Richard Rawen
First Post
el-remmen said:I decided to break up Session #94 into three parts as not make you all suffer too long without an update.
Great Stuff! And once again I'm amazed at the turns the PC's take!
"Out of the Frying Pan"- Book IV - Into the Fire [STORY HOUR COMPLETED - 12/25/06]
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
Great Stuff! And once again I'm amazed at the turns the PC's take!
Just marvelling at the consistency with which Kazrack's player brings out the dwarven mindset and cultural assumptions.
Some example quotes from last episode:
< shocked >"But how could he just make this decision on his own..."< /shocked >
...he went first certain that there should be a doughty warrior to protect others from any danger as they passed through. A moment later her was sinking to the bottom of the pond in his full plate mail...
"I would rather drown than take aid from a fiend,” Kazrack sat up and coughed.
I just love the sense of confidence in his worldview that Kaz displays. Open-mindedness is for other men.
Some example quotes from last episode:
< shocked >"But how could he just make this decision on his own..."< /shocked >
...he went first certain that there should be a doughty warrior to protect others from any danger as they passed through. A moment later her was sinking to the bottom of the pond in his full plate mail...
"I would rather drown than take aid from a fiend,” Kazrack sat up and coughed.
I just love the sense of confidence in his worldview that Kaz displays. Open-mindedness is for other men.
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el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Pyske said:
The funny thing about this comment is that there have been several instances where other players gave Kazrack's player a hard time about how "dwarfly" Kazrack acts about certain things. . . but looking back aside from those instances overall I think he did a great job RPing Kazrack.
In other news, tomorrow we are playing a "reunion session" - to revisit the characters a few months after the campaign ended to tackle a dangling thread or two. So it looks like even after I am done with the campaign Story Hour, there will be at least one post script of an additional mini "adventure".
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el-remmen said:
Well, acting stubborn and rock-headed for an an hour of real-time might be great RP, but the third or fourth time it happened, I sort of just stopped caring who was doing it - the character or the player - and wanted to strangle them both. But I mean that in the nicest possible way.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
mmu1 said:Well, acting stubborn and rock-headed for an an hour of real-time might be great RP, but the third or fourth time it happened, I sort of just stopped caring who was doing it - the character or the player - and wanted to strangle them both. But I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Yes, well. . . as we figured out our pacing and play style didn't exactly match up
- That's not to say that I did not find it frustrating sometimes myself, but I will take that over making choices that are out of character just to move the game along.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Cool, Kazrack's fan club has a second member...Pyske said:
Richard Rawen
First Post
Oops!
I bumped into somethin...
I bumped into somethin...
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Session #95 (part 1 of 2) (1)
Martin tucked in his reptilian wings and dropped down to the ground immediately, landing beside Ratchis.
“A giant eagle is swooping down in our direction!” he warned.
“We cannot afford to be drawn into a fight here without knowing who is who and what is what,” Ratchis replied. “Roland, can you do something?”
With a roar, the Bastite summoned a great cloud of obscuring mist that billowed out from beneath his body and filled the area.
“Who farted?” Gunthar guffawed.
“We are vulnerable out here,” Roland said. “That was just a quick defensive maneuver. We need to decide how best to handle this.”
“I find this mist to be not necessarily a very prudent means of defense,” Sergio’s voice came wafting out the odorless mist. “It probably cannot see us, but we definitely cannot see it.”
“Okay, Roland, we are here because of you,” Kazrack’s voice was filled with grudging restraint. “What are we supposed to be doing?”
“Yes, what is going on?” Martin the Green asked.
“Well, I spoke with Chochokpi and learned that in order to handle the problem of the Maze we need to repair the Modron Station with powerful necromancy,” Roland explained. “And once that is accomplished, the modrons must be made to send the Maze deeper into the Plane of Time, where we might battle or drive off the time elemental…”
“You could have returned immediately and told us that as soon as you learned it!” Kazrack yelled, his restraint quickly forgotten.
