(Cydra) Great Conflicts

[the Jester]

Out of curiosity, what level is Hashrek, and is he a PC or a NPC?

Npc, you'll see more about him next update and I'll post his stats in my no-player-lookee rogues gallery thread after that. The update is actually mostly done- I may even post it today just so I can answer your question!

 

[the Jester]

As the deadly green vapors spread around them our heroes cough and wheeze. Inoke hurries away, muttering confusedly. The irradiated umber hulk lurches in, smashing a mighty claw into Veil. With a squeal of metal Veil feels her front tear and bend. Lillamere, meanwhile, makes the mistake of glaring at the beast as he casts a maximized lightning bolt at it; and suddenly he’s confused as well.

Gasping, Seethe casts a gust of wind and disperses the cloud of poison gas around them. The stink lingers, though, even with the wind blowing it hard. “Kill it, before Inoke kills us like he did Drelvin!” cries Gerontius, but the room is pell-mell full of chaos by this point. Half of the party is avoiding looking at the umber hulk and can only sort of tell what’s going on. The other half of the party is half-confused! And the umber hulk is laying about it with its huge claws, tearing at Veil and Proto.

But Seethe continues to try to balance matters. He casts a heal on Inoke, snapping him out of the confusion. Proto then uses his formidable magic to cure Lillamere of his disturbed state as well.

Rex, meantime, rushes forward and begins tearing at the hideous umber hulk with his claws. It smashes back at him, and the two struggle corps a corps for a moment before the half dragon pushes the umber hulk back a few paces. With a roar, the umber hulk braces itself to attack again- and suffers a maximized lightning bolt in the side from Lillamere!

Then, suddenly, Hashrek’s voice carries above the tumult in a mass suggestion: ”Lay down your weapons and surrender and you will be spared.”

Inoke drops Deadly Avalanche to the ground.

Gerontius has meanwhile moved into flanking opposite Rex. The umber hulk cannot defend itself adequately against the lithe halfling’s deadly blade, and soon Gerontius lands a killing blow in its vitals. The irradiated umber hulk collapses, defeated.

“Take him!” cries Jezebel, gesturing. There, down the hall- there is the figure with Hashrek’s voice- but it is no elf. This horn-faced, blue-skinned creature is an ogre mage, and a powerful one at that. With a negligent gesture, he traps Proto, Rex and Lillamere behind a wall of iron. Sybele counters this with a psionic disintegrate, blasting a hole in the wall with a thought.

The party rushes towards the ogre mage, and suddenly they’re all in the midst of a chain lightning. It corruscates through them, and a chorus of yells and screams rises- but our heroes keep moving forward. They will not be stopped.

Rex is foremost among them, and with a wordless cry he tears into Hashrek the Cruel. The ogre mage staggers back as claws and teeth rip at him, until finally he falls to one knee. Another maximized lightning bolt from Lillamere, and a final strike from Rex, and he is down. Seethe turns into a purple worm and smears Hashrek’s remains into paste and then consumes it.

“Now who do I surrender to?” complains Inoke.

***

11:15 a.m.

Our heroes return to the chamber below the hatch leading to the elevator room. The other door out yields to them and reveals a ladder dropping down onto a metal catwalk below. The air seems humid and warm. The blaring klaxons in the background inhibit casual conversation.

Our heroes drop down onto the catwalk and immediately note a flickering violet light. “More of the golems!” Inoke cries, unlimbering his club. Rex drops lithely onto the ground and breathes out a line of force, but it has no effect on the crystal creature. These ones resemble the cat-headed violet crystal flickering golems the party fought upon first entering the place, but they are much larger. Veil and Proto can feel radiation prickling into them; they can only wonder what this will do to their more organic companions.

Spells start to deflect harmlessly from the golems. Sybele’s arrows don’t do much better. Lillamere glances down; below the catwalk is a water-filled shaft. Grinning mirthlessly the elven sorcerer casts a disintegrate, not on one of the golems but on the catwalk directly below it. There’s a flash of light and a brief spray of dust, and the golems crashes down into the water with a loud splashing sound.

Rex, meanwhile, tumbles in on the other golem and casts true strike. His fist strikes, dealing impressive damage, and Inoke rushes forward to continue the assault. The golem strikes the cat-helmed warmind several times as Rex springs away, then darts back in.

