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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 1507" data-attributes="member: 150">Brindinford Part II. A Bad day for Uri.(note: I’ve recently discovered I’ve been spelling Irk’s name wrong – it’s Irk, not Urk. Stupid illiterate dwarves. Eventually I’ll try to go back and make the changes to the previous posts, but for now bear with me.)The Party pulled themselves out of the dark warehouse into the street and took a few minutes to take stock. They were battered and mangled, exhausted after a night of searching warehouses for the Grimlocks and the eventual battle, and it was a few hours before dawn. They had some interesting loot but no real time to identify it. And Uri was weak as a kitten (Pah preferred the term pussy, and spent a lot of time meowing at him). They decided to look for some help.There were two temples that they knew of in town. A shrine to Heirnomous and a temple to Pelor. Based on their old friend Norham, who was a priest of Norham before he ended up sunk to the bottom of the Nyr Dvy, they decided to head for the shrine. (imagine the road trip scene from Animal House – “hey, it’s Otis, he loves us . . . “)So Irk picked up Uri and the four heroes started their hike to the to the shrine. As they go close, they saw that the shrine was surrounded by a thick cloud of fog. A bit closer, and they heard a woman’s voice calling for help from inside the fog. And then it got very quiet.The party was in no mood to charge into the fog in their condition. Irk and Eli carried Uri to a spot close to the edge of the fog where they could find a little cover, and Pah stalked quietly, slowly into the fog.Pah snuck up to the wall of the shrine and still couldn’t see anything, but heard some shuffling nearby, and stalked a little closer. A few steps deeper into the fog she spotted two robed figures trying to carry a woman in plate armor, struggling with her weight. Pah pulled a pistol from her belt, placed the muzzle against the lower back of the robed figure closest to her, and pulled the trigger.Sneak attacks do a LOT of damage when you’ve got 5 levels of rogue. The robed figure was splattered all over the woman in armor he had been trying to carry and his partner. Outside the fogbank, Irk heard the shot go off, made an excellent listen check and managed to close with the fight and take a swipe at the other robed figure. Eli, the elf with the big ears, didn’t hear quite so well and ended up running up to the side wall of the Shrine and not having any opponents in sight. And Uri, well, Uri slumped against a rain barrel, wondering when his homespun tunic got so damn heavy. (Pah says Meow)The remaining sorcerer, already nearly dead after Irk’s axe stroke, spun to face the dwarf and shot a color spray at him, but Irk shook off the effect. Then Pah took a shot with her other pistol, finishing the sorcerer.The mist cleared in a few minutes, and the party was able to take stock. They were standing outside the shrine of Hieronemous over the bodies of two dead sorcerers in odd robes and a sleeping, gore-splattered woman – well, more girl than woman – in plate armor. They roused her, and she immediately started asking for Amien, her mentor and trainer, and the master of the Shrine, but she was no where to be round. The party talked to Torea, the paladin they’d rescued, and managed to get some information out of her. She recognized one of the dead sorcerers as someone who had been around the scene of a murder, the Reality Wrinkle, that Torea and Amien had tried to investigate the previous day. They didn’t know much, but had a bad feeling about the murder. And now they were attacked in the night and Amien was missing. She wasn’t able to help Uri, and was only able to offer a little lay-on-hands to help with their wounds. All things considered, the party still wanted some help, so they decided to head off to the temple to Pelor.When they arrived at the temple it was still a few hours before dawn. They pounded on the doors, eventually waking an acolyte who came and let them in to the temple. He was eventually convinced to go wake the high priest, who turned up in a wrinkled robe and bad hair to see what he could do for the party. He talked to them a little, lamenting the terrible things going on in the city. He offered them what he could – a few healing spells and a single lesser restoration to help Uri get up on his feet again. (Meow, says Pah). Then the priest sends them on their way, telling them that the have a lot of preparations to make for the next day – the Baron was going to make a speech, and they needed to be ready to respond to the new directives he was going to give. The party