“Let’s keep our voices down,” Ratchis admonished. “We do not want to draw more attention than we already have.”
“The Tiger Prince might be a powerful ally,” Roland said. “Chochokpi told me where I might find him. What I planned to do was for the sake of being more likely to accomplish the awesome task before us.”
“Do we need the aid of this Tiger Prince?” Martin asked.
“If he is as powerful as I suspect, he might be able to more easily defeat the demoness, Ora-Amira-El,” Roland replied.
There was a long silence, broken only by the whooshing of the wind that swirled the mist the Keepers of the Gate.
“But…” Roland continued. “It will take about three days to get there, so we are talking at least six days…”
“Kazrack, when you fell ill because you were not attending to Osiris’ task quickly enough, how long did it last?” (2) Martin asked. “I feel the weight of my task upon me, and I fear I will soon be feeling its debilitating effects.”
“Several days,” the dwarf replied.
Martin the Green sighed. “I guess I will hold on as long as I can…”
“If we are going to talk about this longer we should make a break for the cover of the woods near the pond,” Ratchis said. “When the mist dissipates we will be out in the open.”
It was agreed, and a moment later the Keepers of the Gate, accompanied by Sergio, took off for the woods, leaving the obscuring mist behind.
“N’kron warned me that the giant eagle is still around, but way up in the sky,” Bastian told the others as they ran.
They gathered by the pond and continued their discussion.
“So can we count on this Tiger Prince to aid us?” Ratchis asked the Bastite.
“Well…” Roland took a long time before continuing. He sat down and his panther tail flicked back and forth nervously. He looked at everyone. “I really am not sure that this prince will help, but I have hope that I can convince him to do so. I hope that your assessment of my judgment has led you to trust my instinct…”
“Heh. Based on your past displays of judgment, we should return to Hurgun’s Maze immediately,” Kazrack replied.
“Kazrack! That was petty,” Roland complained.
“The truth is never petty,” Kazrack said. “I will say it again. We should return to Hurgun’s Maze immediately.”
“And there you go again,” Roland replied. He sat up, still in panther-form, and the black velvet fur on his back bristled.
“Is there a point to your blathering?” Kazrack replied. “Can you give us a real and sufficient reason to believe we should go wandering some bestial landscape to find some tiger-king…?”
“Tiger-Prince,” Roland snapped. “There is no monarch here but Bast.”
Kazrack shrugged his indifference.
“I must say that I believe that wandering a plane is folly,” Sergio Fontane interjected, rubbing the back of his neck. “And a the demoness is a pale shadow of what we might meet here. If you decide to go find this Tiger-Prince, I will be returning to the Maze alone.”
“And it still stands that we cannot give the demoness six days, if not more, to get her hands on the power of the Maze,” Kazrack said.
“We will die if we face that demon again,” Bastian joined the discussion quietly. “Perhaps it is worth the risk to take these six days out of our way.”
“It will likely be more than six days,” Kazrack said, getting heated.
“We know where you stand, Kazrack…” Roland began.
“And we know where you stand,” Kazrack interrupted. “You would have taken it upon yourself to abandon us in the Maze and undertake this folly on your own if we had not come here to convince you to come back. I still think we might have been better served to just leave you here if that is what you really want.”
“That is enough!” Roland roared.
“No, it is not enough!” the dwarf replied. “You are a selfish and foolish man that thinks of naught but himself, and…”
“Kazrack! Be silent!”
“No! I will not be ordered about by the likes of you!” the dwarf spat.
There was the cry of bird unseen way above them that echoed the growing volume of their argument.
“Birds! Friggin’ wolves! I thought this was cat-land?” Gunthar swore. The Neergaardian was sitting on a stump and had the Left Blade of Arofel across his lap.
Bastian walked over to Martin who was sitting by the edge of the pond with his back to the others.
“How are you feeling?” the bearded warrior asked the watch-mage.
