of the truth," admitted Lord Stanwyck as the drow grabbed up the back of Cal's chair and started dragging him across the room to a stairwell leading down to a lower level below the mansion. "I do need an heir, that much is true – but I've already found him. Soon after your birth, Cal, I kicked both your worthless mother and you out of my home and into the street where she, at least, belonged. I understand you were given to a cousin of hers to raise, and she later took up with some low-life entertainer or some such.</p><p></p><p>"But getting back to my need for an heir: I have recently been introduced to the advantages of demonic patronage in getting ahead in the world, and the demon my dark-skinned wizard here has summoned has agreed to see to it that I continue to excel in all of my earthly endeavors – provided I sacrifice my own blood to him. As you know, my wretched son Edmont refuses to be budged from his heavenly afterlife, so that, I’m afraid, leaves you in his stead, blood of my blood, and my ticket to a life of undreamt-of wealth and success!"</p><p></p><p>Cal had heard enough. Despite having already used up his burst of enhanced strength, the blood of Kord still ran in his veins, and he gave every effort in breaking the partially-weakened <em>iron bands of Bilarro</em>. With a sudden <em>snap!</em> they burst asunder, and Cal staggered off of the chair he had been bound to to drop to the floor.</p><p></p><p>"Damnit, <strong>Jhondauri</strong>!" called Lord Stanwyck, reaching into a drawer behind him and pulling out a rope. Flinging it at Cal, he cursed, "I told you that iron ball wasn't going to be enough to hold him!" The rope struck Cal and immediately started winding around him, pinning his arms to his shoulders and making its way down his body. In the span of a heartbeat he was bound from chest to ankles by the <em>rope of entanglement</em>.</p><p></p><p>"Apologies, my Lord!" growled the drow, eyes stabbing in Cal's direction. "It was wise of you to have prepared a backup."</p><p></p><p>"I gotta think of everything around here!" groused the nobleman. "Now grab him, before he gets away!"</p><p></p><p>Unable to do much more than hop in his current predicament, Cal dropped to the floor and started rolling. He rolled underneath the dining room table, while the drow tried grabbing him from one side and Lord Stanwyck ran around to the other end to cut him off. In the meantime, Cal did his best to burst the <em>rope of entanglement</em> as he had the <em>iron bands of Bilarro</em>, but this rope had been enhanced with steel fibers, and even Cal's enhanced strength wasn't enough for the task - at least, not at the moment. He had expended a lot of energy in the last few minutes, and needed a breather.</p><p></p><p>Jhondauri grabbed him by his collar and dragged him out from underneath the dining room table. He then began dragging him back toward the set of stairs leading to the level below. Cal conserved his strength, a silent prayer on his lips.</p><p></p><p>The lower level contained a hidden room in which a magic circle had been inscribed on the floor in various colored chalk. Before this was a low table, upon which Cal was unceremoniously plopped. He watched as Lord Stanwyck and his pet drow wizard pulled on matching hooded robes, then Jhondauri began the incantations to a spell while the nobleman busied himself testing the edges of what was clearly a ceremonial dagger - which, no doubt, was to be plunged into Cal's heart at the appropriate time. Cal tried cursing his suddenly-revealed father, but the <em>ioun stone</em> consumed his words.</p><p></p><p>As arcane syllables spilled out of the drow wizard’s mouth, a hulking figure began taking form in the summoning circle. The figure took on the shape of a nalfeshnee demon, a demonic ape/boar hybrid with small wings sprouting from its back. The demon held a large rectangle of dark wood in his hands.</p><p></p><p>"Who summons Grottlepox?" the demon snarled, looking around the room with hate-filled eyes.</p><p></p><p>"I, Jhondauri the Forsaken, in the name of Lord Spencer Stanwyck, do summon thee, Mighty Grottlepox!" intoned the drow. "Lord Stanwyck has agreed to your terms and hereby sacrifices his own flesh and blood to you, to do with as you will in your Abyssal infinity!" With that, Lord Stanwyck raised the ceremonial dagger, ready to plunge it down into Cal's chest, as Cal decided there was no more time for rest breaks and struggled mightily to break his bonds.