Banewarrens d20 (Angelsboi's party)

[diaglo]

Hurry up and Wait

"I'm not moving," Calrom called back.

Everyone else followed his lead. An elf stepped out from behind a tree.

"We have you covered," the elf moved closer. "Why are you here. (rhetorical)You can come with me." The elf directed this to Alya and Arendel. "The others may not follow."

Alya told him what she was after. She was in search of a mentor. Eliar suggested she try this area. He thought the elves would be here training. Arendel was interested in learning something too. The conversation soon faded too far away to hear.

While the elves were away, Fiddle took a peek around the Moathouse. A few animal tracks, but nothing else new. Calrom, Sully, and Darian joined him. After some time Alya returned.

"Arendel and I are going off to train with the elves," she said. "We will be gone for a tenday."

"How long?" Calrom asked stunned. "What are we to do?"

"Go visit the Barrows if you wish, just leave a message for us at Peldan's Helm," she turned and vanished back into the woods.

"Well, I'm glad we hurried up to wait," Fiddle sarcastically retorted. "Being a hero is such hard work. Go here. Wait for Alya to spend your money on magic for herself. Steal a Hand she says is important. Go there. And wait for her to train. I sure hope this is important. Darian what do you say? Is your Geas causing you any discomfort?"

"No, I'm alright," Darian replied. "I'll find something to do at the Keep. I'm just worried we may be too late."

The party trudged back to the Keep to wait.

 

[diaglo]

The Broken Seal

Day nine: Darian woke with a start. He roused the rest of the party.

"We must go now," Darian rushed. "And fast. Kalerecent said someone was trying to open the door. Then his voice went dead."

The others gathered their things. Sully scribbled a quick note and handed it to Wulf to give to Alya. They rode hard. Although, they still made camp when they neared the Barrows. No one wanted to enter in the middle of the night. The morning saw them at the entrance to the tomb they suspected to be the Banewarrens. Fiddle checked for new tracks. Some creatures had definitely been here. Some wore boots. Some he didn't recognize. They cautiously crept into the tunnel.

They came across the picks and tools and the turn in the tunnel. Again no troubles, but still the air was thick with anticipation. They plowed on. The tomb was quiet. Too quiet.

As Darian shone his lantern into the room with the sealed door, signs of a battle were evident. Body parts in plate with the symbol of the Sun...The party had found Kalerecent. Sully looked for magical auras. Fiddle checked for booby traps. Nothing. The victors had stripped the paladin and left him where he fell. He had been slain at least a day ago. Right about the time Darian had received his message.

The Sealed Door was open. Fiddle climbed the stairs and moved into position on the side of the door. He commanded Marmaduke to Defend him. The others followed close behind. Fiddle tumbled passed the door and looked inside. Nothing. He hand signaled to Marmaduke to Come. The room was empty and free of traps. He stairway led up across from the door. Fiddle checked the stairs. The party filtered into the room. Fiddle signaled for Marmaduke again.

"Grrrrrr," Marmaduke growled. He lunged as a figure closed into Fiddle's light. An ape. A very large Ape with nasty claws. A dire creature. Two arrows sailed out of the darkness from the right. Marmaduke was down.

 

[diaglo]

Arrrrr...be a pirate or walk the plank

Darian ran up the stairs. He took a shot at the Ape with his crossbow. Fiddle tumbled backwards down the stairs behind Darian. The Ape advanced on Darian. Both claws banged against the cleric's armor. A gnoll with a bow rolled around the top of the stairs. He fired his bow into the party. Calrom felt the impact. Sully tossed some dust into the air. The Ape lost sight. The gnoll was just more visible. Calrom returned fire. Two of his arrows found weak spots.

Darian dropped his crossbow and clobbered the Ape with his mace. Fiddle tumbled to Darian's side. He thrust home Lightning Strike and Hole Punch. The blind Ape's entrails gushed out. The Ape was dead before he fell. The gnoll choose Fiddle as his target. One arrow hit home. Calrom fired over Fiddle's head and into the gnoll. Sully tried again to blind the gnoll.

Darian closed on the gnoll. Fiddle tossed Hole Punch. It scraped the gnoll's leg.

"Arrrr," Fiddle called. "I'll make you walk the plank. Bow, dire ape companion, light armor. Ranger."

The gnoll wasted his efforts on Darian. Calrom fired again. Sully finished the gnoll off with three powerful bolts of magic.

Darian looked for magical auras, while Fiddle pillaged the corpse. Darian then healed Calrom with the crack wand.

The bow was all a glow. It was so powerful Calrom couldn't even budge it.

Fiddle handed Sully a recent newsletter from out of the gnolls pack. It was from Tilverton. It named 2 elves, a human, a halfling, and a gnome as thieves.

"But they weren't in elven form," Sully started to say. "Nicolon...he sold us out."

 

[biorph]

"Wait for Alya to spend your money on magic for herself. Steal a Hand she says is important. Go there. And wait for her to train.

You forgot wait for Alya to heal my wounds, wait for Alya to carry my unconcious body to safety, and wait for Alya to lie to get us all out of trouble.

Of course if you'd rather not wait...

 

[diaglo]

Traps R Us

Four passages sprouted off from the room the party now occupied. Three of them had stairs leading down. Darian shined his lantern down each in turn. The passage without a stairway was coated in frost. Finally the party chose the north most stairway. Fiddle searched for trip wires and such. He checked the integrity of the steps. When he was satisfied he descended. On the last step he scanned the floor ahead. It was smooth. Too smooth.

"Somethings not right," Fiddle called back. "Do we have any dead weight?"

