Like Father, Like Son: Kid Charlemagne's Story Hour , PT III

[Jovah]

Yeah Darth Jovah.

Nobody expects the gnome to have an 18 ST- thanks Divine Power

Jovah had to hit him about a dozen times - with the 10 damage reduction only a few points were going though each time. But, luckily Wizards don't have a lot of HP.

Don't forget Fly lasts quite a while

 

[Sir Brennen]

Ack! Shown up by the gnome this battle! Brennen rendered useless because his opponent fumbled!

As we ran the session, someone asked if Brennen considers a weaponless spellcaster unarmed, and therefore a forbidden target for his swords.
After thinking briefly, he decided you can never tell if someone that uses magic is defenseless. In such a case, Brennen would probably err on the side of caution rather than mercy, unless the magic-user explicitly surrendered... which this one did!

Ah, the price Brennen pays for being a human quissenart the rest of the time. Two bad-guys lived because of the Sword of Kelenan code. Why do I have the feeling that'll come back to haunt us?

And Aris... well, let's just say that in upcoming Story Hours posts, Aris finds a way to one-up Jovah in the How to Be Useless In A Battle category.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Ulfang, June 3rd, AE 420

Back at the Gold Dragon Inn, Gavin hears a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” He asks.

“Room service,” comes the reply, from a female voice.

He takes a look through the small watch window, and sees a short woman, wearing the outfit of one of the Inn’s maids. Wait a minute, Gavin suddently thinks, that looks like leather armor under her outfit!

“Uh, sorry, we didn’t order anything,” he says, stepping back from the door, and drawing his sword. Corwin gets up from the bed he had been sitting on, and steps over by the balcony door.

Gavin sees the door handle turn, and the scratching of a lockpick in the lock. He quickly steps up and latches the door’s bolt, and the door rattles as whoever is outside tries to open the door.

“I said, we didn’t order anything!”

The door shudders as someone puts their shoulder into it, trying to break it down.

Corwin looks out onto the balcony, and sees two figures. One has just descended from the roof via a rope, and is standing just outside the door onto the balcony. The other is standing on the wall, apparently spider climbing, and Corwin recognizes him as the assassin from the Gregarious Gargoyle who nearly killed Gavin. Corwin steps back from the door and magic missiles the first figure.

Gavin decides it’s best to deal with all the threats at once, and throws the bolt back on the front door, swinging blindly at the person on the other side. He draws blood from the female rogue there, and sees a fighter in the hallway as well.

The first rogue jumps into the room and tumbles across the bed in order to try and flank Gavin. The spider climbing assassin nocks an arrow and lets it fly at Corwin, hitting him hard with a frost arrow. Gavin moves to avoid being put in a flanking position, and hits the fake maid again. The fighter moves into the room and begins swinging at Gavin. The other rogue repositions himself to try and flank Gavin again, but this puts him in the dangerous position of being flanked by Gavin and Corwin. Gavin takes the maid down with his next blow, and Corwin steps back from the other rogue and eviscerates him with another magic missile, dropping him. The archer-assassin decides that things are going badly, and clambers back up the outside wall, and the fighter retreats into the Inn’s hallway.

As he goes, he tosses a small black object into the room. It explodes into a huge bubble of force, trapping both Gavin and Corwin inside it and injuring them badly. It expands to fill almost the whole room, and even smashes the side walls outward so as to put a hole in each wall, breaking through to the adjoining rooms. Gavin sees the fighter run off down the hall, but can’t do anything about it. Corwin watches in frustration as the archer-assassin does the same.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Ulfang, June 3rd, AE 420

Meanwhile, Aris and Reana are trying to figure out where to look for Jalea.

“I say we should try the taverns and inns near Kentfield’s house,” Aris says.

“Do you think Jalea would be foolish enough to go somewhere that close to Kentfield?” Reana asks.

“Think about who we’re dealing with here,” Aris replies.

Reana has no argument for that, and the two take off for the neighborhood that most of the local nobles call home. They decide to start closer to Kentfield’s house and work their way further out, so they start with the small tavern where they hid out while Reana got attacked by the summoned Griffon a few days back.

“Seen any elves around here recently?” Reana asks of one of the waiters, offering a couple gold coins to prompt a memory.

“Not recently,” he replies, palming the shiny coins. “Sorry.”