</p><p></p><p>"Wait!" called out the demon, causing Lord Stanwyck to hold off on making his fatal plunge with the blade. "Am I to believe that this is the son you intend to sacrifice to me?" The demon’s face grew incensed. "I already <em>own</em> this mortal! Are you actually trying to sell my own goods back to me?"</p><p></p><p>Lord Stanwyck and the drow exchanged a worried look, while Grottlepox reached a hand inside the rectangle he carried and pulled out another just like it.</p><p></p><p>"Enough of this insult!" the demon roared, turning the new rectangle to face the astonished trio. Cal could see now that it was a mirror. Grottlepox called out a command word, and all of a sudden a new figure appeared in the summoning circle with him.</p><p></p><p>"What the Hell--?" demanded Galrich, startled to find himself no longer in the alleyway he had occupied a second ago. Looking around in bewilderment, he was even more astonished to find himself standing inside a summoning circle with none other than Grottlepox the Puppeteer, Akari's ancient grandsire. He took a step backwards, readying his greataxe for the attack he knew would be coming next.</p><p></p><p>And it came, all right - but not in the way he had expected. As Cal gave a silent roar of fury and the <em>rope of entanglement</em> finally shredded to fall on either side of the low table, Grottlepox set down his mirrors and reached a hairy hand at Galrich...</p><p></p><p>...who, in stepping back, had put his left foot directly onto the chalk summoning circle that had imprisoned the nalfeshnee, thus breaking the circle...</p><p></p><p>...and pushed him aside, so he could reach out and grab Jhondauri, his massive paw covering the frightened drow wizard's left shoulder, throat, and part of his head. He raised him off of the floor as if he weighed nothing, then spun to face Lord Stanwyck.</p><p></p><p>"Save me!" called out the terrified nobleman, gripping the sacrificial dagger in both hands but too petrified to use it as a weapon. "I'll pay anything!"</p><p></p><p>"I don't think so, 'Dad,'" snarled Cal, tossing the captured <em>ioun stone</em> onto the floor at his feet and stepping out of the way as Grottlepox grabbed up Lord Stanwyck in his other clawed hand. He maneuvered his two captives so he was holding them both by their feet in one massive hand, and held his arm up so they dangled in front of his own hideous face. "I haven't had any new puppets for a while now," he snarled. "I can think of all kinds of ways to have some fun with these two!"</p><p></p><p>Galrich was still trying to figure out just what was going on here, so he fell back to stand beside Cal. "Are we fighting him?" he asked the cleric, puzzled.</p><p></p><p>"Not this time," Cal replied.</p><p></p><p>Grottlepox turned to face the two heroes, as he bent to pick up one of his mirrors. "I think our current business here has been completed," he snarled at the heroes, daring them to argue otherwise. Cal, unarmored, without a weapon at hand, and without most of his combat spells, wasn't ready to take on the nalfeshnee standing before him, even with Galrich at his side.</p><p></p><p>"Agreed," he said, staring up at the hulking demon.</p><p></p><p>"Good!" snorted Grottlepox, giving his two new future puppets a good shake and laughing as they bleated in terror. "Then I will say goodbye for now. Oh, and Galrich?" he asked as an aside.</p><p></p><p>"Huh?" asked the half-orc barbarian, still mentally trying to catch up.</p><p></p><p>"Smile!" said Grottlepox, lifting the mirror up to face Galrich. The barbarian gazed upon his own reflection in the mirror, then caught on too late as he saw the reflection suddenly flinch and try to escape the mirror. His captured reflection had been "used up" in summoning him here to inadvertently aid Grottlepox, and now he had allowed the demon to capture it once again.</p><p></p><p>"I'll be seeing you...." chortled Grottlepox as he disappeared from view, returning to an eternity in the Muckmire Fens to play with his two new screaming toys.