“Like strangling my companions,” Martin replied dryly, but he slapped his hands on the ground and standing, turned to Roland. “Can you at least give a guess of how likely the Tiger-Prince is to help us? And how dangerous the journey to see him will be?” The watch-mage instinctively held his right hand to his face to cover his disfigurement.
“As for the likelihood of aid, with no hubris I can say that the likelihood is based on my ability to convince him and display my faith and dedication to Bast, and thus, I have no doubt,” Roland replied. “As for the journey… Well, of that I am less certain. Chochikpi said we would have to pass through a place called the ‘Valley of Suffering Hunters’… Oh, and another place he referred to ‘the Realm of the Charging Beasts’.”
“Kazrack,” Martin turned to the dwarven priest. “I suggest you cast the stones.”
“I will certainly try, but I fear that so far from my gods in the realm of other gods the patterns in the runes may not come as clearly,” Kazrack said.
“Part of me feels that I should not be so prideful to I assume that only we can solve the problem of the Maze. Perhaps such puzzles require us to admit our shortcomings and seek out this help,” Ratchis said. “But at the same time, the risks involved in going after this possible aid has me doubting…”
“It seems perfectly clear to me,” Kazrack said. “Pure reason alone is enough to show we should return and not seek out this tiger-man.”
Roland snarled.
“Kazrack… Please go throw the stones,” Martin pleaded.
The dwarf nodded and walked off to consult his gods in private. Ratchis walked over to stand guard over his friend while still keeping his distance. Sergio and Gunthar were shearing swigs from a flask.
“Martin? Are you really willing to risk being killed by Osiris’ geas to go find this aid?” Bastian asked.
“I am not as important as what needs to be done,” Martin the Green replied.
“But aren’t you afraid that as you are weakened by the geas you will be more likely to succumb to the influence of the Corruptor’s book?”
“Uh…”
There was a long heavy silence.
Martin shrugged. “I’m going to die either way.”
After a time, Kazrack and Ratchis returned.
“I think the gods are telling us that this aside will be unnecessary and risky journey,” Kazrack began.
Roland opened his mouth to speak.
“But let me recite the words of my gods as exactly as I can, so you all might judge for yourselves,” Kazrack continued. “The capricious nature of beasts will delay and frustrate even the most patient dwarf, and ironically, may even kill a man despite his beastly nature.”
“Well, then… Who wants to go into the pond first?” Roland said, stalking off towards the water.
“Well, that settles that…” Ratchis said, and followed.
The Friar of Nephthys was sent first with a rope tied around his waist. He felt the slightest resistance as he passed through the portal of blue light, but relaxed and passed through. Ratchis went through the portal to re-appear in the Light Room, but the rope was cut off. Kazrack who was following behind holding on to the rope passed right through the portal, unwilling or unable to relax enough to pass through. (3) Worried that something might have happened to him Roland leapt in and saw Kazrack lying in the muck below, frantically stirring up the bottom of the pond trying to swim to the surface and clearly failing in his full plate armor.
Roland swam quickly to the top and told Martin what was happening.
“Gunthar, you have to go help Kazrack!” Martin said to the Neergaardian.
“Uh-uh, Ratchis told me to stay in the back,” Gunthar winked, but he sat down in the grass and began to take off his boots.
“Were you planning on leaving your boots here?” Martin asked, clearly disgusted with Gunthar’s delay.
Gunthar stopped and looked up at the watch-mage. “No, but I’m not going through the damned portal now, am I? I’m going trolling for a dwarf… Not that I haven’t done that before, if you know what I mean…” He winked.
“I mean, don’t you think you should hurry?”
“He’s got time,” Gunthar went back to his boots. “He’s got strong dwarven lungs. I’m sure if you asked him he’d tell you that himself.”
Sergio chuckled, and Roland would have certainly found it funny as well, but he dove back down into the pond and this time through the portal to leap out of the wooden frame behind the screen in the Light Room. However, at that same moment, Ratchis, concerned that no one had come through behind him, cut himself again and paid the price of blood to go back through the frame.
The half-orc broke the surface of the pond. Gunthar was pulling off his chain shirt and was about to leap in.
