Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9374915" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 54: MCDERMOTT'S WAKEPC Roster:  Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 12             Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 12             Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 12             Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 12NPC Roster: Orchid, elf druid 12Game Session Date: 29 May 2024 - - -After decades of dedicated service to the Temple of Pelor, the paladin Carl McDermott, Lord Crusader of the Sun Court, had passed away in his sleep.  Harlan received word from Grand Master Beaufort, the temple leader, that he was to serve as Captain of the Guard for McDermott's cremation.  As part of his duties, Harlan and five of his hand-chosen allies would watch over Lord Crusader McDermott's body as it lay in state at the Sun Court while the temple leadership went up into the hills several hours away.  There, they would light the ceremonial torch from the first morning light's rays and bring the sacred flames back to the Sun Court, where the immolation would occur.  Harlan and his team would ensure the safety of Lord Crusader McDermott's body during the night and until the ceremony was completed several hours after dawn the next morning."You getting paid for this?" asked Ageratum."No, it is part of my duties," replied Harlan.  "And it's a great honor to be appointed Captain of the Guard.  And I get to appoint five others to join me - I was hoping to enlist all of you.""By all means!" agreed Alistair at once."There are only five of us all together, though," pointed out Chaevaris.  "Who are we going to pick as the sixth?  Holyrood?"  Holyrood Carp was a close associate, and although he'd never adventured with the TPA he was well aware of their exploits, due to the songs Alistair wrote about their career and passed on to the bard to add to his musical repertoire."No, he's making his way to Greyhawk to catch a ship for the Spindrift Isles, to join some conclave of Bards," replied Alistair.  "He'll be gone for some time.  Perhaps Carruthers?""I don't see why not," agreed Harlan.  And thus it was that by dusk that evening, the five adventurers and the shield guardian were in place at the Sun Court, watching as the temple leadership trekked off to the hills to gather the next morning's holy light."The guy's got a lot of expensive equipment," Ageratum pointed out once they were alone, standing on her tippy-toes to peer at the body of Lord Crusader McDermott as he lay in state on a bier in the back of the temple.  "His armor and shield alone is worth quite a bit, and that amulet he's wearing is covered in diamonds!  Are they really going to burn him and let all that go to waste?""That is the custom," Harlan replied.  "And that silver greatsword of his was taken during an incursion he led into the Astral Plane, to wipe out a bunch of mind flayers who had taken over a githyanki fortress.  The sword is worth even more than his armor and his amulet put together.  That's why we're here - to make sure none of the local thieves get it into their heads to loot his body before his immolation tomorrow morning.""Still, it seems like a waste," mourned Ageratum, silently wondering if it would be possible to get a replica of his amulet made before tomorrow morning and swapped for the real thing...but no, there was no way she could get anything made in the time at hand that wouldn't be immediately noticed as an obvious forgery.  She sighed heavily at the impending loss of lootable treasure."Not just local thieves," pointed out Chaevaris.  "The githyanki might not like his having taken one of their silver swords back home with him.  And the mind flayers could always show up for retaliation.  We'd best be ready for anything."Fortunately, the Sun Court was imminently defensible, for it had but a single entrance, a pair of double doors at the front of the church, which could be barred from the inside.  Having placed the bar into place, the heroes stationed Carruthers immediately inside the doors; anyone trying to force them open would have a nine-foot-tall mechanical opponent to fight off before they could involve themselves in any mischief involving the paladin's corpse.Harlan positioned himself directly before the paladin's bier and stood guard.  Ageratum and Orchid took opposite ends of the front row of pews, facing Carruthers and the double doors.  As for Chaevaris and Alistair, they went to the upper level, a horseshoe-shaped ring around the back of the temple where the choir sang.  There were two sets of spiral stairs leading to the upper level, and the whole back half of the temple rose up another 45 feet beyond that, forming an open tower.  Chaevaris positioned herself directly in the center of the choir level, facing the front of the temple, while Alistair was over by the northwestern staircase.  Ambrose had been left outside when they sealed up the Sun Court, with orders to keep an eye out for any approaching potential intruders, and to let Alistair know over their shared empathic link if anybody approached.  There was no point in preparing any combat spells just yet, for they had all night and the next morning on duty, with no way of determining if and when any attacks might occur.  Still, Alistair had his standard mage armor spell covering himself and Orchid had cast her traditional longstrider spell.  And even though there were everburning torches in sconces around the temple, Alistair chose to imbue everyone with a darkvision spell, so they could see no matter what the lighting might be.  As an afterthought, the sorcerer cast a detect magic spell and examined the entire temple, making sure nobody had hidden themselves away inside the temple ahead of time with a meld into stone spell or something similar, but the place was clean - other than themselves, the only other sources of magic were coming from Lord Crusader McDermott's armor, weapon, and equipment.After that, it was several hours of waiting.But then, long after the sun had set, Alistair felt Ambrose's sudden worry and concern over their empathic link.  "Get ready - somebody's approaching!" he hissed to the others, casting a shield spell to further protect himself in combat.  