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Story Hour
Kid Charlemagne's Story Hour, Pt II
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<blockquote data-quote="Kid Charlemagne" data-source="post: 1162" data-attributes="member: 93"><p><strong>Somewhere beneath the Vokal Mountains, January 1st, AE 420</strong></p><p></p><p>Batista is spoiling for a fight, especially against Drow. A Drow killed his mother, and almost killed him. Aris is just as ready to take them on. As a Bladesinger, he views himself as the pinnacle of Elven civilization, Master of Sword and Spell, and the Drow are his sworn enemies. Sir Brennen is the only one who has actually fought Drow, facing off against three in a tower north of the Endicott Mountains, and he wonders what the point of being able to deliver crippling blows is if the subject of the potential crippling blow won’t stand in one place long enough to get whacked like a proper warrior. Jalea’s memories of Drow are fleeting; he found the three Drow that Brennen fought, and had only time enough to yell a warning before being rendered unconscious.</p><p></p><p>Reana and Gavin wonder what all the fuss is about. They’re ready to put a hurt on somebody.</p><p></p><p>“We need to see what’s in that wagon,” Aris states matter of factly. “Jalea and I can check it out.”</p><p></p><p>The bladesinger casts <em>invisibility</em> on himself, and rushes up the path with the already <em>invisible</em> Jalea. They reach the slow-moving wagon, and Jalea knocks a box off the back to make the procession stop. Then he and Aris rig a wheel to break as soon as they start up again. In the confusion, they check out one of the crates inside the wagon, finding that is full of…</p><p></p><p>…Cast iron cooking supplies.</p><p></p><p>“What the heck is up with this?” Jalea asks. They look in another box; same result. Checking any more would drastically increase their already substantial chance of being caught, so they make their escape and report back.</p><p></p><p>“Interesting,” Vekkoth says. “That would be a typical kind of shipment to be coming this way under ordinary circumstances…”</p><p></p><p>The wagon is moving again now, and the party moves out into the docks area to try and ambush them. There are a number of stone buildings here, some damaged in recent fighting. As the wagon approaches, Aris sees only the one Drow – the female, who he thinks is a priestess.</p><p></p><p>“Where’d the other one go?” he wonders.</p><p></p><p>Reana comes back from checking out the docks. “There’s some lights down the Lake a ways, maybe a barge coming this way, but they won’t be here for a while.”</p><p></p><p>“A welcoming party,” Jovah says. “We’ll give them a welcome.”</p><p></p><p>The party springs into action. Aris drops a fireball on the orcs and the priestess; the orcs are fried but the priestess shrugs the fire off without even a singe. Brennen, Reana, Batista, Gavin, and Vekkoth all charge her, and she responds by casting a spell that cloaks her in an aura of fear. Batista and Gavin resist the spell, but the others run off in various directions. The remaining orcs spread out and start trying to pick off the frightened fighters. Gavin moves to engage the toughest of the orcs, a pair of large and scary creatures who are quite a match for him. Batista is left to deal with the priestess himself, as Aris slings spell after spell at her, and she at him.</p><p></p><p>The priestess avoids Batista’s whirling scimitars with an air almost of disdain, slipping under a blow here and casting a spell at Aris, sidestepping another there, and spinning another spell at the bladesinger. At the same time, arrows are raining down from a skillfully hidden archer on the rooftops. Things begin to look a little grim. Jovah casts a spell that grows a small grove of trees around the main fight in hopes that it will provide cover from the unseen archer. Jalea gets up on the roofs of the buildings and starts trying to track down their assailant.</p><p></p><p>Finally, Brennen and Reana make it back into the fight, just as Aris finally fails to resist a spell, and is <em>held</em>. The bladesinger goes stiff moments before Brennen and Reana dig into the suddenly vulnerable priestess, who goes down like a sack of potatoes. Batista just stares at his scimitars in disbelief. He never laid steel on her once.</p><p></p><p>Just as Brennen turns to see what can be done about Aris, a burst of lightning crashes down on the party. They look up for the source, and find it: A human wizard, flying about thirty foot up in the air, or to be more precise, five identical wizards.