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Zerubbabel Jangle's Journal (as of 25 April)
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<blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 2086791" data-attributes="member: 2795"><p><strong>In media res...</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Note: I switched to third person for this because this particular summary was waaaay overdue plus it went out as an email for some electronic role-playing in between game sessions.</em></p><p></p><p>Crickets and cicadas trill in the dark. Moths flit dangerously close to the warm, orange glow of the crackling campfire. The petrified form of Dairy the Elf casts a long shadow across the plain, distorted slightly by some drying laundry draped over her stony arms.</p><p> </p><p>"Well," says Zerubbabel while hooking a thumb back toward the ruined fort, "that didn't go as well as it could have."</p><p> </p><p>After a series of successes, mostly against the forces of Nerull, Zerubbabel and his comrades were suffering from some ill-luck. It all started in that swamp in the Pomarj when most of the rest of the party lapsed into sheer idiocy while trying to bullrush their way into an evil temple. Zerubbabel shuddered at the memory of Daemas webbing him mere feet away from the giant undead crocodile.</p><p> </p><p>The second assault on the temple went much better, mostly because the party decided to actually listen to the one party member with experience in breaking and entering. Zerubbabel led the "stealth team" consisting of himself, Ebon the monk, Cord the fighter, and Glyth the ranger. The rest of the party - Daemas the wizard, Zara the fighter, Mooncrater the cleric, and Shadra the psion - made up the "door-smashing team." Zerubbabel took the lead in moving up the north face of the temple to the pigeon roosts. After disarming a couple of warding glyphs, the stealth team was in place and ready to move. Once the door-smashing team proved good to their name, Ebon and Glyth led the charge from the upper story. Unfortunately, the Nerullites had retreated to the dungeons. There was nothing and no one to slay on the ground floor.</p><p> </p><p>The descent into the dungeon proved complicated by the narrow corridor and the large size of the party. A cul-de-sac adjoining the hallway proved full of ghouls, but the divine power of Garl - channeled by Zerubbabel - and Correlon the Dainty Deity - channeled by Moonface - put those undead monsters to rout. Shadra and Daemas then destroyed with psionic and arcane energies. Unfortunately, for reasons still not known, during the confusion and noise of the confrontation, Cord retreated from the temple and vanished into the wilderness.</p><p> </p><p>Nevertheless, the party pushed onward, defeating several wights, a few ghasts, a wicked fighter (who had previously been under Shadra's mental domination), and the Nerullite cleric leader of the temple. Zerubbabel himself dispatched the cleric, feinting low with a rapier thrust followed up with a rising jab that pierced through the cleric's throat and up into his brain. After thoroughly searching the temple, the party discovered correspondence outlining several evil schemes, including vague information about spies in Gyrax as well as a possible assassination attempt against a diplomat from Celene.</p><p> </p><p>That very next night, as the party travailed toward civilization, Zara received the first of several mystical messages from other Nerullites. At first, the forces of evil offered to purchase the seized correspondence from the party. Although Zerubbabel was in favor of trying to double-cross the Nerullites, making off with both the pay-off and the documents, the rest of the party felt it more prudent to just keep quiet and get the information to the proper authorities. As the days passed, the party was frequently scryed, always focused on Zara. It was wondered aloud if perhaps Cord had betrayed the group the Nerullites, whether of his own free will or perhaps after being captured and tortured, but no answers about this have been found.</p><p> </p><p>The reward for the documents was sufficient for the party to purchase teleports to Greyhawk City, where Daemas wanted to return in order to hand over a mysterious orb and pedestal taken from the Nerullites. According to Daemas, this orb allows its holder to communicate with Victor, a fallen paladin of Pelor who resides on some lower plane. Why the officials of the Great Library of Greyhawk, with whom Daemas is affiliated, wanted the orb is unknown. One thing of which Zerubbabel is convinced is this: The orb is evil, and the party is better off without it.</p><p> </p><p>For some reason, Daemas wasn't entirely forthcoming about why he wanted the orb. Perhaps this too was a subtle effect of the orb's evilness. In any event, when Daemas revealed that he was turning the orb over to the Library, Ebon, normally silent, became vocal and belligerent. He accused Daemas of trying to rob the party of its hard-won treasure. The monk and the wizard very nearly came to blows over the orb's disposition. This too is surely the result of some sort of malign influence. Is it too much to think that an orb, connected to a lower plane, desired by Nerullites, would exert subtle but destructive influences over those in close proximity to it? And, if so, for how long would those influences last even after the orb had been handed over to the Library?