“Kazrack is drowning at the bottom of the pond!” Martin said. Ratchis leapt back in and Gunthar followed him.
It took some time before everyone was coughing and sputtering back in the Light Room. Martin activated the Wurfel Kraft as soon as everyone was through, and it was not a moment too soon, as the pink and green tentacles came through the wall to slam against the side of it.
A few moments later, when the blue cubic field of light dissipated near the center of the Light Room, the Keepers of the Gate fell to arguing again. Gunthar walked away from the others, and began to examine the beams of light that acted as bars to protect the golden book upon the pedestal within. Sergio joined him and the two began to discuss how they might be circumvented.
“Purely theoretically,” Sergio said, waggling his eyebrows.
Gunthar sneered.
The debate on what to do next sputtered when Martin announced it was pointless to argue until after he used the analyze portal spell he had prepared and they could see where the portals led.
“I also plan to take more time looking at each portal that I might actually get a view of what lies beyond,” he explained.
Martin cast his spell and soon was walking around to look at each portal. “Hell,” he said pointing to the portal near where the worm-like tentacles had emerged from the wall. Across from it was the way into the Air Room where the guest quarters and cloud rooms were. The portal back the way they came now led to somewhere Martin called the ‘Control Room’ and the portal opposite it led back to the Entrance room with its para-elemental guardians. (4)
Martin covered his eyes with his left hand and concentrated at the portal leading to the Control Room. Beyond was a room that he guessed was the same size as all the other chambers they had passed through, and much like the Light Room, it was brightly illuminated, but with blue-white light. There were broad metal steps leading up to a catwalk made of metal grates, which created a cross that hung over a misty chasm. The actual floor of the room was invisible in blue and white roiling mist. The center of the room was obscured by a similar mist within which was a blue twirling light sparking with a myriad of tiny lights along its incorporeal tubular surface. A dark-skinned figure hovered above a throne like chair in the room’s center platform.
“What do you see?” asked Roland. Martin waved the Bastite away and hurried over to the portal that he had determined led to the Air Room, and again he extended his visual senses through it. The room appeared empty, the cloud rooms floating lazily across the ceiling.
As the watch-mage described what he had seen to the others, Ratchis, Kazrack and Roland doled out the healing favors of their gods to the group.
“Could the ‘control room’ be the Modron Station?” Ratchis asked.
“I saw no machinery,” Martin replied. “I don’t think so.”
“The Modron Station must be like the works for the Maze, this is the Control Room; that figure must be Hurgun,” Roland said, shaking his head. He had transformed back into his normal human shape.
“And the swirling blue light must be the time elemental,” Bastian said.
“So does what you saw suggest a course of action?” Kazrack asked.
“Don’t touch the blue light?” Martin shrugged his shoulders.
“We’re supposed to fix the Modron Station,” Ratchis said. “Maybe we should not go into the Control Room yet.”
“We don’t know the way to the Modron Station,” Martin said. “And this might give us a chance to determine what we are dealing with.”
The others agreed and a moment later they were passing through the portal into the Control Room, one at a time.
Bastian saw Gunthar hang back and toss a copper coin through the bars of light that warded the golden book in the center of the Light Room. There was flash of light as the coin struck one of the bars and then the thing was gone…
--------------------------
The Control Room had a palpable cold, as if mountain water snaked invisibly in narrow rivulets in the air. The Keepers of the Gate gathered on the metal steps up to the catwalk before them, and could look down through the grating at the swirling mist fifteen feet below. There was no way to tell how deep the room went.
At the center of the crossed fifteen foot wide catwalks was a square metal platform another five feet up. It had a silvery metal obelisk about six inches to a side at the base and each just less than four feet tall. In the center was a metal throne-like chair on revolving disk, but no one sat on it. Instead hovering five feet above it was a man with his arms akimbo and his head slightly tilted back. He was stripped bare from the waist up, and had broad shoulders and well muscled arms. He had rich brown skin and his head and face were hairless, not even eyebrows. His eyes were closed. He was close to six and half feet tall.
