NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2820235" data-attributes="member: 1210">Mauve tentacles writhe before our heroes, and their blood runs cold.  Mind flayers.  Jawbreaker is about to become lunch for a mind flayer.  Suddenly their memory problems take on a more sinister aspect.  So does the absence of most of their friends- only Martini, Erasmuz, Naomi and Nara are free.  Where is Airhead Ed?  Federico?  Well, at least we found Jawbreaker, thinks Naomi as the slimy-skinned mind flayers let loose with their deadly mind blasts.  Her mind goes completely blank with shock as mental force overwhelms her.  She can’t think, can’t move... but is all too aware of the imminent danger.  The wriggling tentacles seem to emanate hunger for her brain, and she can’t do anything about it.But the others manage to stave off the terrific mental force of the illithids.  Martini grits his teeth against a sudden migraine and fires his bow into one of the monsters, shooting it multiple times, including a critical hit to the face.  It flops back, dead in the space of a few seconds, never able to assault his mind again.  Erasmuz gasps in fear as the other two strange cat-like predators bound towards him.  He fires a crossbow bolt that shoots wildly off-target, and then one of the creatures is on him, tearing at his small form with claws and tentacles.The other mind flayer vanishes.  Nara breathes a sigh of relief and casts a sound burst that catches both of the cat-like monsters in its area.  Both of them are already wounded; one of them falls to her spell.  Then Martini’s arrows shoot over and over into the remaining predator, and it staggers back, collapses and dies. The battle over, our heroes spring immediately to release the two halflings in the stocks.  One of them is indeed a shaven Jawbreaker, his head oiled and spiced.  He is not responsive to the party’s words.  Martini shudders.  “Keep your eyes peeled for more of them,” he warns, thinking of the illithids.  “One of them got away- he might be going for reinforcements or something.”The party turns its attention to the cage full of halflings.  Our heroes note the unsettling fact that the halflings have made not a peep during the battle.  Neither, come to think of it, has Jawbreaker.“Chief Jawbreaker?” says Erasmuz, shaking him by the shoulder.  There is no response.  He exchanges worried a glance with Nara.  The party gathers around, and they all call to him to no avail. Then Nara punches him in the face as hard as she can.  A slightly puzzled cast comes to his featuers.  His brow begins to crinkle, and then Jawbreaker roars, shakes his head and staggers down onto one knee for a moment.  Bewildered, he looks around wildly.  Seeing his friends, he roars again, then- after a few moments- calms down, panting.  “Where Jawbreaker?” he asks, after a moment.That, the party agrees, is a very good question.  Nobody knows the answer.What has happened to us? wonders Erasmuz.They turn their attention to the other person who had been in the stocks: another halfling male, who is unresponsive until they break his mental trance by punching him in the nose.  When he shudders and comes out of his trance, however, he immediately mutters, “Anybody got some crahk?”*“What’s that?” asks Naomi.“Dwarven stuff.  Rocks that you can smoke,” the fellow describes.  “Nobody gots any?”  After a moment of silence, the victim of the illithids says, “My name’s Tron.”  This triggers a round of introductions, which is quickly followed up by a combination of looting of the dead mind flayer and examining the cage of halflings.  The mind flayer has nothing but a loincloth on, but Tron takes it enthusiastically.  “I bet I could get some money for this,” he declares, to the dubious looks everyone else gives him.Meanwhile, some of the halflings have drifted over to watch our heroes.  Jawbreaker smashes through their cage door, and the party escorts them out.  They are in various states of psychic shock, but are all too aware of what their eventual fate would be, were it not for our heroes.  A few of the halflings are able to talk, but most are semi-comatose and barely responsive.“This place sucks,” announces Nara miserably.“What are we going to do with them?” asks Erasmuz. “We can’t just leave them here.”  Even the evil Naomi is unwilling to do that.“They follow us,” Jawbreaker declares.Indeed, with a little coaxing, they do.  