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>And that was that. I informed Dan that it would take the authorities time to verify Cal's claims of his actual lineage, but that eventually (say, by the time we were ready to call the end to this campaign), Cal would be legally recognized as Lord Stanwyck's legal heir, and his estate - such as it was - would be Cal's. Sadly, the estate isn't as large as it would have been, for Lord Stanwyck had recently lost a significant chunk of his money on some failed business dealings - not least of which was paying large sums of money to have some of his business rivals "permanently" dealt with by having them slain with <em>assassin's soul daggers</em> and locked up in the Lockpick Dungeons, never to be seen again...until the Wing Three adventurers freed them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6121161, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 66 - YOU BASTARD![/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian[/INDENT] Adventures 66 and 67 were written - and played through - concurrently. This one was written pretty much as a standalone solo adventure for Cal; not wanting to have the other players sit around the table watching Dan run his cleric PC on a solo adventure, I wrote a different adventure for their PCs to run through during the same time, and I even had the two mini-adventures occurring at the same time in the game world, because I thought it would be cool if I could arrange for a crossover event between the two adventures. It didn't quite work out that way, but it was still pretty fun. - - - A Guild page entered the common area of Wing Three's living quarters and approached Cal. "Guildmaster Farthingale would like a word with you in private," he reported. "He's awaiting you in his office." Cal frowned as he walked down the hallway toward Farthingale's office, recalling that the last time one of the the Wing Three adventurers had been summoned to the Guildmaster's office it had been a trap, with not Farthingale waiting inside but a doppelganger assassin wearing his form. Cal hadn't prayed for his spells yet this morning, but he was a cleric of Kord, Lord of Strength, and he mentally assessed that he could take on a doppelganger by himself, even unarmed and without spells prepared as he was. It turned out his hypothesis would remain untested, for it was indeed the real Guildmaster Farthingale waiting for him, not an impostor. "Well, Cal my boy, you’re quite the celebrity around here, I must say," Farthingale chuckled. "But then, I suppose being involved with the direct manifestation of one of the gods will do that for a fellow, won't it?" He smiled over at Cal. "Well then, to business. As you know, the Adventurers Guild has several investors who have supported us over the years and put in large sums of money to cover some of our operating costs. In return, they occasionally request that we support them in some of their various endeavors – spellcasting, tracking, any of our multiple forms of expertise, really. We have had such a request, from one of our most prestigious – and financially supportive, I might add – investors. He has the need of someone who can cast some of the higher-end divinations, and he has asked for you by name. He's hired on adventurers from your Wing before on two separate occasions, although I don't know that he's ever met you personally. But in any case, that's really all that I know about the specifics of his request. You're to report to his manor, Stanwyck House, for dinner tonight. He's asked that you come alone; apparently the matter you'll be helping him with requires a bit of discretion, and he'd like to keep the number of people 'in the know,' as it were, as low as possible. You're to have as many divination spells ready as possible, which might indicate the nature of the assistance requested. "I don’t need to remind you how important it is to keep backers like Lord Stanwyck happy, Cal. For the good of our Guild, I ask you to do all you can to assist him in his endeavors. Dinner is served at 8 bells, but you're to arrive an hour early for drinks." And with a hearty slap on the side of the arm, Cal was summarily dismissed from the Guildmaster's newly-refurbished office. Cal returned to his own quarters and prepared his spells for the day. Despite Lord Stanwyck's demand that Cal prepare only divination spells, he took the precaution of preparing a few other spells that he felt might be handy in a contingency. The rest of the day went rather quickly. Some of the other members of the group received an invitation to meet Rebecca and Delmond for dinner and drinks at the Pit-Fight; that sounded like a lot more fun to Cal than helping Lord Spencer Stanwyck with whatever problem he needed dealing with - and for free, most likely. But Cal kept to the plan, and by seven bells Cal was being ushered