could return after the speech for more healing, if they wanted.And so, about an hour before dawn, they stumbled back out into the street, looking for an inn where they could get a room. And the finally managed to get some sleep.The next day, right around noon, they all shuffled into the main tavern room in the inn and tried to figure out what sort of loot they had from the night before. Uri worked on trying to figure out what was on the scrolls they’d found. After a while they were approached by a young halfling in simple monk’s robes. He was a young man who, for a while, had been living with the halflings in and around Brindinford, but he wanted to be an adventurer, and when he heard that the Heroes of Spittlemarch were in Brindinford, and he decided to try to join them, to follow them, if he could. He was especially interested in the one they called the Spider of Spittlemarch, whom he eventually swore to serve faithfully. (Basically, Uri took the leadership feat and took a 4th level halfling monk cohort).With Minimonk, the new cohort, carrying Uri’s scrolls and luggage, the party headed off to hear the Baron’s speech and then make their way back to the temple of Pelor. Traffic was moving slowly, but all heading for the Baron’s keep, and the party fell in and made their way. And then they heard a deep voice calling to them from a nearby alley.“Hey there, Heroes of Spittlemarch. Wecome to town.” And then things got cold. The party was ambushed – a cone of cold flashed out from the alley and took the whole party. No one fell, but no one was happy about it. They turned and charged towards the alley, but the figure was already gone, apparently around the corner. They seemed to remember catching a glimpse of a huge humanoid figure, but he seemed to be already gone.They found themselves in a series of alleys. Uri, feeling aggressive now that he was up to a strength of 7 after a night’s sleep, charged down one of the alleys looking for trouble. And he found it, when a pair of assassins stepped out of the shadows.The two assassins flanked Uri and both tried sneak attacks on him. One rolled a 20, and one rolled a 1. The one that rolled a 20 did a critical, and did enough extra sneak attack damage to make it deadly. (In our campaign we use a set of fumble house rules, which came into effect in this case. The Assassin who rolled a 1 rolled to avoid the fumble and failed that roll, and had to roll on the fumble table. He ended up thrusting a bit high at Uri and stabbing the other assassin who had been lunging forward for his own attack at the same time. The other assassin, wounded by his partner, was fortunate to make his saving throw against his partner's poison. Uri also made is save, but the thrust he suffered was enough lay him low (just below 0 hit points). The rest of the party charged into the alley to try to keep up with Uri. Pah spotted the Ogre Mage on top of a building looking down at the party, and took a shot at him, scoring a critical hit. Irk and Eli used withering missile fire to put down the assassins standing over Uri’s bleeding body while Minimonk charged in to try to get some healing to his new master, whom he’d known for all of half an hour. It took a few rounds of sorting around in his master’s pouches looking for potions of healing, but he did manage to get Uri back on his feet. Meanwhile, the rest of the party was having some fun. A cleric and summoned devil thing (Lemure) came out behind the party and attacked. The Ogre Mage was spraying the street with intimidating but ultimately useless fire from his huge longbow. And a trio of rogues appeared with crossbows to continue to make life interesting. The Lemure shrugged off a shot from Pah’s other pistol thanks to its damage resistance. Pah was being pressed by attacks from the Lemure and cleric. When Irk came to her aid she slipped back out of sight to reload. Things took another bad turn when two of the rogues closed with Uri and Minimonk. The rogues set up flanking attacks on Minimonk, taking the cohort out of the action in a single round. Uri stayed in the fight, whipping out a wand of shocking grasp and preparing his hand for a game of tag. He managed to give one of the rogues a good shock, but the next round the two managed to flank him and take him out of the action AGAIN. Irk and Eli managed to take out the Cleric and Lemure, and Irk closed with the two rogues while Eli took a few shots at the Ogre Mage. Pah returned with a loaded pistol in time to be attacked by a flaming sphere, as a new opponent, a sorcerer, stepped out of the shadows. She managed to evade the ball of flame, taking a shot at the sorcerer and ducking for cover. The ball chased after her, and