The mind-shocked halflings follow the party as it moves along.  Tron chatters incessantly.  “You should stay in the back,” Jawbreaker says.  “You not have weapon.”  Jawbreaker himself has a shortsword loaned to him by Naomi.  He is hoping against hope that he will find his equipment somewhere, but...“I don’t need a weapon,” Tron states with a stain-toothed grin.  He raises up his hand, and suddenly a blazing blade of psionic energy erupts into existence.  Our heroes gasp; they have never seen anything like it.  With a grin, he announces, “I’m a soulknife!”Our heroes can’t really argue with his mindblade’s usefulness, having no idea whatsoever as to what he can do, so he remains in the front of the procession with our heroes rather than with the numb crowd.The halflings move along through the caves surrounding them for about ten minutes before stumbling into another wider cavern.  Jawbreaker, leading the way, gapes at the sight before him.Pinkish-gray brains... on legs.  Three of them.  Standing in an attitude of alertness, like guard dogs.  Nara gives an incoherent cry as they scuttle forward with frightful urgency.  The brain-dog in the lead leaps for Jawbreaker, all four of its strong legs raking at him, while the others hang back and use psychic powers against our heroes.  The battle is furious.  The party finds their weapons barely effective; the walking brains, meanwhile, prove both physically and mentally formidable.  They manage to confuse Naomi with id insinuation, causing her to behave dangerously erratically; Jawbreaker has to hold her down in order to immobilize her and keep her from causing harm.  The monstrous brains are resistant to halfling magic, too; and they can even heal their wounds.  But our heroes are mighty, and not to be denied; they destroy two of the three brains, and though Nara tries to catch the last one, it escapes into the dark twists and turns of the tunnels the halflings are wandering lost within.  She returns to the others, shaking her head.  “It got away,” she tells them with regret.What happened to them?  How long has passed that they don’t remember?  Nara grits her teeth angrily.  And where are her other friends?The thought of Jawbreaker in the stocks frightens her.  What if they already ate Federico’s brain? she thinks, chilled.  What about Ari?  Ed?A glad cry echoes up ahead.  She hurries to see what Jawbreaker has found: his equipment!“With this, we have chance!” he gurgles happily, hefting his longspear. Our heroes continue to forge ahead, looking for- what?  Escape, perhaps?  Clues as to the cause of their strange fugue state?An exit presents itself to them.  A natural series of stone shelves begins to ascend.  Soon, with a glad cry, Naomi spots the distant glow of sunlight coming in from above.  She scuttles to keep up with the others, hauling her considerable bulk with pride.  Up, up the stone shelves our heroes go.  Ever ascending, they hurry along until- they emerge onto the surface!  Their hearts burst with joy.  Escape!Except- Their “escape” has left them in a ravine, deep and jagged, with sheer walls on all sides.  A hidden place, away from prying eyes.  And for escape?  Escape needs climbing, several hundred feet of climbing.For a shuddering moment, Martini thinks of old friends: of Coco, and Brother He.... deads friends.Friends who died from climbing.  These halflings are not known for their luck with climbing.All around them, the sheer rock walls mock them, and the sun drops low enough that the entire ravine is cast in sudden shadow.  It won’t be long until the sun is down completely.  And then the mind flayers will come out looking for us.  Erasmuz shudders at the thought.Next Time: Will our heroes escape the ravine?  What strange allies will they find?  And what happened to them??*Crahk has appeared in my game before, in 2ed, when Horbin’s player played a short lived dwarven sociopath crahk dealer (iirc the whole thing- he may have simply been a crahkhead).  In this case, however, Tron’s player was rolling up his character and he got a 3.  He was playing a tallfellow halfling, which in Cydra has additional ability adjustments including a -2 wis, so he has a wisdom score of 1.  His player explained: “I figured there has to be a reason he has a 1 wisdom, and crack is it.”  Er, crahk.</blockquote>

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