</p><p></p><p>“Mirror Image,” Aris thinks to himself, unable to move, but uninjured.</p><p></p><p>The wizard tosses two lumps of gold to the ground, and they grow into huge lions and attack the party. Batista and Jalea return fire with bows but find the wizard a difficult target, even without the images, which they start slowly removing. Brennen, Reana, and Gavin are having difficulty with the lions, and losing copious amounts of blood. The wizard tosses a magic missile at Brennen, and follows it with one at Gavin. Both fighters are severly injured. The wizard backs off, as his last image is taken away by one of Batista’s arrows, and they turn back towards the frozen Aris.</p><p></p><p>From the shadows of a building near the elf, a Drow steps forward, and places his cruel looking dagger at Aris’ throat.</p><p></p><p>“Surrender,” he says in the common tongue. “Or I will kill the elf.” Aris is utterly immobile from the <em>hold person</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>“Hold on!” Brennen says quickly. “Do you really expect us to believe you? How do we know we can trust you to let him go?”</p><p></p><p>The Drow shrugs. </p><p></p><p>“I suppose you can’t,” he replies, and slits Aris’ throat from ear to ear.</p><p></p><p>The party rushes him, but he creates an area of <em>darkness</em> around himself, and retreats. They regroup around Aris amongst the grove of trees Jovah created, and the priest tries to staunch the bleeding from the elf’s jugular vein. Jalea rushes down from the rooftops to join them.</p><p></p><p>“There are more men on that barge. They’ll be here in minutes.” He holds out his yellow ring; the one that will transport its wearer to the interdimensional castle.</p><p></p><p>“We have one way out, far as I can tell.”</p><p></p><p>Brennen nods. The party members all join hands, and Jalea puts on the yellow ring, and they all fade from the cavern into the pocket dimension’s entrance cave. Brennen casts a <em>dispel magic</em> on Aris.</p><p></p><p>Jovah starts casting cure spells on the profusely bleeding elf. Luckily, Aris was uninjured before the Drow cut him open, so he’s held on much longer than he would have had he been seriously hurt. Finally, Jovah staunches the bleeding, and Aris stabilizes.</p><p></p><p>“Don’t talk,” Jovah says. “We don’t want to reopen the injury.” Aris nods, weakly.</p><p></p><p>“We lost Vekkoth,” Reana says. “The priestess drove him off with that fear, and he didn’t make it back by the time we left.”</p><p></p><p>Gavin grimaces. “If anyone can find a place to hide down there, it’d be him. He knows those caverns well.”</p><p></p><p>The party takes four days to heal up completely in the pocket dimension. At the end of the fourth day, they prepare to return.</p><p></p><p>“Can we use <em>dimensional folding</em> from here?” Brennen asks.</p><p></p><p>“No,” says Jovah. “It can’t cross planar boundaries.”</p><p></p><p>“We have no idea what we’ll be going back to,” Gavin says. “They don’t know what happened to us, but there could still be people there.”</p><p></p><p>“We’ll take a look, and I’ll be ready to cast <em>dimensional folding</em> right away. We’ll go back to Fencig, and get a couple things there. Then we’ll come back to the caverns and finish this up.”</p><p></p><p>Jalea puts on the green ring that transports its wielder back to the place on the Material plane that he came from, and they materialize in the cavern. The half-dozen trees of the magical grove Jovah created have been cut down, and on each is a spear pointed up. On the tip of each spear is the head of a dwarf. A note hangs from one spear:</p><p></p><p><em>For each of us that you injure, 10 of these will be killed.</em></p><p></p><p>Very soon after that, bowfire starts raining down on them, and soldiers begin pouring out of the gatehouse into the cavern. Jovah quickly casts <em>dimensional folding</em> and the party makes its escape to Fencig.</p><p></p><p>The collapse in exhaustion in Jovah’s drawing room. After a few minutes, Hendrik, the manager of the Fox Club, comes rushing into the room. He is carrying a small crate.</p><p></p><p>“I just heard you got back!” he says. “Wow. You guys look awful.” No one even has the strength to shoot a stern glance his way.</p><p></p><p>“Anyway, this just came special delivery for you today.” Hendrik places the crate on the floor by Jovah and leaves. The gnome watches him run off, and tiredly glances at the label on the box.</p><p></p><p>He immediately springs alert.</p><p></p><p>“Aris!”