</p><p> </p><p>In any event, the stay in Greyhawk was rather brief and somewhat uneventful. Zara was sequestered in order to prevent the Nerullites from scrying her, but this later proved unnecessary when the Nerullites started scrying on Zerubbabel as well. The party did learn of the possible location for the Nerullites main temple, near the war-torn city of Fax. Due to Zerubbabel's injudicious bragging about how well the party had done in its adventures, the group was also beseiged by would-be adventurers looking for a place in the group. This is how the party met up with Dairy the Elf, who turned out to be a friend of Daemas, as well as acquired the services of Frank Grimshanks, a human fighter of some skill. Zerubbabel's theory about the orb and its lingering, malign influence played out with the introduction of Dairy the Elf. Ebon's largely unjustified suspicion and hostility toward Daemas transferred to Dairy as well. While Dairy was admitted to the party, her reception was less than friendly.</p><p> </p><p>With nothing more to do in Greyhawk City, the party found work aboard a southbound barge heading to Hardby. The river trip was uneventful, even peaceful, except for a few more instances of scrying from the Nerullites, including one magical attack that caused Zara to have horrifying nightmares. Zerubbabel was also subjected to this magical attack, but his will proved too strong. In Hardby, the party reprovisioned, and then caught a ferry heading across the river to the northernmost Wild Coast. It was then a short trip down to Safeton.</p><p> </p><p>Which brought the party to the ruined fort mentioned above.</p><p> </p><p>Locals in Safeton complained of strange lights and noises at night coming from the ruin. The party decided to head there in order to determine what if any threat was afoot. Along the way, they were attacked by orc and troll raiders. While Shadra and Ebon were seriously injured in the ensuing battle, the party managed to defeat these monsters. They arrived at the ruined fort the next day. Since Dairy the Elf bragged of her skills as a scout, she left the party behind and went forward to investigate on her own. This proved to be a mistake.</p><p> </p><p>Several minutes later, Dairy returned at speed after having been attacked and very nearly killed by some sort of strange plant monster. Magical healing was applied, and the party proceeded to the ruins as a group. Slowly, cautiously, they stalked to where the plant monster attacked Dairy, and then engaged the creature in fearsome battle. Frank was seriously injured in the ensuing battle, for the plant creature snatched him up in powerful coils of roots and very nearly squeezed the life out of him. Nevertheless, the plant monster was defeated, and more magical healing applied.</p><p> </p><p>More careful exploration turned out to be not as careful as necessary, for the party later found itself in a terrible battle against two more plant monsters - called "shambling mounds" according to Daemas - as well as a medusa sorcerer! Dairy met the medusa's fell gaze, which explains her current state as statue and clothes-line. Ebon managed to stun the medusa with a deft open hand attack, leaving the monster quite vulnerable to Zerubbabel's rapier. As the medusa fell, Ebon rushed to fight the three shambling mounds that were savaging the rest of the party. By the time the shambling mounds were slain, Moonshine and Zara were very nearly killed (saved only by Zerubbabel's skills as a field medic), and Ebon and Frank were both seriously injured. The party retreated, dragging Dairy along.</p><p> </p><p>Which brings the story back to its starting point around the campfire.</p><p> </p><p>"I cannot shake the feeling that we are doomed," Zerubbabel goes on. "We know that the Nerullites have hired assassins to kill us. When they'll strike is anyone's guess. My brother Mupp has left us, and Garl only knows what has become of him. Cord has vanished, and I believe has betrayed us for one reason or another. Dairy is dead. Glyth has taken leave of us, remaining in Safeton, and who knows if he'll rejoin us. I also believe Nerull's hand moves against us, and that that orb has had some further sort of baleful effect on us. Ebon is talking. Shadra has grown increasingly aloof, almost as if she is sleep-walking sometimes. We've almost been at each other's throats. Worst of all, we've taken to running our merry little band by committee, voting on this and that. Everyone, it seems, is trying to be the leader, and no one the follower, and that is not a good way to do things. Like it or not, our actions against Nerull have earned us some persistent and powerful enemies. We are at war, and wars are not won by committees."</p><p> </p><p>The gnome thief pokes a stick into the fire.</p><p> </p><p>"We need a leader. Someone who has demonstrated a willingness to get dirty hands, to get into the thick of things for others. It also needs to be someone who can be trusted, which obviously rules me out. I also think this rules out both Ebon and Daemas, for I believe they have been most affected by whatever dark powers conspire against us. Frank, while brave, is too new to our group. Shadra is too uninvolved, or so it seems. Dairy is dead, and, it must be said, apparently not as competent as she advertised. Zara, as much as I love her, is too unpredictable, lest we forget the incident with the sickle and the throat. By process of elimination, this leaves us with Marek." The fact that for the first time ever Zerubbabel addresses the elven cleric by his correct name is not unnoticed. "While I'm an unreliable soldier, Marek, I'd follow you as my captain. What say the rest of you?"