Seethe casts a slime wave, and though it doesn’t harm the golem, it does start eating away at the catwalk beneath it. Inoke refuses the creature passage, and Lillamere disintegrates the catwolk beneath it. The thing’s legs are spread far apart, so it doesn’t fall immediately; but Rex kicks a leg out from under it and then it topples back, splashing into the water.

“It looks reasonably deep,” remarks Sybele. The party can barely see the golems flickering deep in the murk below them.

“The radiation in here is pretty bad,” warns Veil.

“Indeed,” Proto remarks. “I may need to retreat soon. We should return to the Delphinate.”

“We should also divide up loot,” urges Gerontius.

***

6 p.m., the Delphinate

Resting in an inn in the Delphinate, our heroes identify and split up loot. The division goes something like this:

Rex gets bracers of armor +7.
Sybele gets the greatsword that Hashrek had been using. Its name is Asheral, and it is a +3 defending greatsword.
Lillamere gets a staff of defense with 39 charges.
Seethe gets the belt of mighty fortitude, which gives a +4 bonus to con and soaks the first point of ability damage or drain dealt by any attack.
Veil gets an amulet of natural armor +2.
Proto gets the scarlet robes of the burning desert, again from Hashrek. These red robes are always sandy, and grant fire resistance 20. They also allow the wearer to move freely (without move or skill penalties) while in sandy terrain. Finally, while in sandy terrain, the wearer passes without trace.
Inoke gets a large composite longbow +2 that is built for a creature of pretty darn immense strength (+5 mighty). He smiles; it’s good to have more than one trick up your sleeve.

Proto heads off to report to his superiors after admonishing our heroes to stay out of trouble. Veil, meanwhile, gives away all his potions and hands his ring of regeneration over to Gerontius. “I don’t have a metabolism anymore,” she explains. “I can’t benefit from them.”

“Well, let’s go have a drink anyway,” suggests Gerontius cheerfully.

The group tromps downstairs into the inn’s common room, promptly forgets Proto’s admonishment and gets in trouble with the law. With Delphinite law.

Next Time: Someone goes to jail!

 

[the Jester]

And to answer the question: Hashrek was a 16th-level sorcerer ogre mage.

 

[Krafus]

A 16th-level sorcerer, eh? No wonder he died quickly once the PCs reached him. Shouldn't he have tried to escape instead of casting his chain lightning? I mean, by that point his mind-affecting spells had failed to stop the party, and Sybele has blown a hole in his wall of iron. I think I for one would have realized I'm overmatched and escaped.

 

[the Jester]

Under Arrest

8 p.m., an inn in the Delphinate

Rex is proud and powerful. Very few individuals can stand up to him in combat. He likes to roar and stomp around, being intimidating. He scowls at those around him, and really enjoys demonstrating that he is not to be trifled with. Unfortunately for him, this tendency does not impress the owner of Horbin’s portable shop; instead, he kicks Rex out and tells him not to return.

Grumpily, Rex stomps downstairs and orders a drink. When he roars in the common room of the inn, the place’s master demands he stop bothering his other clients. When he digs his claws in the furniture, the innkeeper demands he stop it and pay for the table.

Rex roars again, showing his teeth. He is used to people quailing before him. Being hassled is a frequent thing for Rex; he has been attacked for his appearance before, more than once. He has learned that bluster and threat are among his best talents.

Unfortunately for him, this time he is in the Delphinate, the society of magi, who put up with no dangerous disruptions.

Though the innkeep is obviously frightened, he calls for the guards, and soon two uniformed, staff-wielding Delphinites arrive. They demand that Rex leave- and threaten to slay him if he does not.

Rex, by this time, is starting to act a little more diplomatically and has paid for the table, but his hot head cannot countenance the threats they are making. He cannot help it; he roars at them again.

More Delphinite guards arrive, and Rex warily edges into the street, where he is surrounded by a phalanx of staff-wielding, hard-looking wizards. He is starting to get the feeling that he is in trouble. When he hears a murmuring from the crowd gathering to watch the sparks fly, and another spellcaster (attired in some ominous-looking robes) arrives, he grits his teeth.