into the grand foyer of Stanwyck Manor by the elderly butler, Carstairs. Cal's cloak was taken and hung up in a closet, and then he was led to an elegantly furnished study with a large portrait over the fireplace of a distinguished-looking man with white streaks in his beard and at his temples. "Quite the likeness, don't you think?" asked Lord Stanwyck as he walked into the room and approached a sideboard laid out with brandy glasses and a flask of an expensive vintage. "Brandy?" he offered, pouring one for himself. Cal respectably declined, wanting to keep a clear head, and falling back on his usual instincts of not trusting anybody he didn't have to - especially here in a non-combat encounter, where he didn't have his armor or weapons, nor his most powerful combat spells. If Lord Stanwyck was disappointed, he didn't show it - indeed, he carried on with his conversation, especially as it dealt with his favorite subject: himself. "I had this portrait made by some fancy artist type; there's a copy of it in the Greyhawk Museum of Fine Art. In fact, I hired a few of your Wingmates to get it back for me when it was stolen. Rale was part of that group. He's your ring-partner, isn't he?" Cal confirmed he was. "I like Rale," offered up Lord Stanwyck. "You wanna know why? Because Rale likes money. I can understand that, and I respect that. I've hired him twice, now, you know: once to kill off the group who kidnapped my son, Edmont, and once to get my portrait back. And he came through both times. And you know why? Because I paid him well to do what I wanted him to do for me." Lord Stanwyck nodded to himself as if agreeing with his own deductions. "Now, take your spellcasters," he continued. "You got your sorcerers; they hardly count, because their spells come to them naturally. Being born a sorcerer's no different than being born left-handed, or with red hair, or what-have-you. Total luck of the draw. "Your wizards, though, they gotta figure out spellcasting for themselves. They end up spending their days with their noses buried in spellbooks, working out how to cast those spells that they do. And I gotta respect that, too. I was never one for that sort of thing myself, but I can see they gotta work hard to get their spells. I know all about hard work; it isn't easy keeping one's fortune alive and intact, let alone growing, like I do. Different kind of work, but I understand hard work. "It's you clerics I don't get. Sure, you got your spells, too, but you didn't study hard to figure them out, and they didn't just come naturally to you like it does for sorcerers. You just got down on your knees and begged a god for 'em. Buncha god-beggars, the lot of you. Now, I can see what you're getting out of the deal - spells - but what I don't see is what the gods are getting by throwing a buncha spells your way. Other than you clerics as their puppets, I suppose. I mean, you grovel like that for your spells, you gotta figure that you're bound to do whatever your god tells you to do, or else he pulls the plug on your spellcasting, and then where are you? Nothing more than a common fighter, that's where." Cal kept a lid on the sharp retort that had crept to the tip of his tongue, and answered in a more reasonable tone. "Not at all," he replied evenly. "The relationship between a cleric and his deity is a reciprocal--" "But you're begging for spells, is my point," cut off Lord Stanwyck, and it was only Guildmaster Farthingale's reminder about how much the offensive nobleman aided the Adventurers Guild financially that kept Cal's anger in check. "Perhaps we can put my spells to good use," he suggested. "I believe there was a matter you wanted me to look into...?" "We'll get to that later," shrugged Lord Stanwyck. "After dinner. Now, I understand you actually got to meet your god in person recently. Tell me about that." "Oh, you heard about that?" asked Cal. "I read it in your files," Lord Stanwyck admitted. "One of the perks of throwing money at your Guild is I get to read up on the files they keep on all of you adventuring types." Cal recounted his recent adventure involving the Gauntlet of Kord, which resulted in an avatar of Kord manifesting before the assembled members of the Church of Kord here in the city. Lord Stanwyck seemed fascinated by the fact that Cal had the blood of Kord running in his veins, and asked all kinds of questions about how it felt, if there were any side effects, if there were any physical