</p><p></p><p>The elf looks concernedly at the luck-priest, and then goes to take a look at the box. It has a neatly written label:</p><p></p><p><em>To: Jovah</em></p><p><em>The Fox Club</em></p><p><em>Fencig</em></p><p></p><p>The handwriting is identical to that on the notes hanging from the spear in the cavern they just left.</p><p></p><p>Jovah cautiously opens the crate, looks inside, and then collapses on the floor in despair.</p><p></p><p>It is Vekkoth’s head.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Kid Charlemagne, post: 1162, member: 93"] [b]Somewhere beneath the Vokal Mountains, January 1st, AE 420[/b] Batista is spoiling for a fight, especially against Drow. A Drow killed his mother, and almost killed him. Aris is just as ready to take them on. As a Bladesinger, he views himself as the pinnacle of Elven civilization, Master of Sword and Spell, and the Drow are his sworn enemies. Sir Brennen is the only one who has actually fought Drow, facing off against three in a tower north of the Endicott Mountains, and he wonders what the point of being able to deliver crippling blows is if the subject of the potential crippling blow won’t stand in one place long enough to get whacked like a proper warrior. Jalea’s memories of Drow are fleeting; he found the three Drow that Brennen fought, and had only time enough to yell a warning before being rendered unconscious. Reana and Gavin wonder what all the fuss is about. They’re ready to put a hurt on somebody. “We need to see what’s in that wagon,” Aris states matter of factly. “Jalea and I can check it out.” The bladesinger casts [i]invisibility[/i] on himself, and rushes up the path with the already [i]invisible[/i] Jalea. They reach the slow-moving wagon, and Jalea knocks a box off the back to make the procession stop. Then he and Aris rig a wheel to break as soon as they start up again. In the confusion, they check out one of the crates inside the wagon, finding that is full of… …Cast iron cooking supplies. “What the heck is up with this?” Jalea asks. They look in another box; same result. Checking any more would drastically increase their already substantial chance of being caught, so they make their escape and report back. “Interesting,” Vekkoth says. “That would be a typical kind of shipment to be coming this way under ordinary circumstances…” The wagon is moving again now, and the party moves out into the docks area to try and ambush them. There are a number of stone buildings here, some damaged in recent fighting. As the wagon approaches, Aris sees only the one Drow – the female, who he thinks is a priestess. “Where’d the other one go?” he wonders. Reana comes back from checking out the docks. “There’s some lights down the Lake a ways, maybe a barge coming this way, but they won’t be here for a while.” “A welcoming party,” Jovah says. “We’ll give them a welcome.” The party springs into action. Aris drops a fireball on the orcs and the priestess; the orcs are fried but the priestess shrugs the fire off without even a singe. Brennen, Reana, Batista, Gavin, and Vekkoth all charge her, and she responds by casting a spell that cloaks her in an aura of fear. Batista and Gavin resist the spell, but the others run off in various directions. The remaining orcs spread out and start trying to pick off the frightened fighters. Gavin moves to engage the toughest of the orcs, a pair of large and scary creatures who are quite a match for him. Batista is left to deal with the priestess himself, as Aris slings spell after spell at her, and she at him. The priestess avoids Batista’s whirling scimitars with an air almost of disdain, slipping under a blow here and casting a spell at Aris, sidestepping another there, and spinning another spell at the bladesinger. At the same time, arrows are raining down from a skillfully hidden archer on the rooftops. Things begin to look a little grim. Jovah casts a spell that grows a small grove of trees around the main fight in hopes that it will provide cover from the unseen archer. Jalea gets up on the roofs of the buildings and starts trying to track down their assailant. Finally, Brennen and Reana make it back into the fight, just as Aris finally fails to resist a spell, and is [i]held[/i]. The bladesinger goes stiff moments before Brennen and Reana dig into the suddenly vulnerable priestess, who goes down like a sack of potatoes. Batista just stares at his scimitars in disbelief. He never laid steel on her once. Just as Brennen turns to see what can be done about Aris, a burst of lightning crashes down on the party. They look up for the source, and find it: A human wizard, flying about thirty foot up