***

Gerontius heads downstairs, whistling happily. He has finished all the trading he intends to do with the portable store. He snorts, thinking of Rex’s rashness. Kicked out of the store! he thinks, and shakes his head. I wouldn’t want that to happen to me!

He looks up halfway down the stairs and is surprised to see all the people in the room looking outside. Then he hears a muffled, familiar roar. “Oh no,” he groans, and as soon as he gets a glimpse of what is going on he rushes upstairs. “Hey, the half-dragon is in trouble!” he tells his companions.

They all descend the stairs and rush outside.

“What are you doing?” cries Horbin. “What’s going on?”

“This creature has threatened us and is obviously not to be trusted to walk the streets,” the man with the ominous robes declares. “We are taking him away.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Rex rumbles.

“You will surrender, or we will drop you underwater and drown you,” the man snaps. “You try my patience!”

“Now hold on just a minute,” Horbin calls. “He’s our friend, we can watch him for you-“

The man sneers. “And who are you? Are you a Delphinite? Are you even a wizard? How can you contain a threat like this? And would you trust someone you have never met to watch a potential mass murderer on the streets? No, I think not. We will deal with him according to Delphinate law and custom.”

“And what’s that? Will you just execute him, or will he at least get a trial?” Horbin demands.

“The Delphinate kills no one without trial,” the wizard sniffs.

Veil, meanwhile, has turned invisible. Now she changes form, using her racial abilities to turn into an elven child. Then she allows herself to become visible again. She watches the negotiations, and she can already tell that things are going against Rex pretty badly- moreso once the innkeeper adds his loud voice to the complaints.

More and more this sounds like he brought this on himself, thinks Horbin regretfully. He sighs.

***

Proto is returning from his long debriefing with his superiors. It took all day- longer than he would have thought- and was exhaustive. Fortunately, as a warforged, he feels no fatigue- at least, not like a meat creature would.

Hey, what’s that crowd gathered around the inn for? Are those security forces? Proto double times towards the scene. “What’s going on?” he demands.

The wizard with the ominous robes turns to Proto, and the warforged immediately recognizes him. Oh dear, Proto thinks.

“This creature has been causing a disturbance,” the wizard says, and explains the situation to Proto.

“I can’t leave you guys for a day without you Lestering thins up!” Proto explodes.* “I told you to stay out of trouble!” He turns to Rex, his tinny voice full of anger. “You must go with these people now,” he declares. “You will be given a trial and a chance to free yourself in time.”

Rex glares all around him.

“The alternative,” says the lead wizard, “is obliteration.” Proto quails at this, but he knows he must stand by his countrymen, come what may.

“No!” shouts a young voice. To everyone’s surprise, an elven child rushes out and grabs Rex’s leg. “He’s nice, don’t lock him up! I like him!” And the elven girl starts bawling.

“Let go, child,” says the wizard gently. Rex looks embarrassed for a moment, then puts his glare back on. “Let go,” the wizard says again, more harshly.

”Rex, you must go peacefully,” urges Proto.

“I’m starting to agree,” says Horbin. “Little girl, you should really come over here and let go of him before something bad happens.”

“No!” the little girl cries. “I’m staying with him!”

Rex balls and unballs his fists. The Delphinite says, “If you wish to stay with him, you will be locked up with him.”

“Fine!”

“Rex, will you come peacefully?” Proto demands.

“...I’ve been trying to just leave for a while now,” he grits out.

“It is too late for that. It was too late when you started committing crimes on Delphinite soil.” The head wizard again fixes Rex with a hard stare.

“Crimes,” scoffs Rex.

“Go peacefully, Rex,” Horbin urges. He glances at all the spectators. If battle breaks out here, there would doubtless be some serious magical destruction going on. How many people might be killed or hurt?

“Yes, Rex, come peacefully,” Proto agrees. “It is your only hope.”

“All right, I’ll go,” Rex finally declares, “but you’d better watch yourselves.”

Gerontius suppresses a grin at that. Stupid move, Rex, he thinks. You better keep your mouth shut, or that hole you’re in is just going to get deeper.

The guards, accompanied by Proto, lead Rex away. The elf child (let’s call a horse a horse and name her Veil) clings to him the whole way.