“It is Hurgun of the Stone,” Martin whispered to the others.
Around Hurgun the swirl of blue tubular light spun, expanding and contracting at seemingly random pulses, sometimes reaching out as far as fifteen feet from the center platform. (5)
Suddenly they noticed a murmur as if of voices on a wind swelling and ebbing beneath them in the mist. The time elemental sparkled and pulsed and suddenly some of the voices became clearer.
“No Kazrack, go to the lifeboats,” the heard a woman’s deep voice over the rain and wind of a storm, and the muffled cries of a frantic ship’s crew. “I’ll be right behind you!”
Kazrack’s mouth opened in awe and consternation. He peered over the edge of the platform and tugged on his beard worriedly. He then turned to Martin. “What does it mean?”
“I…” Martin began, but suddenly the sound of young laughter wafted up from the mists below. “Martin wet his bed! Ha! Ha! ”
“Are you sure we should hole up in here, Roland? ” came a different, only slightly different voice.
“Yesh… Mmmm… Delicious! ” came another voice, this once was sibilant.
“Whatever is in here is responding to our presence,” Martin finally said, as another woman’s voice was shrieking, “Gwar! Gwar! I am so sorry! Love you; do you understand love? I love YOU! ”
“If we there is nothing we can do here until we have repaired the Modron Station, let us leave,” Ratchis said.
“Gunthar! You worthless little sh*t!” came a shrill slurring voice followed by a sound like an echoing smack. “Get the hell out of here before I sell you to the Jackal-Ghouls!” (6)
“Martin, can you check the portals out of here at least?” Roland asked. “What if one leads to the Modron Station?”
The watch-mage nodded and cast his spell. The portal across from the one they came through led to the somewhere called the Storage Room. The portal on the left led to the Dining Room. The one on the right led to the Dark Room, and the one they had come through was now leading to the Air Room. The Keepers of the Gate went back through the portal into the guest quarters.
Martin hurried ahead to get a look at the portals out of this chamber before his spells’ duration expired. From left to right they led to the Light Room, the Earth Room (which was the Audience Chamber) and the ‘Chambers’.
“Do you think the modrons will attack us if we run across any as we explore the Maze?” Roland asked.
“Probably,” Ratchis replied.
“Modrons are the least of our worries,” Martin the Green said, uncharacteristically.
“Lady Aureliana? Are you still here?” Ratchis called out.
Lady Aureliana came floating down out of one of the rooms. Her sea-blue hair looked ruffled as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep, and her white gossamer gown hung off her bare shoulders. Her insect-wings buzzed as she landed.
“Oh? Are you back?” she asked in her high-pitch, but mellifluous voice. “I fear terrible things have been happening in the Maze…”
“What have you seen or heard?” Ratchis asked.
“Modrons moving through the room in a state of alert, many of them were wounded,” she replied, looking right at Ratchis. He noted how she no longer seemed to tense up nervously and look away when she addressed him. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
“The Control Room,” Kazrack replied, and then turned to his friends. “I still think we should go back in there and experiment a bit and see more about the nature of the time elemental. We do not know where the Modron Station is, but we know where this room is… At least until the rooms begin to move again. We have no time."
“Oh yes, I agree,” said Lady Aureliana. “If you have discovered something so important, to abandon it in hopes of finding something else might be foolish. Remember, I was lost in this Maze for a time and only made my way back here quite by accident. I will come with you to this Control Room, and give what aid I can.”
Ratchis frowned. “Why have you changed your mind?” He asked the sylph.
“Changed my mind?”
“Before you did not want to leave here,” the half-orc replied.
“Before you were not sure where you were going, but now there is a more definite goal,” Lady Aureliana reasoned, as she brushed a lock of her wispy hair behind her pointed ears.
“It is futile to tamper with it until the Modron Station is repaired,” Martin insisted. “Has Gilbart returned?”
“I have not seen Gilbart.”