she did get a bit singed, but wasn’t too badly hurt. Eli turned his deadly archery on the rogues standing over Uri and Minimonk, taking the rogues out then charging over to administer some healing, enough to stabilize the two and bring Uri around. As there was still an Ogre mage and a rogue with a crossbow shooting at the party from the roof, Eli returned to his bow, trying to put down those threats, while Uri complained that he hadn’t been healed more. (Pah says Meow) Pah reloaded and charged down the alley where the sorcerer was taking cover. She took a shot, missed, and was peppered with Magic Missiles, enough to spook her into taking cover again. Eli finally managed to do enough damage to the Ogre Mage that he dropped out of sight.The Sorcerer cast obscuring mist to cover his escape, but didn’t know that charging in blind is Irk’s specialty. Irk charged down the alley, coming out the other side in another open area, where he could see the sorcerer chugging a potion. Meanwhile, Pah slipped back out of the fogbank and set about reloading. As she was loading she was treated to a big surprise – the Ogre Mage, still badly wounded but very much alive, stepped out of the fog bank behind her and started to swing at her with his Huge Greatsword. Over the course of several rounds Pah tried to put some hurt on the big guy, while he slapped around at her, always managing to hit just where she’d been, missing over and over. Uri, having taken another potion and gotten back on his feet, tossed a Melf’s Acid Arrow at the Ogre mage. Suddenly near collapse again, and taking real damage he wouldn’t regenerate, the OM cast darkeness on the spot and headed back down the alley. A few seconds later Pah heard him collapse to the ground as he took another round of damage from the acid arrow.Irk closed with the Sorcerer, who had just drunk a potion of fire breath, and managed to singe him a bit before the big axe made little pieces of him. And the others finally finished the last rogue, who had been sniping from the rooftop. Irk charged into the dark alley where the Ogre mage had fallen, waving his axe around, trying to hit something, when he heard a voice above him. “I’d get my affairs in order, if I were you,” said the Ogre Mage. “We’ll meet again, and I will kill you.”A few seconds later Pah was at his side. “What did he say”“He said ‘I’m a dick’,” replied Irk, looking up into the darkness expectantly.Irk was not about the let things end that way. While the rest of the party slumped to the ground for a little rest, Irk tried to scale the wall to get up to the rooftop and pursue the Ogre Mage. It was a tough climb, but Irk was mad enough to punch holes for hand and foot holds in the plaster wall and managed to get to the roof fairly quickly. Up there, out of the darkness, he could see a cloud of gas that was roughly Ogre Mage shaped drifting away. Irk chased it to the edge of a rooftop, shouted some imaginative insults about the size of the Ogre Mage’s penis, and then returned to the party.* * * * *They gathered up the loot the could from the bodies scattered around the alley, cleaned themselves up as best they could, got Minimonk back on his feet, and then hit the streets again, heading for the Baron’s speech.There was a huge crowd outside the Baron’s keep – roughly half the city was there. After a few minutes the Baron stepped out onto a balcony to give his speech. Pah spotted another dark figure standing behind the baron, although none of the others could make him out. Pah tried to fight her way forward, shouting that the Baron needed to look out, he was in danger, but before she got close enough to be heard, the Baron started his speech.I’m not going to retype the Baron’s speech right here. But for those of you who don’t know it at all, he basically turned everything on it’s head. He outlawed the worship of Pelor, declared martial law and an abrupt end to the festival, sealed the city gates and forbade people to carry weapons in the street. As he finished his speech, a huge skeletal, scorpion-tailed figure appeared on the roof of the tower, and the party got a bit spooked. They got quiet, and decided to race to the Temple of Pelor for help before things got bad, but when they got close enough to see the temple, they saw a huge column of flame, 20’ wide, rising from the temple, through the shattered roof, and up into the sky. They decided not to go in. Instead, they made their way back to the Shrine of Heironemous, which they found abandoned. They shut themselves in, closed the doors, and hid. And that’s where the session ended. Next time: And you thought THIS week was bad . . .</blockquote>

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