Harlan said the words to a quick bull's strength spell, while Ageratum and Chaevaris both activated the magical jewelry they wore that rendered them invisible.  Orchid took the opportunity to cast a barkskin spell, readying herself for battle.When the penetration into the Sun Temple occurred, it came from a direction none of the heroes had anticipated.  Chaevaris was the first to notice a sudden increase in the sounds of the outdoors - bird cries, the soft whisper of the wind - coming from directly behind her.  Spinning about, she was amazed to see a circular tunnel opening on the upper level, heading all the way through the back wall and into the night air.  The sounds of several people clambering up a ladder could be heard, and then, one by one, the would-be robbers made their appearance at the other end of the passwall spell.The first thief stepping onto the choir level of the Sun Temple was an elf dressed in dark armor, wielding a longsword.  He took an immediate left, heading for the northeastern stairs, apparently already having made himself familiar with the layout of the Pelorian temple.  Behind him came another fighter, this one a human, followed by a pair of rogues, one of gnomish origin and the other a halfling.  The human and gnome headed straight for Alistair, while the other two walked right past an invisible Chaevaris on their way to the opposite spiral stairwell.Right about the time the human and gnome realized Alistair's presence, he let loose with his prepared spell.  A chain lightning spell went blasting directly at the human, then arced over to the other three, covering everyone in flashes of burning electricity.  The human, having taken the brunt of the damage, fell over immediately into unconsciousness (if not immediate death), while the other three were rattled heavily but managed to stay on their feet.  Alistair slid over to the spiral stairway, placing the railing between himself and the others, who all looked like they relied upon their hand-held weapons in combat.  Hearing the sounds of combat from above him, Harlan raced to the northeastern stairwell and started running up it, ready to head off anyone who might try to reach Lord Crusader McDermott as he lay in state.  Ageratum ran up to take Harlan's previous post beside the paladin's body.Chaevaris ran over to the northeastern staircase as well, but for a completely different reason: she figured none of these four intruders was likely responsible for the passwall spell, and it sounded like the wizard who had cast it was still outside.  Sure enough, there was another human outside hanging in the air, likely under the effects of a fly or air walk spell.  But getting a quick bead upon the wizard's left eye, the archer released her arrow, smiling as it struck true.  The arrow pierced the wizard's left eye and exploded out of the back of his head; he fell wordlessly to the ground below, quite obviously dead from the well-placed shot.Orchid was far enough back among the pews that she could see the situation on the choir level above, and cast a wall of thorns spell that caught the three remaining thieves guild members in a mass of tangled, thorny hedges.  They cried out as their struggles to free themselves only pierced the thorns deeper into their exposed flesh.  Then Alistair ran forward, up against the northern wall, and cast a lightning bolt spell that hit each of the three in turn, killing both rogues instantly and making the elf fighter start to reevaluate his life choices."Ambrose is alerting me to another possible second wave!" the sorcerer called out suddenly.  Orchid glanced over at the front door, but it was still barred and Carruthers remained on duty there, ready to clobber anyone who tried entering by that method.  But the second wave, when it came, ignored the front doors as well, simply dimension dooring into the space between the pews and Lord Crusader McDermott's bier.  This second wave had nothing to do with the first wave; where the original intruders were local thieves guild members looking for an easy looting, the second wave was a githyanki sword retrieval team, seeking to fetch the silver greatsword McDermott had taken from the astral fortress to replace his own shattered blade.Harlan, up on the choir level, saw the first of the githyanki suddenly appear in the temple, a little too close to the bier holding Lord Crusader McDermott's body for his liking.  So, with nary a thought of his own safety (in his haste forgetting the ring of feather falling he wore), he raced southwards and leaped over the edge of the choir platform, to land immediately before a startled githyanki fighter, Jisteral, who had not expected to see a half-elf paladin manifest suddenly before her like that.  Harlan brought his Starblade to bear during his descent, swinging the holy flaming burst longsword past her guard and cutting deep into her side.Chaevaris, seeing the elf fighter wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, stepped to the south of the choir platform and sent an arrow shooting down at Jisteral, but the archer uncharacteristically missed her shot and the arrow buried itself in the temple's carpeting.  By then, a second githyanki fighter, Valurpain, had dimension doored into the temple, on the other side of McDermott's bier.  Orchid cast a baleful polymorph spell at this new intruder, but the githyanki woman shrugged off the intended effects, and no "bunnification" took place, much to the elf druid's chagrin.Two more githyanki, the male warlock Dith and the female warrior Falrath, cast their dimension door spells and entered the temple.  Ageratum approached Falrath and stabbed up at him with her blade, becoming visible once again as her sword struck true.  Alistair cast another chain lightning spell from the choir level, targeting Falrath as his primary and the other three githyanki as his secondary targets.  The githyanki proved themselves tougher than the local thieves guild members, for none of them died under the attack - but all four were visibly hurt by the spell's crackling energy.By now, Carruthers had stomped his way past the row of pews upon his master's command and was ready to engage the githyanki in combat.  