The Ranger and Bladesinger leave the tavern dejectedly, prepared for a long night of asking mostly pointless question of people that don’t have the anwers they’re looking for.

That is, up until the hear the screams suddenly filling the street.

They both turn to see the late night strollers running in all direction, looking for cover. Standing in the center of the street is an immense spider-creature, more construct than alive, with cleaver-like claws and four eyes. It has a saddle, but no rider.

“What the…” Aris begins.

He is interrupted as red and gray beams shoot out from the thing’s eyes. The red beam hits Reana, the gray beam hits Aris. Reana is engulfed in flame, and seared badly.

“Aris, you alright?” she asks of the elf, who is standing there, stock-still.

Aris has been turned to stone.

Reana next several utterances would make a sailor proud. She dives behind the low stone wall that surrounds the tavern’s outside seating area, and fires the fireball arrow from Batista’s bow into the spider-thing. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a horse change form into that of a red-haired woman. The woman gestures in her direction, and magic missiles fly from her finger tips, hitting the Ranger. The spider thing also approaches, and brings a cleaver-claw down on her shoulder, drawing heavy blood.

Reana retreats into the tavern, where patrons are scattering to all corners.

“At least the thing can’t reach me in here,” she thinks.

She continues out the back door of the tavern, leaving the Aris statue standing in the center of the street, and begins sneaking back along the side alley to see if she can get behind either of her foes.

Back at the Inn, Jovah has arrived, at full flying speed. Seeing there is nothing he can do to help Gavin and Corwin get out of the bubble of force that has them entrapped, he begins flying around the city in ever widening circles, trying to see if he can locate Aris and Reana. Finally, his eye is drawn to the smoke from Reana’s fireball arrow, and he zooms over there.

Jovah has fly AND expeditious retreat going at this point! Speedy gnome!

He flies down, and sees Aris transformed to stone, and Reana nowhere to be seen. He watches as the red-haired woman enters the tavern, and then notices the saddle on the spider-thing.

“How convenient,” he thinks to himself, and lands in the saddle.

The spider-thing can’t reach its own back very well, and it barely seems to notice the gnome at this point. Reana comes around the edge of the building, not noticing Jovah in the thing’s saddle (or not believing hereyes if she did), and sneaks into the tavern behind the unsuspecting red-haired woman. But not before the spider-thing shoots off another eye-beam, this one electrical in nature.

“Can’t have that,” Jovah says, and he whips a spare cloak out of his back pack and wraps it around the thing’s head, covering it’s eyes.

Reana lets her opponent have it, swinging hard multiple times. She staggers back a few feet, and unleashes another magic missile at the half-elven Ranger. Outside, the spider-thing fires off its fire eye-beam, burning Jovah’s cloak to ash.

“That wasn’t very effective,” he says, pulls out his heavy mace, and smashes it down on the thing’s skull.

The red-haired woman steps back again from Reana’s whirling blades, and slowly fades out of view, shouting a command to the spider-thing at the same time. Reana swings her sword’s half-heartedly in her enemies direction, but they don’t touch anything.

Outside, the spider turns around, and begins making its way south-east, through alleys and back streets, with Jovah still sitting in its saddle. The gnome comes to his senses and decides to vacate the area just in case it plans on taking him somewhere he’d really rather not be (like, say, the Abyss).

Inside the tavern, Reana tosses a handful of gold coins to the head waiter.

“Sorry about the damages,” she says, and walks out the door.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Woo hoo! 1,000 views! Only 47,000 more till I catch Piratecat!<grumble, grumble>

 

[Jovah]

As he goes, he tosses a small black object into the room. It explodes into a huge bubble of force, trapping both Gavin and Corwin inside it and injuring them badly. It expands to fill almost the whole room, and even smashes the side walls outward so as to put a hole in each wall, breaking through to the adjoining rooms. Gavin sees the fighter run off down the hall, but can’t do anything about it. Corwin watches in frustration as the archer-assassin does the same. [/B]

Soon after that the Hotel Manager came upstairs to see what the racket was. He managed to mouth "Your going to pay for the damage" to Corwin and Gavin still stuck in the force bubble. That just struck me as a classic.

It just figures of the 4 scenes- this is the one where the party members really kick butt-only to have the bad guys still escape. GRRRRRR.

 

[Jovah]

Jovah has fly AND expeditious retreat going at this point! Speedy gnome!

