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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9481802" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 83: FEAR THE REAPERPC Roster:  Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 17             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 10/eldritch knight 1             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 9/paladin 8             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 11             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 17NPC Roster: Beetle Darkcloud, halfling ranger 6             Robin the Balladeer, human bard 6Game Session Date: 12 October 2024 - - -Once again on the road, the heroes had left the drow city of Endobar behind them several hours ago.  Rounding a bend in the road, they saw a familiar figure leaning against a tree up ahead.  As they approached, he greeted them with a warm smile, as if happy to see old friends after a too-long absence."Hey there," said Wangle Turdblossom.  "Anybody in the mood for making any purchases?"The heroes were well aware that Wangle - despite his appearance as a male gnome - was in fact a dragon (as, apparently, were all gnomes, the race having died out by a mysterious plague many centuries ago).  The Gnomish Consortium, of which Wangle was a member, was composed entirely of dragons who had taken on gnomish form; no one was supposed to know their secret, but that was how they were able to get deals on the sale of magic items: they were simply selling unwanted items from their dragon associates' numerous treasure hoards.  It was a win-win situation, really; the heroes got good magic items at reasonable prices and the dragons got to get rid of unwanted items and replace them with coins and gems, which they all pretty much preferred making up their hoards, in any case."Now that you mention it..." began Wakuren from the back of Nimbus.  He had his flying cloud-steed lower back down to ground level so the half-orc could better deal with the "gnomish" deal-maker.  "These iron ward diamonds," he said, indicating the diamonds adhered to his armor's chest plate, which he'd purchased from the Consortium many months previous.  "Do you have anything more powerful?"Wangle rubbed his chin and thought over the contents of the various hoards he dealt with.  "As a matter of fact, I think I do...."  He quoted a price, Wakuren agreed, and handed over half the money up front.  In return, Wangle promised to get him his more powerful iron ward diamonds in a day or two.  "It'll take me that long to get in touch with someone who currently holds such items, but I'm certain I can get my hands on 'em for you.  Anybody else?"  Xandro ordered a light crossbow, asking if it were possible to get one with the seeking and shock enhancements.  "Seeking and shock, huh?  Well, seeking's a pretty common enhancement for crossbows...I'll see what I can do."  He likewise quoted a price and Xandro handed over half the amount; they'd all done business with the Consortium before and had no concerns about getting ripped off.  Thurloe waved off, as he'd recently paid a drow weaponsmith to add enhancements to his bastard sword Spellslicer, and was currently tapped out.  Alewyth and Zandro, put on the spot, couldn't think of anything they wished to purchase, but promised they'd order from him when he returned with the goods for Wakuren and Xandro if anything came to mind."Very well, then," said Wangle, saluting with two fingers to his brow.  He then opened a door in the side of the tree on which he'd been leaning, stepped inside, and was gone - as was the door."Strange fellow," observed Beetle.  "What tribe is he from?  I've never seen such an unusual-looking halfling."It was another hour or two on the road before the group met up with their next bit of excitement.  The first thing the heroes noticed was the screams of terror coming from the forest ahead.  The road meandered a bit, but eventually they could see a trio of giant spiders scrambling down the road, chasing a group of drow.  However, it soon became apparent the spiders weren't really chasing the drow - they were running away as fast as they could from whatever had frightened both groups.  As the two parties got closer, the heroes could see each spider pulled a wagon behind it, each wagon steered by a drow - these were merchant beasts of burden, not voracious arachnids looking to devour the hapless dark elves.Thurloe steered his mount Boney to the side, the better to let them pass by.  He took the opportunity to cast a shield spell upon himself from his wand, figuring the group would soon be in combat with whatever it was that had the drow and spiders in such a panicked frenzy.  