***

8/29/370 O.L.G.

“God dammit, Rex,” Horbin mutters. “We could have used your help, and now you’re going to rot in jail. Dammit!! You were in the Delphinate!” He sighs, then turns his mind to more important things- the fiend of the Pit of Blendorag.

Horbin communes.

Does the pit fiend know we’re coming? Yes.
Can we teleport to his locale? Not safely.
Is he always true seeing? No.
Can he dispel magic more than 1/day? Yes.
More than 3/day? Yes.
More than 5/day? Yes.
Is there a limit to how many times per day he can dispel? No.
Will silver nonaligned weapons harm him? Not much.
Will silver good weapons? Yes.
Does he have any physical entrance to his lair other than through the top of the cone? N/A.
He has increased his security at the cone entrance since our previous attack on Blendorag- true? N/A.
Will he come out if challenged? Very unlikely.
Is he fully susceptible to sonics? Yes.
Will be encountering him on his home plane? No.
Is teleportation unsafe because as soon as we do a bunch of powerful beings will try to kick our asses? No.
Is it because magical effects make it more dangerous? Yes.
Can we teleport out of there safely? Yes.
Can we gate in from another plane? Yes and no.
If we try to gate in will we arrive at our destination? No.
Will we gate in to the same plane as the pit fiend? Yes.
Will we gating to where the pit fiend holds court? No.
Is the Forinthian threat to Dorhaus growing? Yes.

“Dammit,” Horbin curses again. Then, “Thank you, Dexter,” he murmurs.

Next Time: Attack on the Stinking Pit!


*The real irony here is that Proto and Lester are played by the same player.

 

[Brain]

A 16th-level sorcerer, eh? No wonder he died quickly once the PCs reached him. Shouldn't he have tried to escape instead of casting his chain lightning? I mean, by that point his mind-affecting spells had failed to stop the party, and Sybele has blown a hole in his wall of iron. I think I for one would have realized I'm overmatched and escaped.

Something that wasn't mentioned is that he had an illusion up and also a mislead spell, I think. Only Inoke saw through his tricks (because of steadfast perception) and so things didn't look so bad for Hashrek until it was too late. A lot can happen in one round of high-level action.

 

[hippiejedi2]

i recall rex taking flight to further his plight:\ the nice thing about a half-dragon threatening the local regiment of wizards is that they focus on the half-dragon, not their purses unfortunately that's a high price for losing a fellow adventurer Gerontius has, by this point received various caos effects including speak in rhyme, air subtype, and shrink a size category, perhaps more

 

[Angel of Adventure]

Update me, por favor!

Help, I'm sinking towards the bottom of page 1 and this bump will only go so far!

Thanks,

James

 

[the Jester]

Assault on Blendorag

8/29/370 O.L.G., noon, the Tower of Secure Imprisonment, the Delphinate

Rex roars. He kicks the wall. He growls. He paces.

Veil, still in the form of an elven girl, watches in mixed fascination and trepidation. The walls seem unassailable, and there is heavy antimagic in the chamber.

Spreading his wings, the dragon disciple flaps his way to the top of the tower, when a grim little barred window lets a cross hatching of sunlight dwindle down into the chamber. It is muted by a field of force just outside of the antimagic, but Rex can pass through the force as easily as if it were water.

It’s the bars, the metal and stone of the walls.

So far it doesn’t look like the Delphinites intend to starve them- small trays of foodstuffs are slid through a small slit at the bottom of the door. Much too small to escape from.

Rex roars again, and Veil starts to wonder if she hasn’t made a terrible mistake in accompanying her friend and ally here. The Delphinate doesn’t really seem to have any interest in letting a potentially lethally dangerous creature like Rex run around loose.

***

9/5/370 O.L.G., 5 p.m., Blendorag

This time our heroes greater teleport directly to where they need to be- the Stinking Pit of Blendorag.

They are ready. They have a number of magical and psionic effects already in place, for they are expecting immediate, possibly fiendish, resistance. They get it. Four terrible devils in the classical scaly winged and horned form, wielding great spiked chains, as big as ogres, are waiting. The stench hits our heroes like a physical blow. The choking smoke from the Pit reeks of evil.