characteristics beyond an increase in strength and stamina, and so on. The line of questioning continued until Carstairs returned to the study and informed them that dinner was served. Dinner was delicious. The elderly butler brought in several courses of exotic dishes, each more sumptuous than the last. Lord Stanwyck continued with small talk over the course of dinner, until finally, when the last plate was cleared away and Carstairs had retreated from the dining room, he began to get down to business. "Well, I imagine you've been wondering why I asked you here tonight," Lord Spencer said. "I have need of someone with your spellcasting services, and I've been told by your Guildmaster that you can be trusted to be...discrete. "I am close to 60 years of age. My wife died five years ago, when my son Edmont was only two; he died, as you may know, just this past year. Some of your compatriots were involved in the attempt to rescue him from his kidnappers, and while I don’t blame them for his death, the fact remains that he is dead. I have hired numerous clerics to try to revive him, but the stubborn little...well, he refuses to leave the afterlife. I don't suppose there’s any way to force him--? No, I don’t suppose there is; bad idea anyway, never mind. "Anyway, I need an heir, Cal, and I’m too old to start anew with a young wife. However, in my younger days...well, let’s just say there's a good chance that I may have an heir or two running around. At this point, I'd take an illegitimate heir over no heir at all." At this point, Carstairs entered the room with a wooden box and placed it on the table at his master's side. "Thank you, Carstairs, that will be all," Lord Stanwyck said, and waited for the elderly servant to depart. Then, the nobleman got up and opened the lid to the box, pulling out a dirty metal sphere about 3 inches of diameter. "This is all I have left of a woman with whom I once had a dalliance...well," he amended with a smile, "several dalliances, really. She said it belonged to her grandmother. To tell you the truth, I have no idea exactly what it is, but I'm told that if you have something that belongs to the individual you're looking for, it makes scrying on that person that much easier. I was hoping you could scry on the woman – her name was [b]Angelica[/b] – and see if she has any children. It's possible, just possible, that one of them might be mine." And with this he tossed the sphere over at Cal for him to examine. Actually, it was a bit more than that. Cal instinctive tried to dodge the sphere, which hadn't been tossed for him to catch so much as pitched at him. But hampered by the dining room chair in which he was sitting, pushed up close to the table, Cal was unable to dodge the sphere in time. Lord Stanwyck called out "Bindu!" as the sphere was in midair. Upon striking Cal, it seemed to suddenly explode into entangling strands, which entwined around and around Cal's body, pinning his arms to his sides, his wrists to the chair's armrests, and winding all the way down to his ankles. Cal strained against his bonds to no avail. He tried tapping his Guild ring against a hard surface, to "bink" back to Guild Headquarters, but he didn't have the mobility to do so. So it looked like he was going to have to break his way out. While Lord Stanwyck pulled a thin whistle out of his vest pocket and blew into it - making no sound that Cal could hear - Cal summoned his will for a [i]feat of strength[/i], a part of his heritage as a cleric of Kord. With a sudden surge of power, he strained his muscles against the [i]iron bands of Bilarro[/i] which bound him, and actually felt some of the metal strands creak and snap. But he was unable to break completely free; the bands were weakened, but not broken, and the powerful surge of Kordlike strength was leaving his body, its brief moment passed. While he had been straining against his bonds, a drow wizard had [i]teleported[/i] directly behind Cal, summoned by Lord Stanwyck's high-pitched whistle. He pulled a small stone from a pouch and set it whirling around Cal's head. Cal recognized it as an [i]ioun stone[/i] of some type, but didn't know its exact properties until he tried to talk - and no noise came from his mouth. It was preventing him from speaking, and the bands of steel encompassing his body were preventing him from simply grabbing the circling stone from buzzing around his head. "I'm afraid I've only told you a part of the truth," admitted