</p><p> </p><p>As he waits for responses, Zerubbabel tosses pebbles at Dairy, enjoying the sharp sound of rock clicking against petrified elf.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mark Chance, post: 2086791, member: 2795"] [b]In media res...[/b] [i]Note: I switched to third person for this because this particular summary was waaaay overdue plus it went out as an email for some electronic role-playing in between game sessions.[/i] Crickets and cicadas trill in the dark. Moths flit dangerously close to the warm, orange glow of the crackling campfire. The petrified form of Dairy the Elf casts a long shadow across the plain, distorted slightly by some drying laundry draped over her stony arms. "Well," says Zerubbabel while hooking a thumb back toward the ruined fort, "that didn't go as well as it could have." After a series of successes, mostly against the forces of Nerull, Zerubbabel and his comrades were suffering from some ill-luck. It all started in that swamp in the Pomarj when most of the rest of the party lapsed into sheer idiocy while trying to bullrush their way into an evil temple. Zerubbabel shuddered at the memory of Daemas webbing him mere feet away from the giant undead crocodile. The second assault on the temple went much better, mostly because the party decided to actually listen to the one party member with experience in breaking and entering. Zerubbabel led the "stealth team" consisting of himself, Ebon the monk, Cord the fighter, and Glyth the ranger. The rest of the party - Daemas the wizard, Zara the fighter, Mooncrater the cleric, and Shadra the psion - made up the "door-smashing team." Zerubbabel took the lead in moving up the north face of the temple to the pigeon roosts. After disarming a couple of warding glyphs, the stealth team was in place and ready to move. Once the door-smashing team proved good to their name, Ebon and Glyth led the charge from the upper story. Unfortunately, the Nerullites had retreated to the dungeons. There was nothing and no one to slay on the ground floor. The descent into the dungeon proved complicated by the narrow corridor and the large size of the party. A cul-de-sac adjoining the hallway proved full of ghouls, but the divine power of Garl - channeled by Zerubbabel - and Correlon the Dainty Deity - channeled by Moonface - put those undead monsters to rout. Shadra and Daemas then destroyed with psionic and arcane energies. Unfortunately, for reasons still not known, during the confusion and noise of the confrontation, Cord retreated from the temple and vanished into the wilderness. Nevertheless, the party pushed onward, defeating several wights, a few ghasts, a wicked fighter (who had previously been under Shadra's mental domination), and the Nerullite cleric leader of the temple. Zerubbabel himself dispatched the cleric, feinting low with a rapier thrust followed up with a rising jab that pierced through the cleric's throat and up into his brain. After thoroughly searching the temple, the party discovered correspondence outlining several evil schemes, including vague information about spies in Gyrax as well as a possible assassination attempt against a diplomat from Celene. That very next night, as the party travailed toward civilization, Zara received the first of several mystical messages from other Nerullites. At first, the forces of evil offered to purchase the seized correspondence from the party. Although Zerubbabel was in favor of trying to double-cross the Nerullites, making off with both the pay-off and the documents, the rest of the party felt it more prudent to just keep quiet and get the information to the proper authorities. As the days passed, the party was frequently scryed, always focused on Zara. It was wondered aloud if perhaps Cord had betrayed the group the Nerullites, whether of his own free will or perhaps after being captured and tortured, but no answers about this have been found. The reward for the documents was sufficient for the party to purchase teleports to Greyhawk City, where Daemas wanted to return in order to hand over a mysterious orb and pedestal taken from the Nerullites. According to Daemas, this orb allows its holder to communicate with Victor, a fallen paladin of Pelor who resides on some lower plane. Why the officials of the Great Library of Greyhawk, with whom Daemas is affiliated, wanted the orb is unknown. One thing of which Zerubbabel is convinced is this: The orb is evil, and the party is better off without it. For some reason, Daemas wasn't entirely forthcoming about why he wanted the orb. Perhaps this too was a subtle effect of the orb's evilness. In any event, when Daemas revealed that he was turning the orb over to the Library, Ebon, normally silent, became vocal and belligerent. He accused Daemas of trying to rob the party of its hard-won treasure. The monk and the wizard very nearly came to blows over the orb's disposition. This too is surely the result of some sort of malign influence. Is it too much to think that an orb, connected to a lower plane, desired by Nerullites, would exert subtle but destructive influences over those in close proximity to it? And, if so, for how long would those influences last even after the orb had been handed over to the Library? In any event, the stay in Greyhawk was rather brief and somewhat uneventful. Zara was sequestered in order to prevent the Nerullites from scrying her, but this later proved unnecessary when the Nerullites