“She is lying,” Ratchis whispered to Martin in orcish, moving to one side with the watch-mage. (8)
“But what can we do?” Martin whispered back, his inflection might have been humorous to Ratchis under different circumstances.
“You know, I am not sure of Aquerra, but where I come from whispering like that is not polite,” Lady Aureliana admonished them with a smile.
“They have no manners,” Roland responded. “But if you’ll excuse me, I left some of my things in one of the rooms, and need to collect them. The Bastite willed himself to enter one of the floating rooms.
Ratchis flashed Kazrack a look of warning and the dwarf frowned.
“Tell me, Lady Aureliana,” the dwarf said. “How did you like the gift I gave you before?” (9)
The sylph paused, and furrowed her brow. “Gift? What gift was that?”
“You do not remember?” Kazrack asked.
“Kazrack…” Ratchis began, but the dwarf raised a hand.
“I find it interesting that you suddenly want to go exploring the Maze when before you did not want to,” Kazrack said to the sylph.
“Yes, your orcish companion said as much,” she replied. “If you do not wish to accompany me, I am willing to go alone.”
“You see, that is even odder,” Kazrack said. He stepped before the portal. “I am afraid I will not be able to allow you to go the Control Room, either with us or without us.”
“Kazrack…” Ratchis began again.
“You folk of the earth are so strange,” Lady Aureliana said. “But I suggest that you and your companions are better off letting us each try to do what we can in the Maze without interfering in each other’s goals.”
Kazrack shook his head.
Roland came back out of the cloud room looking pale. He held something in his arms, and turned his back to the others to show it to Martin the Green. It was the twisted and broken corpse of Lady Aureliana’s pseudo-dragon companion.
Ratchis noticed it out of the corner of his eye.
“Martin! Can we possible let her through?” Ratchis asked in orcish again. “We cannot allow her into the Control Room. We must stop her here or die trying!”
The half-orc reeled as he heard Ora-Amira-El’s laughing voice in his head. “I can hear your every thought, worm!”
Lady Aureliana began to laugh as her form changed. She grew to a great height and another set of muscular arms stretched out of her expanding torso, revealing two-sets of veiny breasts. “Fine. You want to choose to face me here and now? At least I will get the pleasure of watching you kill another of your friends, Kazrack.”
--------------------
Notes:
(1) This session was played on July 23rd, 2005.
(2) See Session #29
(3) DM’s Note: In order to pass through they had to fail a DC 6 Will save, or willingly fail the save.
(4) See Sessions #91 & 92
(5) The layout of the Control Room can be seen behind the sblock: [sblock]
[/sblock]
(6) ‘Jackal-Ghoul’ is a common nickname for Monks of Anubis.
(7) Wizards may change prepared spells at the rate of 15 minutes per spell level per spell.
(8) Ratchis taught Martin some basic orcish while the watch-mage taught Ratchis some basic reading on the trips to and from Nikar and while they were in that town.
(9) DM’s Note: Suspecting that Lady Aureliana was not who she appeared to be, Kazrack was trying to bluff her into revealing it; rather ineptly.
Martin tucked in his reptilian wings and dropped down to the ground immediately, landing beside Ratchis.
“A giant eagle is swooping down in our direction!” he warned.
“We cannot afford to be drawn into a fight here without knowing who is who and what is what,” Ratchis replied. “Roland, can you do something?”
With a roar, the Bastite summoned a great cloud of obscuring mist that billowed out from beneath his body and filled the area.
“Who farted?” Gunthar guffawed.
“We are vulnerable out here,” Roland said. “That was just a quick defensive maneuver. We need to decide how best to handle this.”
“I find this mist to be not necessarily a very prudent means of defense,” Sergio’s voice came wafting out the odorless mist. “It probably cannot see us, but we definitely cannot see it.”
“Okay, Roland, we are here because of you,” Kazrack’s voice was filled with grudging restraint. “What are we supposed to be doing?”
“Yes, what is going on?” Martin the Green asked.