Lord Stanwyck as the drow grabbed up the back of Cal's chair and started dragging him across the room to a stairwell leading down to a lower level below the mansion. "I do need an heir, that much is true – but I've already found him. Soon after your birth, Cal, I kicked both your worthless mother and you out of my home and into the street where she, at least, belonged. I understand you were given to a cousin of hers to raise, and she later took up with some low-life entertainer or some such. "But getting back to my need for an heir: I have recently been introduced to the advantages of demonic patronage in getting ahead in the world, and the demon my dark-skinned wizard here has summoned has agreed to see to it that I continue to excel in all of my earthly endeavors – provided I sacrifice my own blood to him. As you know, my wretched son Edmont refuses to be budged from his heavenly afterlife, so that, I’m afraid, leaves you in his stead, blood of my blood, and my ticket to a life of undreamt-of wealth and success!" Cal had heard enough. Despite having already used up his burst of enhanced strength, the blood of Kord still ran in his veins, and he gave every effort in breaking the partially-weakened [i]iron bands of Bilarro[/i]. With a sudden [i]snap![/i] they burst asunder, and Cal staggered off of the chair he had been bound to to drop to the floor. "Damnit, [b]Jhondauri[/b]!" called Lord Stanwyck, reaching into a drawer behind him and pulling out a rope. Flinging it at Cal, he cursed, "I told you that iron ball wasn't going to be enough to hold him!" The rope struck Cal and immediately started winding around him, pinning his arms to his shoulders and making its way down his body. In the span of a heartbeat he was bound from chest to ankles by the [i]rope of entanglement[/i]. "Apologies, my Lord!" growled the drow, eyes stabbing in Cal's direction. "It was wise of you to have prepared a backup." "I gotta think of everything around here!" groused the nobleman. "Now grab him, before he gets away!" Unable to do much more than hop in his current predicament, Cal dropped to the floor and started rolling. He rolled underneath the dining room table, while the drow tried grabbing him from one side and Lord Stanwyck ran around to the other end to cut him off. In the meantime, Cal did his best to burst the [i]rope of entanglement[/i] as he had the [i]iron bands of Bilarro[/i], but this rope had been enhanced with steel fibers, and even Cal's enhanced strength wasn't enough for the task - at least, not at the moment. He had expended a lot of energy in the last few minutes, and needed a breather. Jhondauri grabbed him by his collar and dragged him out from underneath the dining room table. He then began dragging him back toward the set of stairs leading to the level below. Cal conserved his strength, a silent prayer on his lips. The lower level contained a hidden room in which a magic circle had been inscribed on the floor in various colored chalk. Before this was a low table, upon which Cal was unceremoniously plopped. He watched as Lord Stanwyck and his pet drow wizard pulled on matching hooded robes, then Jhondauri began the incantations to a spell while the nobleman busied himself testing the edges of what was clearly a ceremonial dagger - which, no doubt, was to be plunged into Cal's heart at the appropriate time. Cal tried cursing his suddenly-revealed father, but the [i]ioun stone[/i] consumed his words. As arcane syllables spilled out of the drow wizard’s mouth, a hulking figure began taking form in the summoning circle. The figure took on the shape of a nalfeshnee demon, a demonic ape/boar hybrid with small wings sprouting from its back. The demon held a large rectangle of dark wood in his hands. "Who summons Grottlepox?" the demon snarled, looking around the room with hate-filled eyes. "I, Jhondauri the Forsaken, in the name of Lord Spencer Stanwyck, do summon thee, Mighty Grottlepox!" intoned the drow. "Lord Stanwyck has agreed to your terms and hereby sacrifices his own flesh and blood to you, to do with as you will in your Abyssal infinity!" With that, Lord Stanwyck raised the ceremonial dagger, ready to plunge it down into Cal's chest, as Cal decided there was no more time for rest breaks and struggled mightily to break his bonds. "Wait!" called out the demon, causing Lord Stanwyck to hold off on making his fatal plunge with the blade. "Am I to believe that this is the son you intend to sacrifice