He went straight for Dith, his closest enemy, but the warlock saw him coming and backed away, not eager to confront a nine-foot-tall automaton in physical combat.Jisteral swung her githyanki blade at Harlan, getting past his guard but barely grazing the nimble paladin.  He retaliated with a barrage of sword-blows in rapid succession, his initial swing infused with Pelor's smiting energy, for he had discerned these githyanki were of an evil nature.  At the end of his flurry of sword strikes, Jisteral slumped to the temple floor, dead.  Chaevaris took the warlock Dith out with a shot through the eye that slew him instantly, before he'd even had a chance to cast a single spell.But Valurpain had managed to keep her eye on the goal of this planar excursion, and she stepped up to the unguarded body of Lord Crusader McDermott, grabbing up the githyanki silver greatsword he held in his hands.  "Stop her!" called out Alistair from above, well aware that if the githyanki used another dimension door they'd have little chance of ever tracking her down and recovering the sword.  Orchid responded with a summoning spell, and all of a sudden there was an enormous elephant there in the temple, directly behind Valurpain.  She felt a sudden presence behind her, spun about - and was impaled by the elephant's thrusting right tusk.Falrath attacked Ageratum with his own blade - none of the sword retrieval team wielded silver greatswords of their own, to prevent complicating matters and causing the need for even more retrieval if they were unsuccessful - and cut up the halfling fairly deeply, but Ageratum just swallowed down the pain, telling herself it was nothing Orchid couldn't patch up with her healing spells after the fight was over.  But she was damned if she was going to let this skinny mummy-skank bitch steal the silver greatsword right out from under her own nose!  (If Ageratum couldn't make off with any of McDermott's goods, then by damn neither could anyone else - it was only fair!)  Using her cloak of arachnida to spider climb up the side of the bier, Ageratum ignored Falrath for now and launched herself at Valurpain, who had made the rather predictable mistake of assuming the large elephant was her most fearsome opponent at the moment.  The halfling's blade carved a line of pain across the githyanki's spine, but she managed to maintain hold of McDermott's stolen sword, with every intention of stealing it back and high-tailing it back to the Astral Plane.Then another chain lightning spell from above slammed into the two remaining githyanki.  Valurpain, to the sorcerer's great relief, fell over dead at once, the silver greatsword clattering to the floor.  Falrath followed, but only into unconsciousness - at least, for as long as it took for Ageratum to finish the job with a quick sword-slice across the githyanki's windpipe.  "That's everybody down here!" Ageratum called out to the others.Alistair, still up on the choir level, immediately returned his attention to the elven fighter helplessly encased in a wall of thorns spell.  "I surrender in the most vigorous manner possible!" the elf declared.  "I see now that we had no right to try to help ourselves to what was not rightfully ours, and I am ready to turn over a new leaf!  From this day forth, I am a new elf!  I will embrace the law with the utmost attention and diligence!""I'm glad to hear it," agreed Alistair, still advancing upon the nervous fighter.  "In that case, I'm sure you won't mind telling us everything you know about the thieves guild you worked for: membership, headquarters location, past victims and what was stolen, local safe houses....""Of course, of course!" agreed the reformed elven thief.  "Release me from the spell and fetch me an ink pen and a sheet of parchment, and I will document everything I know!"  The others had climbed the stairs by this point and, upon seeing Harlan's nod of acceptance, Orchid released the wall of thorns spell.  The elf, Blaze, immediately grabbed for the pommel of his longsword and pulled the blade from his scabbard - only to toss it on the floor at Harlan's feet.  "Look at me cooperating!" he emphasized.  "Wait - I have a dagger in my boot!  Here it is!"  And the dagger went plopping down on the floor beside his sword.The rest of the time spent in the temple was relatively uneventful.  Blaze wrote out a full confession and detailed everything he knew about the guild of thieves while Alistair used prestidigitation spells to clean up the signs of combat in the temple.  (Having run the duration of its casting, the passwall closed back up, leaving the back wall of the temple intact.)  Harlan went out back and removed the ladder, then restored the silver greatsword to the dead paladin's hands.  They stacked the githyanki corpses inside their extradimensional dwelling for now (along with the slain members of the thieves guild, including the wizard from out behind the temple), figuring they'd dispose of the bodies after Lord Crusader McDermott's ritual had been taken care of.  And the equipment from the four githyanki more than made up for the fact that all of McDermott's equipment was going to be burned up with him; in the halfling's estimation, their githyanki stuff was worth at least two or three times as much as she'd have been able to sell the paladin's weapons, armor, and expensive pendant.When the temple leadership returned the following morning, several hours after sunrise, they performed McDermott's immolation without delay; it seemed to Ageratum that the pyre they laid him on burned almost as brightly as the sun itself, once set ablaze with the flames from the torch they brought back with them from the hills.  And there surely had to be some magic at play, because afterwards, she could see no signs of the armor, the greatsword, or even the diamond pendant among the ashes."I think we'd all do well returning home and hitting our beds," suggested Harlan, stifling a yawn.  "We can deal with the corpses when we awaken.""Agreed" came the unanimous response. - - - This was a fun adventure to run through.  Once again, though, it seems like Orchid's "bunnification" only affects wizards from the one thieves guild, as every time she uses it against someone else it fails.</blockquote>

Verification