“Well, I spoke with Chochokpi and learned that in order to handle the problem of the Maze we need to repair the Modron Station with powerful necromancy,” Roland explained. “And once that is accomplished, the modrons must be made to send the Maze deeper into the Plane of Time, where we might battle or drive off the time elemental…”
“You could have returned immediately and told us that as soon as you learned it!” Kazrack yelled, his restraint quickly forgotten.
“Let’s keep our voices down,” Ratchis admonished. “We do not want to draw more attention than we already have.”
“The Tiger Prince might be a powerful ally,” Roland said. “Chochokpi told me where I might find him. What I planned to do was for the sake of being more likely to accomplish the awesome task before us.”
“Do we need the aid of this Tiger Prince?” Martin asked.
“If he is as powerful as I suspect, he might be able to more easily defeat the demoness, Ora-Amira-El,” Roland replied.
There was a long silence, broken only by the whooshing of the wind that swirled the mist the Keepers of the Gate.
“But…” Roland continued. “It will take about three days to get there, so we are talking at least six days…”
“Kazrack, when you fell ill because you were not attending to Osiris’ task quickly enough, how long did it last?” (2) Martin asked. “I feel the weight of my task upon me, and I fear I will soon be feeling its debilitating effects.”
“Several days,” the dwarf replied.
Martin the Green sighed. “I guess I will hold on as long as I can…”
“If we are going to talk about this longer we should make a break for the cover of the woods near the pond,” Ratchis said. “When the mist dissipates we will be out in the open.”
It was agreed, and a moment later the Keepers of the Gate, accompanied by Sergio, took off for the woods, leaving the obscuring mist behind.
“N’kron warned me that the giant eagle is still around, but way up in the sky,” Bastian told the others as they ran.
They gathered by the pond and continued their discussion.
“So can we count on this Tiger Prince to aid us?” Ratchis asked the Bastite.
“Well…” Roland took a long time before continuing. He sat down and his panther tail flicked back and forth nervously. He looked at everyone. “I really am not sure that this prince will help, but I have hope that I can convince him to do so. I hope that your assessment of my judgment has led you to trust my instinct…”
“Heh. Based on your past displays of judgment, we should return to Hurgun’s Maze immediately,” Kazrack replied.
“Kazrack! That was petty,” Roland complained.
“The truth is never petty,” Kazrack said. “I will say it again. We should return to Hurgun’s Maze immediately.”
“And there you go again,” Roland replied. He sat up, still in panther-form, and the black velvet fur on his back bristled.
“Is there a point to your blathering?” Kazrack replied. “Can you give us a real and sufficient reason to believe we should go wandering some bestial landscape to find some tiger-king…?”
“Tiger-Prince,” Roland snapped. “There is no monarch here but Bast.”
Kazrack shrugged his indifference.
“I must say that I believe that wandering a plane is folly,” Sergio Fontane interjected, rubbing the back of his neck. “And a the demoness is a pale shadow of what we might meet here. If you decide to go find this Tiger-Prince, I will be returning to the Maze alone.”
“And it still stands that we cannot give the demoness six days, if not more, to get her hands on the power of the Maze,” Kazrack said.
“We will die if we face that demon again,” Bastian joined the discussion quietly. “Perhaps it is worth the risk to take these six days out of our way.”
“It will likely be more than six days,” Kazrack said, getting heated.
“We know where you stand, Kazrack…” Roland began.
“And we know where you stand,” Kazrack interrupted. “You would have taken it upon yourself to abandon us in the Maze and undertake this folly on your own if we had not come here to convince you to come back. I still think we might have been better served to just leave you here if that is what you really want.”
“That is enough!” Roland roared.
“No, it is not enough!” the dwarf replied. “You are a selfish and foolish man that thinks of naught but himself, and…”
“Kazrack! Be silent!”
“No! I will not be ordered about by the likes of you!” the dwarf spat.
There was the cry of bird unseen way above them that echoed the growing volume of their argument.
“Birds! