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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2932687" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Rescue of Ari“Confused” is putting it mildly.  Ari reels from side to side, uncertain as to what is going on.  Where is he?  Wasn’t he just... what was he doing?  The Promised Land, right?  And his friends... but why can’t he remember?He is hungry.Something black and cool, like springy moss, seems to be covering him and obscuring his vision.  Ari loses touch with himself again.***Brother Yip leads the way down into the Black Valley.  As our wee heroes advance, more and more of the rocks and shrubs around them show black, mossy growths.  Nervously, the party proceeds.  This is very dangerous, thinks Erasmuz.  This stuff could steal even more of our memories.  Then his face draws tight as he thinks of Ari.  But we certainly can’t let them steal our friend.  No, we’ve got to go in here and rescue Ari.  The valley is quiet.  There is no bird song.  As the party moves deeper in, the moss is everywhere- on the rocks, on the bushes, here and there simply on the ground itself. Then the party rounds a boulder and they find their friend.  He is prone on a flat slab of wood, and three strange upright masses of the moss are using strong mossy arms to carry the wood.  Ari is covered is a layer of black moss, but his identity is still evident.  “Ari!” shouts Naomi, enraged.  She drops the ham bone that she had been gnawing on, curses, picks it up, wipes off the dirt and stuffs it in her cleavage.  Martini swears and lifts his bow.  Federico starts to shiver and puts away his lipstick, then starts to jape and joke to inspire confidence in the others.  Erasmuz starts to sing as well, joining the clan dog in his choruses.  Tron moves in, his mind blade active and charged with psychic energy.The three creatures drop Ari and his wooden litter unceremoniously to the floor, and one of them swiftly begins to attack Tron.  The thing’s first blow smashes into his chest, driving the air from his lungs.  The halfling grunts in pain and dismay.  A second blow crashes down into his shoulder and nearly drives him to his knees.  “I don’t like you!” Tron whines, and slashes into the thing’s body with his mind blade. There is an explosion of psionic energy and the mossy monster virtually explodes!  It collapses into an immobile heap.The second creature charges at Tron, smashing into him, and the soul knife slashes back at him.  Meanwhile the final monster has charged at Jawbreaker (who is busily lighting a torch, reasoning that they might not be vulnerable to normal weapons).  Nara starts to follow his example, and Jawbreaker changes tactics.  Since he has been directly attacked, he pulls forth his axe and gives a mighty blow.  Unfortunately, he missteps and twists his ankle, throwing his blow off badly.  A rain of Martini’s arrows thwack into the obliviax beast attacking him again and again.  Meanwhile, a spiritual weapon has appeared, thanks to Erasmuz (or perhaps it would be better termed an unspiritual weapon) and begins pounding on the creature as well, while Federico shoots at the other one with his crossbow.“Pull back!” Naomi cries crossly.  She pulls forth her wand, waits not a second, and fires off a fireball from it.  A red bead shoots out and when it reaches its target it explodes into red-hot flames, engulfing both obliviators and not quite reaching any of our heroes (including Ari).  The two monsters crumble into ash.“Ari!” cries Nara, rushing over to their friend.  The party clusters around, but he doesn’t seem responsive.  They brush off most of the moss, but there is no change.  “Perhaps,” Nara says, “given some time to prepare some different spells, I can rouse him.  Or, equally, perhaps the Yip Master has some sort of way to bring him around.”And so our heroes return to the monastery.  Master Yip does indeed have a few ideas as to how to rouse Ari, ranging from slapping him to massaging certain pressure points.  Soon enough, some thing or combination of things that he does works, and Ari sits up groggily.  His memories are spotty, too; he can remember very little since the party left Dyshim.  Thus it is that the others brief him: they have been fighting against the self-proclaimed King (former Governor) Stackler, of Zacradose.  “Wasn’t he sending ships against Dyshim?” asks Ari. “Exactly!” exclaims Nara.  “And we took the fight to Zacradose.”  Once there, the party had gone to a ruined keep of the small folk, in hopes of finding out anything new about the promised land or the halfling prophecy that they had heard beneath the pit of the healing springs while on Dyshim.  They had found, instead, the false promised land- where everything had looked perfect but turned sour instead.  And then-That is where everyone’s memories are lost to.  But the Yips have filled our heroes in: it is all the fault of Lord Obliviax.The party, in working against Stackler, had found out that he was a puppet of a mind flayer allied with Lord Obliviax.  “We had come into these mountains to take care of Lord Obliviax,” states Naomi, “and that’s where our memories were destroyed.  We must have fought him and lost, and ever since we’ve been trying to figure out what’s happening.  We’ve already killed and driven off a couple of mind flayers.”“We kill Lord Obliviax, we win,” Jawbreaker states.  “Let’s go.”“Well-”  Erasmuz pauses.  “What do you say, Ari?  Do you feel up to going back to face Lord Obliviax with us?”Ari stands up and walks around for a moment, testing his body.  “I think so,” he says slowly.  He makes a mental check: he has all of his spells prepared.  “Yeah.  Let’s go.”Jawbreaker nods decisively.  “Good.  We go.”It is afternoon, but not too late yet.  The party moves swiftly out and back to the gorge that Martini, Naomi, Nara and Erasmuz originally climbed into upon escaping the tunnels.  Afternoon has turned to evening, and by the time the party has descended to the bottom of the gorge, evening is threatening to turn to night. “We camp here,” says Jawbreaker.  “Go in to caves in morning.”The party sets up their camp.  They eat a hearty dinner and then most of them lie down in order to catch some sleep.  Of course, they always have a guard, so somebody is awake.A good thing, too, for an ambush comes in the deep night.Next Time: An illithid ambush!</blockquote>

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