The spellsword could easily see the whites of the drow's eyes in their dark-skinned faces, as each and every one wore a look of sheer terror.  Zander maneuvered his own bonehead mount to the side of the road as well, choosing to go to his left where Thurloe had gone to his right.  Normally, he'd have taken a charge from Thurloe's wand of shield himself, but with them separated as they were he satisfied himself with a bear's endurance spell instead.  Petey, the elf's pseudodragon familiar, took wing and darted off into the forest, hoping to get a peek at whatever it was chasing them unseen.Robin knew her role: pulling back on her dinosaur mount's reins, she sent it to the back of the formation and began playing the song of inspirational courage on her lute.  Wakuren's own pachycephalosaurus, which he rarely rode anymore, was tied by his reins to the back of Alosaurus's saddle, and he docilely followed the bard and her mount to the new place of relative safety.  Beetle swung his smaller mount Yellow-Belly to the back by Robin; the little halfling likewise knew his own role in combat, which was basically "keep himself safe from harm so he could continue to lead the group to the Forbidden Lands."  Xandro, on the other hand, rode his mount forward by Thurloe, and cast a heroism spell on himself while doing so.  As the screaming horde approached, Alewyth urged Lapis over to the side of the road before Zander and cast a magic circle against evil spell on herself.  She winced as the spiders, despite being burdened with pulling a wagon and rider behind them (the wagons loaded up with goods - these were, it appeared, traveling merchants on their way to Endobar to sell their wares), were much faster than the running drow, and three of the drow in the lead were run over by the giant arachnids, their bodies crushed under the wheels of the wagons.  The dwarf's initial instincts were to rush over to their aid, but there were more drow fleeing behind the spider-wagons and that would only get her caught up in the fleeing mob; plus, if her experience with identifying mortal wounds was accurate, the three trampled bodies looked to be beyond help in any case.Wakuren covered himself in a spell resistance spell and sent Nimbus rising straight up into the air, so he could see over the trees on the side of the road and determine what it was chasing the drow merchants and causing such panic.  Despite having been warned about the possibility in a recent dreamscape, he was surprised to see it was a shinigami, and once it turned the corner in the road it would be facing the heroes on a stretch of straight road, just like in the dream the five dreamwalkers had shared.  "It's the shinigami!" Wakuren called down to his friends.Thurloe cast a shroud of undeath spell upon himself, temporarily making himself seem like an undead creature - given the shinigami's skeletal nature, he hoped that would cause the ghostly reaper to ignore him, if only long enough for the spellsword to get close enough to put his bastard sword to good use.  Zander spurred Ceph forward, putting himself close enough to be able to cast a haste spell upon himself and the other three men; Alewyth, sadly, was too far behind him now for him to be able to include her in the spell's effects.  But Xandro took the opportunity to cast another heroism spell, this time on Thurloe, and Alewyth cast a death ward spell on herself, as they'd defeated the dream-shinigami quickly enough they'd never really learned all of its combat abilities - who knew what exactly the real thing was capable of performing in a fight?The shinigami turned the corner in the road and saw the heroes before him, mounted on their dinosaurs.  <You there!> it called directly into their minds.  <Are you the ones sought?>At the sudden appearance of a 12-foot-tall skeleton clad in tattered robes and a pointed straw hat, hovering over the ground despite its skeletal wings having no feathers or even bothering to flap, Thurloe and Xandro felt their mounts tense up and get ready to bolt.  They each leaped from their saddles as the boneheads spun about and headed back the way they'd come, running past Beetle, who gave chase to keep them from getting too far away and lost to the group.  The spiders and drow gave up on the road, fleeing into the forest to escape the shinigami.  But they heroes felt no fear, for they'd dined that morning upon a heroes' feast that prevented magical fear from having any effect upon them.Nimbus dropped back down to the ground before Thurloe and Xandro, and Wakuren tried once again to end things peacefully.  "We only wish to talk!" he called out to the skeletal being.  Thurloe, seeing the skull-faced terror before him, cast a protection from evil spell despite Wakuren having told him earlier (after their shared dream) that the shinigami did not register upon his paladin-trained senses as evil.  