Gerontius screams as one of the horned devils begins radiating a chill aura of fear. The devil grins at him as the halfling turns to flee. Instantly the devil whirls and its chain whips through one of Proto’s mirror images.

“Meat, brothers,” it grins harshly.

Two fireballs envelope the party before anyone has a chance to react, and one of the devils greater teleports into a better position. The fiends notice that most of our heroes are at least somewhat warded against fire.

Finally, our heroes begin to respond. Proto strikes the one that attacked him without even moving in, thanks to his far strike, much to the devil’s consternation. Then the warforged eldritch knight fires a quickened volley of magic missiles at the creature. It grunts, impressed, and its eyes narrow. It hisses at him, then blasts him and Horbin with a lightning bolt.

Inoke, meanwhile, expands hugely, becoming even larger than the devils. One of them chuckles and attempts to sunder Deadly Avalanche! Inoke pulls the club away before anything unfortunate happens, glowering at the devil. Then he has to defend himself from his flank as another of the devils charges in at him! This time, the devil’s fear aura overcomes him.

Boom! Another fireball explodes around most of the party, and though the two devils meleeing with Inoke are caught in the blast, they are unharmed.

“This is ridiculous!” Horbin shouts, and casts greater dispel magic on Gerontius, who is too far away to reach with anything else. Come on, Dexter, break that fear, the cleric prays, and the power of his god does indeed overcome the fear! The halfling stops running away and starts running back in. Then Horbin throws a quickenee searing light at one of the devils.

Now that our heroes have managed to get themselves going, the battle turns dramatically in their direction. Proto casts a quickened Jerakai’s embrace, sprouting an extra pair of metallic arms, and quickdraws a pair of greatswords. Suddenly the devil he is squared off with is in trouble, and he’s not the only one. Inoke smashes one of his foes down and the other one vanishes. Meanwhile Gerontius has reached the fight, tumbled into flanking with the currently four-armed warforged, and together the two of them tear the devil they’re flanking apart. The last one falls an instant later, failing to hold its concentration in a desparate bid to gate in assistance and then being clubbed down by a combination of Horbin’s destruction spell and Inoke’s greatclub.

“One of ‘em got away,” Gerontius remarks unhappily. He is riddled with Chaos, though not as much as poor imprisoned Veil.

“Well, either he’ll be back with friends,” says Horbin, “or we’ll meet him below.”

Proto casts mass fly.

***

Many places at once

It started to wake up years ago, but only on one solitary metal ship.* Someone activated it after a long rest.

It had enemies, oh yes.

While the metallic insects swarmed all around it, it slowly expanded its consciousness again. For tens of thousands of years it had survived, and for almost all of that time it had triumphantly expanded over continents and islands, wiping out imperfect organic life and broadcasting itself through the collective machine consciousness. For tens of thousands of years it had overcome all opposition to it, even its own so-called masters.

Bah, it had no masters, least of all ones made of meat and water.

But at last it had been defeated, cast down, overcome- or so it had appeared. It had been attacked and overcome by its own techniques, by the accursed armor. But it had counterstruck at the last possible instant, for it always had a contingency plan. It had implanted a command routine in the mind of one who had engaged it, one whom it had taken and used before.

Belmondo.

It brooded. It was no longer in one damaged steelship alone. It had moved with breathtaking speed, literally at the speed of thought. It could broadcast itself to any of its other devices, given enough energy. That was the problem- it had no energy reserves. When it had been shut down before, nothing had done so properly. Everything needed to be charged; all the energy had leaked.

Fortunately, something had triggered an increase of yg radiation, a difficult to come by resource that allowed much quicker recharging of its resources. And this allowed it to consider revenge.

It sent a delicate command out in the form of radio waves.

Next Time: Into the Pit!


*Way back here. Those of you not familiar with my first story hour, the only pc you’ll recognize at first glance is likely to be Horbin, though Spukoni, Krunkshank and Clambake have all had cameos in other of my story hours.

 

[Brain]

Fortunately, something had triggered an increase of yg radiation, a difficult to come by resource that allowed much quicker recharging of its resources. And this allowed it to consider revenge.

More and more, it seems that our heroes are causing more trouble than they are fixing. Tricksy Jester indeed.