The party dropped the Dire Ape body onto the floor.

SLLLlaaammmm

A block fell into place blocking their view. It began to slide down the hallway. A couple seconds later a large crash was heard.

"AGGGGAAAAIIINNNN," Sully and Calrom said in unison.

They repeated the experiment with the Gnoll body. Same result. Fiddle paid careful attention to the trigger and reaction mechanism of the trap.

"I can't begin to guess how many more times this will work," Fiddle concluded. "And I'm not going out there to find out if it is done. Unfortunately we don't have any more bodies."

"Where is that cow familiar when you need one," Sully whistled.

Sully in pixie form flew Fiddle to safety inside the room. Fiddle checked out the perimeter of the trap and made marks. He then traveled to the end of the room. A huge pit of darkness. He tried looking down. His sight didn't reach the bottom. Sully had no luck either. They turned to look around. Another passage continued East. Sully tossed some magical lights down this passage. They jumped about. At the limit of the spell, they showed a stairway up and a passage into a room with another of those spiral tower thingies. The recon team flew back to the others. The party tried the next stairway. Fiddle repeated his routine of checks. No point in being foolish. Again at the bottom of the steps he found something unusual. It looked like a spring trap. He gathered what was left of the Gnoll's things and dumped them onto the floor. Next he emptied his haversack of coins. 30lbs of coins and 10lbs of gear lay on the trap. Nothing. He gathered the coins back up without stepping into the room. He tried to jam something into the spring. He had heard of a prank where you placed coins in the jamb of a door. He used his copper pieces to see if it would work. They held.

"If only Alya, Vlad, and Arendel would get here sooner," Fiddle thought out loud.

 

[diaglo]

next update will be after Sunday. Sully's player will be absent, but the PC will be in action. depending on who runs him expect either crazy antics, straight efficiency, or power thrusts of magic. i'm guessing though i don't know that arendel will be absent as well. (arendel is sully's nephew in the real world)

vlad may or may not be there.

alya, darian, calrom, and fiddle are definites.

 

[biorph]

Meanwhile

As Alya and Arendel walked back from the intensive training course they were thankful they saw little trouble on the road. Both of them were so sore they probably couldn't string their bows much less draw them.

"By Fenmarel, I swear I more sore now than I was after a night a Castle Kragg" commented Alya.

"Why?" asked Arendel "Did you sleep on a hard bed there too?"

Alya smiled to herself 'Something like that' She thought. "So why is it you can't imbue your arrows too?" she asked changing the subject.

"I honestly have no idea, considering we cast some of the same spells and all." Said the Druid "It's probably years of tradition, if we communed with nature more instead of just caring about it's destruction, I'd probably have spent most of my time throwing spells instead of just perfecting my aim and learning how to sharpen my arrow heads."

"Don't worry," Said Alya "You didn't miss much, my fingers are still swollen from all the wiggling they had to do, and I I've still got a migraine from all that darn mental focusing. But it's not a total wash for you. If you ever decide to take it up, you can still pursue the training. Besides, for a ten-day of hell, we did get some nice stuff."

"True" said Arendel thumping on his new wooden breastplate "Who knows how much it might have cost me to FIND some darkwood, let alone get it fashioned into armor. But aren't the enchanted arrows a bit redundant for you? Your bow is already magic; gods know the entire camp heard it scream out in anger more than a few times."

"Heh" said Alya laughing "Yeah I'll have to make sure to thank Fiddle for that when we get back to the keep. Thanks to that loan he gave me, I was certainly the envy of the camp, even if I wasn't the stealthiest person there. I figure I've got half a quiver of magic arrows, I'll offer them to Fiddle, and if he doesn't want them, I'll just sell them and give him the five hundred for it."

"You think anything happened in the Barrows while we were away?" Asked the druid.

"Probably" replied the bard "I just hope they had the good sense to fly there using Sully's staff rather than taking the full day to go by horseback."

 

[biorph]

Movement

As the two elves approached the Peldan’s helm they were hailed by a guard tower along the wall.

“Ho, there on the road!” someone called out.

“And a druid too.” Replied Alya.

After a minute a confused sounding voice responded “Who goes there?”

“Two members of the Stormslayers” replied the bard.

“Ahh your party left without you yesterday, they were in great haste it seemed” said the guard.

“Then we should hurry to catch them.” replied Alya. ”May we pass?”

“One moment” said the guard, and after about minute the gate opened and the two were allowed to enter.

The two elves quickly made their way to the inn.

“Ahh, Mistress Alya” said Wulf “You have just missed your friends”

“So I heard” said Alya “Did they leave a note for me?”

“Yes” said Wulf and handed the two of them a note with Sully’s handwriting.

‘GET TO THE BARROWS QUICKLY!’ was all the note said.

The druid and bard ran to their horses and went off, with the leopard riding on the back of the Arendel’s. They hurried to the barrows hoping that they were not too late.

 

[JoeBlank]

"Probably" replied the bard "I just hope they had the good sense to fly there using Sully's staff rather than taking the full day to go by horseback."

Alya must have failed her bardic knowledge checks concerning the Staff of Air and the 3.5 Fly spell. The spell only last 1 min/lvl now.

Staff of Air (22 c, performs light, levitate, feather fall, gust of wind at 1 charge each; fly, lightning bolt at 2 charges each, caster level 7)

 

[biorph]

Ahh yes

Ahh, yes, now I recall, that when we moved into the middle of the third age and the great shift took place, this power of the staff was cut from 7 hours to 7 minutes. So whatever DID happen to Sully's history now that all those illusionists traded in their books for harps and flutes?