That was just a dream, though, Thurloe reasoned - this guy certainly looked evil, what with the massive scythe he held in a two-handed grip and the whole "Grim Reaper" appearance.  Still, the spellsword stepped forward, Spellslicer at the ready if needed.Zander, recalling the effectiveness of his sunburst spell in the shared dream, readied the casting of such a spell himself, but he didn't have a good bead on the foe and it sounded like Wakuren was trying for a non-violent approach in any case.  Xandro cast a heroism spell on Wakuren, reaching over and touching the half-orc on the leg as he sat astride Nimbus.Seeing how the other boneheads had been spooked by the shinigami, Alewyth activated her butterfly brooch and hovered just over the ground, allowing Lapis to go join the others by Robin and Beetle.  She fluttered awkwardly over towards the others, eager to see if Wakuren's offer would be accepted by the skeletal being.But of course it wasn't.  Charging forward, the shinigami swung his scythe at Wakuren, who was a second too slow to get his shield up in time.  But with a sigh of disappointment, he swung his shield into the undead being; it looked like this was another encounter that was going to have to be dealt with via physical confrontation.  Thurloe wasn't at all disappointed at he prospect of combat, activating his torc of the titans for a boost of added strength as he swung Spellslicer into the shinigami's side.  The blow activated the two spells he'd stored in his sword the day before, but both were wasted, as the vampiric touch spell didn't affect the undead and the bestow curse spell had been specifically worded to drain the victim's life-energy, of which the shinigami of course had none.Zander went with a different approach, summoning an enormous fire elemental directly behind the shinigami.  The elemental slammed the undead being with a massive fist, but the flames comprising the its body didn't seem to have that much of an effect.  Xandro sprang forward, stabbing with his rapier Deathwhisper, dealing a minimal amount of damage if that - it was difficult to tell against a foe that didn't bleed.  But Alewyth cast an empowered searing light spell at the shinigami, and while it sputtered for a moment overcoming the creature's inherent resistance to spells, it eventually overcame it and blasted the shinigami in a blaze of painful light.Stepping slightly to the side, the shinigami thrust a skeletal hand out at Thurloe and sent a destruction spell his way, hoping to blast the spellsword's body into nothingness.  Thurloe grunted in pain as he avoided the absolute worst of the spell's effects, but while he wasn't immediately disintegrated, he was much the worse for wear.  But the shinigami's magical attack had left him open to some immediate retaliation, and Wakuren and Xandro each slammed their weapons at the undead thing, as the fire elemental did likewise from behind.Wakuren performed a series of shield blows; striking the shinigami with the flat of his shield of Cal and then slamming the pointed bottom into his ribs.  Thurloe activated his magical torc again and swung Spellslicer in at the shinigami's legs, hoping to sever a knee of something.  Zander, seeing the physical attacks having some effect on the shinigami, cast a dimensional anchor spell on it and saw it overcome the shinigami's spell resistance; the elf sorcerer wasn't sure if it had some means of escaping into another plane of existence of things got bad, but if it did that avenue should now be closed to it - better they deal with it here and now and be done with it.The huge fire elemental swung its fists down at the floating shinigami, and while the robes it wore seemed flammable the creature had some sort of dampening field that limited the ability of the elemental's flames from affecting it.  Xandro, realizing his rapier wasn't dealing the shinigami that much damage, switched tactics and dropped his figurine of wondrous power on the ground by the shinigami's hovering feet, and the dire tiger took physical form, expanding to its full size.  It bit at the skeletal creature before it, tearing the hem of its robes in doing so.Alewyth cast a mass cure critical wounds spell, seeing Thurloe was hurting and also thinking to damage the undead shinigami.  But while the spellsword's wounds sealed up like normal, the shinigami's resistance to spell energy shielded it from any adverse effects from the dwarf's spell.  It, however, seemed peeved at its failure to instantly obliterate Thurloe and gave it another attempt, firing off another destruction spell in the spellsword's face.  The attack elicited another scream of pain from Thurloe as his skin erupted in gashes and rents that started bleeding at once, but yet again he suffered through the pain and came out of the spell still breathing, much to the shinigami's consternation.  