in the air, or to be more precise, five identical wizards. “Mirror Image,” Aris thinks to himself, unable to move, but uninjured. The wizard tosses two lumps of gold to the ground, and they grow into huge lions and attack the party. Batista and Jalea return fire with bows but find the wizard a difficult target, even without the images, which they start slowly removing. Brennen, Reana, and Gavin are having difficulty with the lions, and losing copious amounts of blood. The wizard tosses a magic missile at Brennen, and follows it with one at Gavin. Both fighters are severly injured. The wizard backs off, as his last image is taken away by one of Batista’s arrows, and they turn back towards the frozen Aris. From the shadows of a building near the elf, a Drow steps forward, and places his cruel looking dagger at Aris’ throat. “Surrender,” he says in the common tongue. “Or I will kill the elf.” Aris is utterly immobile from the [i]hold person[/i] spell. “Hold on!” Brennen says quickly. “Do you really expect us to believe you? How do we know we can trust you to let him go?” The Drow shrugs. “I suppose you can’t,” he replies, and slits Aris’ throat from ear to ear. The party rushes him, but he creates an area of [i]darkness[/i] around himself, and retreats. They regroup around Aris amongst the grove of trees Jovah created, and the priest tries to staunch the bleeding from the elf’s jugular vein. Jalea rushes down from the rooftops to join them. “There are more men on that barge. They’ll be here in minutes.” He holds out his yellow ring; the one that will transport its wearer to the interdimensional castle. “We have one way out, far as I can tell.” Brennen nods. The party members all join hands, and Jalea puts on the yellow ring, and they all fade from the cavern into the pocket dimension’s entrance cave. Brennen casts a [i]dispel magic[/i] on Aris. Jovah starts casting cure spells on the profusely bleeding elf. Luckily, Aris was uninjured before the Drow cut him open, so he’s held on much longer than he would have had he been seriously hurt. Finally, Jovah staunches the bleeding, and Aris stabilizes. “Don’t talk,” Jovah says. “We don’t want to reopen the injury.” Aris nods, weakly. “We lost Vekkoth,” Reana says. “The priestess drove him off with that fear, and he didn’t make it back by the time we left.” Gavin grimaces. “If anyone can find a place to hide down there, it’d be him. He knows those caverns well.” The party takes four days to heal up completely in the pocket dimension. At the end of the fourth day, they prepare to return. “Can we use [i]dimensional folding[/i] from here?” Brennen asks. “No,” says Jovah. “It can’t cross planar boundaries.” “We have no idea what we’ll be going back to,” Gavin says. “They don’t know what happened to us, but there could still be people there.” “We’ll take a look, and I’ll be ready to cast [i]dimensional folding[/i] right away. We’ll go back to Fencig, and get a couple things there. Then we’ll come back to the caverns and finish this up.” Jalea puts on the green ring that transports its wielder back to the place on the Material plane that he came from, and they materialize in the cavern. The half-dozen trees of the magical grove Jovah created have been cut down, and on each is a spear pointed up. On the tip of each spear is the head of a dwarf. A note hangs from one spear: [i]For each of us that you injure, 10 of these will be killed.[/i] Very soon after that, bowfire starts raining down on them, and soldiers begin pouring out of the gatehouse into the cavern. Jovah quickly casts [i]dimensional folding[/i] and the party makes its escape to Fencig. The collapse in exhaustion in Jovah’s drawing room. After a few minutes, Hendrik, the manager of the Fox Club, comes rushing into the room. He is carrying a small crate. “I just heard you got back!” he says. “Wow. You guys look awful.” No one even has the strength to shoot a stern glance his way. “Anyway, this just came special delivery for you today.” Hendrik places the crate on the floor by Jovah and leaves. The gnome watches him run off, and tiredly glances at the label on the box. He immediately springs alert. “Aris!” The elf looks concernedly at the luck-priest, and then goes to take a look at the box. It has a neatly written label: [i]To: Jovah The Fox Club Fencig[/i] The handwriting is identical to that on the notes hanging from the spear in the cavern they just left. Jovah cautiously opens the crate, looks inside, and then collapses on the floor in despair. It is Vekkoth’s head. [/QUOTE]
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