to me?" The demon’s face grew incensed. "I already [i]own[/i] this mortal! Are you actually trying to sell my own goods back to me?" Lord Stanwyck and the drow exchanged a worried look, while Grottlepox reached a hand inside the rectangle he carried and pulled out another just like it. "Enough of this insult!" the demon roared, turning the new rectangle to face the astonished trio. Cal could see now that it was a mirror. Grottlepox called out a command word, and all of a sudden a new figure appeared in the summoning circle with him. "What the Hell--?" demanded Galrich, startled to find himself no longer in the alleyway he had occupied a second ago. Looking around in bewilderment, he was even more astonished to find himself standing inside a summoning circle with none other than Grottlepox the Puppeteer, Akari's ancient grandsire. He took a step backwards, readying his greataxe for the attack he knew would be coming next. And it came, all right - but not in the way he had expected. As Cal gave a silent roar of fury and the [i]rope of entanglement[/i] finally shredded to fall on either side of the low table, Grottlepox set down his mirrors and reached a hairy hand at Galrich... ...who, in stepping back, had put his left foot directly onto the chalk summoning circle that had imprisoned the nalfeshnee, thus breaking the circle... ...and pushed him aside, so he could reach out and grab Jhondauri, his massive paw covering the frightened drow wizard's left shoulder, throat, and part of his head. He raised him off of the floor as if he weighed nothing, then spun to face Lord Stanwyck. "Save me!" called out the terrified nobleman, gripping the sacrificial dagger in both hands but too petrified to use it as a weapon. "I'll pay anything!" "I don't think so, 'Dad,'" snarled Cal, tossing the captured [i]ioun stone[/i] onto the floor at his feet and stepping out of the way as Grottlepox grabbed up Lord Stanwyck in his other clawed hand. He maneuvered his two captives so he was holding them both by their feet in one massive hand, and held his arm up so they dangled in front of his own hideous face. "I haven't had any new puppets for a while now," he snarled. "I can think of all kinds of ways to have some fun with these two!" Galrich was still trying to figure out just what was going on here, so he fell back to stand beside Cal. "Are we fighting him?" he asked the cleric, puzzled. "Not this time," Cal replied. Grottlepox turned to face the two heroes, as he bent to pick up one of his mirrors. "I think our current business here has been completed," he snarled at the heroes, daring them to argue otherwise. Cal, unarmored, without a weapon at hand, and without most of his combat spells, wasn't ready to take on the nalfeshnee standing before him, even with Galrich at his side. "Agreed," he said, staring up at the hulking demon. "Good!" snorted Grottlepox, giving his two new future puppets a good shake and laughing as they bleated in terror. "Then I will say goodbye for now. Oh, and Galrich?" he asked as an aside. "Huh?" asked the half-orc barbarian, still mentally trying to catch up. "Smile!" said Grottlepox, lifting the mirror up to face Galrich. The barbarian gazed upon his own reflection in the mirror, then caught on too late as he saw the reflection suddenly flinch and try to escape the mirror. His captured reflection had been "used up" in summoning him here to inadvertently aid Grottlepox, and now he had allowed the demon to capture it once again. "I'll be seeing you...." chortled Grottlepox as he disappeared from view, returning to an eternity in the Muckmire Fens to play with his two new screaming toys. - - - And that was that. I informed Dan that it would take the authorities time to verify Cal's claims of his actual lineage, but that eventually (say, by the time we were ready to call the end to this campaign), Cal would be legally recognized as Lord Stanwyck's legal heir, and his estate - such as it was - would be Cal's. Sadly, the estate isn't as large as it would have been, for Lord Stanwyck had recently lost a significant chunk of his money on some failed business dealings - not least of which was paying large sums of money to have some of his business rivals "permanently" dealt with by having them slain with [i]assassin's soul daggers[/i] and locked up in the Lockpick Dungeons, never to be seen again...until the Wing Three adventurers freed them. [/QUOTE]
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