It was, he thought, very possible these five were indeed the beings sought!But once again the shinigami's focus upon Thurloe left him open to attacks from the others.  The dire tiger attacked his lower limbs while the fire elemental slammed down from above with flaming fists, and Wakuren, Xandro, and Thurloe all went after the being with their weapons of choice.  Thurloe drained his torc of the titans of its last daily dose of strength enhancement, swinging Spellslicer into the shinigami in a series of back-and-forth blows, almost as if he were doing some reaping himself.  At the same time, Wakuren was using his shield of Cal, which he preferred to use in a defensive capacity, as a weapon, bringing it slamming into the shinigami's skeletal form with bone-crunching power.  But it was Zander that finally slew their undead attacker, targeting him with a chain lightning spell that took him out, falling to dust before them, the six gemstones circling the shinigami's head falling and bouncing upon the ground."Nicely done, Zander," Alewyth said, dropping to the ground herself after deactivating her butterfly wings.  Her comment caused the spellsword to frown - where was his praise?  He'd been in the front lines of this battle, and toughed it out through two destruction spells.  But then he looked at Zander, who was staring in fascination at his fire elemental, his mouth hanging open in shock.  Thurloe looked over to see what the big deal was, and the snide comment he had been about to release got stuck in his throat.The elemental stood unmoving before them - unmoving, in that each bit of flame was frozen into absolute motionlessness.Alewyth looked around.  The trees were all motionlessness as well, the slight breeze that had been playing upon the heroes' skin and moving the trees' limbs having stopped completely.  And there, hanging in the air, was a leaf that had fallen from a tree and now looked as if it would never complete its journey to the ground.  "What--?" she began, before her eyes were drawn to a bit of motion above them.Lowering down from the sky was another being clad in dark robes.  This one, however, carried no scythe, and the wings sprouting from his back seemed covered in feathers, although closer inspection revealed they seemed made of glowing energy.  He came almost to the ground, hovering an inch or two above, and was closer in size to the heroes than had been the shinigami.  He raised a hand - also skeletal, the heroes noted - and sent a telepathic message directly into their minds.  said the voice."We're listening," replied Wakuren, glad for once to be dealing in conversation instead of combat. the voice continued; beneath its hood, the heroes could see its skull made no movement as it "spoke" to them directly via telepathy.  <The Gods of Erthe are forbidden from taking direct action to affect the events occurring in the Mortal World, but They are allowed to accept mortals as Their own representatives.>"You mean, as clerics?" asked Alewyth.<In some cases, yes,> agreed the Emissary.  <But not in all.  Akari would like you five to be His mortal representatives on the Mortal Plane.>"Why?" demanded Xandro.<There is a group of enemies in the Forbidden Lands who, through divination magic, are aware of a threat approaching from the east.  Although they do not yet know in what form this threat exists, it is you five they fear.  To ward off this unknown threat, they had the various entrances to the western half of Talonia - split as it is by the rift that almost tore the continent apart many centuries ago - sealed off.  They were responsible for the cyclops and his two monstrous centipedes sealing off the tunnels from the halfling monastery as you were traversing them.  They were also the ones who summoned the shinigamis and sent them scouring the approaches to the Forbidden Lands and take out any potentially powerful enough threats to stop their plans.>"Who is this group?  And what are they planning?" asked Zander.<That I am not permitted to say.  But I can say that if their plans are allowed to come to fruition, it will endanger every living soul in this world.  The God of Death and Undeath does not wish to see the destruction of the current balance between life and death come to an end.  With your approval, Akari will accept you as His mortal representatives on Erthe.  You need do nothing you weren't already going to do - go into the Forbidden Lands - as you are fated to meet up with these foes, and doing so as Akari's representatives may aid you in ways I am not permitted to disclose.>"So doing so helps us save the entire planet?" asked Thurloe, thinking about the bragging rights he'd attain by becoming a savior to everyone in the world all at once.  "Okay, I'm in.""I as well," added Zander.Wakuren and Alewyth looked nervously at each other; as clerics devoted to Cal, God of the Air and Healing and Aerik, God of Earth and Protection, respectively, it felt like a betrayal to become the mortal representatives of an entirely different deity - and of all the other deities in the pantheon, the God of Death and Undeath?  "I...have some reservations," admitted Wakuren."Me too," agreed Alewyth. replied the Emissary.  <Then let us see what we can do to alleviate them.>  He spread his arms out wide as if in benediction, and the two clerics rose a few inches up off the ground.  Then, snapping his skeletal wrists to the side, the Emissary caused Wakuren and Alewyth's necks to snap, and their heads to hang listlessly at their sides as the life left their bodies.  Xandro and Thurloe grabbed up their blades as if to attack, but just that quickly, the half-orc and the dwarf raised their heads up as life returned to their bodies as quickly as it had left.  With another gesture, the Emissary brought them both back down to the ground."We did," answered Alewyth and Wakuren in unison.  The half-orc added, "Cal's celestials have no objections to my becoming a mortal representative of Akari.""Nor does Aerik," added Alewyth.  "My service to Akari has the full support of Aerik."The Emissary turned to face Xandro.  <And you?> he asked.  <Will you become a mortal representative to Akari, God of Death and Undeath?>"No way in Hell," spat Xandro, who found the very idea repellent.  "I don't care what the others do - I'm not serving the Death God in any capacity, whether you snap my neck right now or not!"<Very well,> replied the Emissary.  <You may have cause to look back upon this moment with regret, but Akari will not - can not - force any mortal to abide by His wishes.>  He turned to the other four and raised a bony hand.  From the tips of his finger-bones shot out four blasts of white-hot energy, almost like a magic missile attack, but these blasts went directly to the foreheads of the four who had accepted the Emissary's offer.  For a brief moment, the skull emblem of Akari glowed on their foreheads before fading away to invisibility.<With this mark, your four are officially the mortal representatives of Akari, God of Death and Undeath, whose goals in this matter align with those of All-Father Cal and Aerik the Protector.  Go forth and continue on with your mortal lives.>  With that, his glowing-energy wings spread wide before him and he flew up into the sky, to a height of about 20 feet.  Then, with another wave of his hand, the dust pooled on the ground rose back up and reassembled itself into the form of the shinigami the heroes had just slain; the six gemstones leaped up and started circling his head once again, as the massive scythe reformed in his skeletal hands.<These individuals are not a threat to your summoners,> the Emissary stated.  <Seek elsewhere for your threats, and report back to your masters of your findings when you have completed your sweep.>  The shinigami, no longer recalling its previous encounter with the heroes nor its own destruction and rebirth, bowed before the Emissary of Akari and turned away.  It followed the road the way it had been traveling when the heroes had first encountered it, as if oblivious to their existence.  Above them the Emissary blinked out in a flash of light, and the fire elemental's flames once again started flickering.  The leaf, suspended in midair during the encounter with the Emissary, finally completed its trip to the ground."Really?" demanded Thurloe, looking in contempt at Xandro.  "The fate of the world at stake, and you tell an Emissary 'no?'""He's got you four - he doesn't really need me," countered Xandro."Besides," he added a moment later, "if this turns out to be a big scam, you might need me untouched to come save your bacon."  They couldn't really argue against that, not knowing the specifics of what they'd just agreed to, and it made for some uncomfortable speculation. - - - This was a short adventure - one ongoing encounter, really - and as the adventure that followed was similarly short, I decided we'd play through the both of them during one session.  I think this one took us about two and a half hours in all.  And as we gamed over a four-day weekend, Joey was in attendance, running Zander instead of having his dad, Dan, run him as normal when he's away at college. - - - T-shirt worn: My white "Walking Dead" T-shirt, even though the shinigami floated above the ground, not walked.  (The Pathfinder game lists the shinigami as an outsider; for my campaign, I turned it into an undead.)</blockquote>

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