started scrying on Zerubbabel as well. The party did learn of the possible location for the Nerullites main temple, near the war-torn city of Fax. Due to Zerubbabel's injudicious bragging about how well the party had done in its adventures, the group was also beseiged by would-be adventurers looking for a place in the group. This is how the party met up with Dairy the Elf, who turned out to be a friend of Daemas, as well as acquired the services of Frank Grimshanks, a human fighter of some skill. Zerubbabel's theory about the orb and its lingering, malign influence played out with the introduction of Dairy the Elf. Ebon's largely unjustified suspicion and hostility toward Daemas transferred to Dairy as well. While Dairy was admitted to the party, her reception was less than friendly. With nothing more to do in Greyhawk City, the party found work aboard a southbound barge heading to Hardby. The river trip was uneventful, even peaceful, except for a few more instances of scrying from the Nerullites, including one magical attack that caused Zara to have horrifying nightmares. Zerubbabel was also subjected to this magical attack, but his will proved too strong. In Hardby, the party reprovisioned, and then caught a ferry heading across the river to the northernmost Wild Coast. It was then a short trip down to Safeton. Which brought the party to the ruined fort mentioned above. Locals in Safeton complained of strange lights and noises at night coming from the ruin. The party decided to head there in order to determine what if any threat was afoot. Along the way, they were attacked by orc and troll raiders. While Shadra and Ebon were seriously injured in the ensuing battle, the party managed to defeat these monsters. They arrived at the ruined fort the next day. Since Dairy the Elf bragged of her skills as a scout, she left the party behind and went forward to investigate on her own. This proved to be a mistake. Several minutes later, Dairy returned at speed after having been attacked and very nearly killed by some sort of strange plant monster. Magical healing was applied, and the party proceeded to the ruins as a group. Slowly, cautiously, they stalked to where the plant monster attacked Dairy, and then engaged the creature in fearsome battle. Frank was seriously injured in the ensuing battle, for the plant creature snatched him up in powerful coils of roots and very nearly squeezed the life out of him. Nevertheless, the plant monster was defeated, and more magical healing applied. More careful exploration turned out to be not as careful as necessary, for the party later found itself in a terrible battle against two more plant monsters - called "shambling mounds" according to Daemas - as well as a medusa sorcerer! Dairy met the medusa's fell gaze, which explains her current state as statue and clothes-line. Ebon managed to stun the medusa with a deft open hand attack, leaving the monster quite vulnerable to Zerubbabel's rapier. As the medusa fell, Ebon rushed to fight the three shambling mounds that were savaging the rest of the party. By the time the shambling mounds were slain, Moonshine and Zara were very nearly killed (saved only by Zerubbabel's skills as a field medic), and Ebon and Frank were both seriously injured. The party retreated, dragging Dairy along. Which brings the story back to its starting point around the campfire. "I cannot shake the feeling that we are doomed," Zerubbabel goes on. "We know that the Nerullites have hired assassins to kill us. When they'll strike is anyone's guess. My brother Mupp has left us, and Garl only knows what has become of him. Cord has vanished, and I believe has betrayed us for one reason or another. Dairy is dead. Glyth has taken leave of us, remaining in Safeton, and who knows if he'll rejoin us. I also believe Nerull's hand moves against us, and that that orb has had some further sort of baleful effect on us. Ebon is talking. Shadra has grown increasingly aloof, almost as if she is sleep-walking sometimes. We've almost been at each other's throats. Worst of all, we've taken to running our merry little band by committee, voting on this and that. Everyone, it seems, is trying to be the leader, and no one the follower, and that is not a good way to do things. Like it or not, our actions against Nerull have earned us some persistent and powerful enemies. We are at war, and wars are not won by committees." The gnome thief pokes a stick into the fire. "We need a leader. Someone who has demonstrated a willingness to get dirty hands, to get into the thick of things for others. It also needs to be someone who can be trusted, which obviously rules me out. I also think this rules out both Ebon and Daemas, for I believe they have been most affected by whatever dark powers conspire against us. Frank, while brave, is too new to our group. Shadra is too uninvolved, or so it seems. Dairy is dead, and, it must be said, apparently not as competent as she advertised. Zara, as much as I love her, is too unpredictable, lest we forget the incident with the sickle and the throat. By process of elimination, this leaves us with Marek." The fact that for the first time ever Zerubbabel addresses the elven cleric by his correct name is not unnoticed. "While I'm an unreliable soldier, Marek, I'd follow you as my captain. What say the rest of you?" As he waits for responses, Zerubbabel tosses pebbles at Dairy, enjoying the sharp sound of rock clicking against petrified elf. [/QUOTE]
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