He flies down, and sees Aris transformed to stone, and Reana nowhere to be seen. He watches as the red-haired woman enters the tavern, and then notices the saddle on the spider-thing.

“How convenient,” he thinks to himself, and lands in the saddle.

I think Kid C and the rest of the players got a little worried when I asked "wait- this thing has a saddle? cool

But Jovah (read as Jovah's player) was really put out by doing squat in the last few battles.
"Fortune favors the Bold!"

“Can’t have that,” Jovah says, and he whips a spare cloak out of his back pack and wraps it around the thing’s head, covering it’s eyes.

It was either that or his nice green dress pants.

 

[Jovah]

2nd page !

Can't ahve that- bumpeeerinoh

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Ulfang, June 3rd, AE 420

Jovah flags down a carriage, and he and Reana load Aris into the back and tie him down with ropes and horse blankets. They ride back to the Gold Dragon Inn, and find that Sir Brennen has joined Corwin and Gavin there. They leave the Aris-statue in the courtyard, looking like another perch for the pigeons.

They decide to leave town tonight, in hopes that their pursuers won’t be able to find them. They ride out of town (with Aris) and set up camp outside of town.

“What was that thing?” Reana asks Corwin.

“I think it’s a kind of demonic construct called a Retriever,” the wizard replies. “They’re known for their ability to track anything anywhere. It’s said that only the direct intervention of a god can stop such a thing from finding its quarry.”

“And who’s the rider?” Jovah asks.

“Could be another demon,” Corwin says. “I don’t have any ideas about her.”

“What now?” Brennen asks the group.

“We need to get Aris turned back from stone,” Jovah says. “The only person we know who might be able to do that is Tolaro. I say we dimension fold to Cape Varna and see if he has any suggestions. Maybe that’ll get all these demons off our backs, too.”

They agree on this plan of action. The night passes uneventfully; in the morning Corwin tries to scry on Jalea, and gets no result. This could mean that the elf is dead, however, it could also mean that he’s been turned to stone. In either case, it means they have no idea where he is.

Jovah casts dimensional folding and puts the party right into Tolaro Telegar’s front yard in Cape Varna. Tolaro’s servants are remarkably non-plussed; the former Dean of the Cape Varna Mage’s College has had inumerable odd visitors over the centuries, and they’ve grown somewhat blasé about this sort of thing. Tolaro’s butler fetches the elderly grey elf, who comes downstairs to see what’s going on.

“Dear me,” he says, looking over Aris’ stoned figure. “This is not good at all. Tell me all about what happened.”

The party fills him in on the events of the past few days. They ask him if he knows anyone who can cast stone to flesh.

“Well, yes…” he says, and then trails off. “Jovah, can you cast break enchantment?”

“Uh, why yes, yes I can,” the gnome responds.

Several party members levelled up between the fights and this conversation, inculding Jovah, who can now cast 5th level spells.

“That might be a better way to go,” Tolaro says. “It may take longer, since it wouldn’t be automatic, but it holds less risk for Aris.”

Jovah agrees, and the group plans out what they will do over the next several days. They are down one party member (two if Aris isn’t fixed soon), and with all the fighting that has been going on, they feel they could use some reinforcements. They identify three people that they can possibly call on:

• Anthius, the bard (now duellist) who they previously travelled with around the time that they met Gavin.
• Soldago, an an archer/horseman from the plains of Nali who is looking after Gavin’s interests in Shadow Springs (Gavin has the leadership feat).
• Lastly, Sonya, a cleric of Nuada who travelled with Brennen and Jalea several years ago. She currently resides in Sylvan, running a temple she set up there.

This would give them a little more firepower if they need it.

Jovah does a divination, asking, “Where is Jalea?”

The answer comes back, “En route to the old Kentfield Country Estate.”

Over the next couple of days, Jovah manages to break the enchantment on Aris, returning him safely to flesh and bone; the party gathers Anthius and Soldago to Cape Varna; and Jovah casts another divination, with the question that has been bugging the party for the past week.

“Why are the Sahuagin helping Kentfield?”

 

[Lazybones]

D'oh! The down side of frequently checking the board for updates to my favorite stories is that I have to wait the longest for the next update! I love how you have new twists in each installment (even when you're dribbling the action out to us in small pieces ).

Keep it up, guys!
LB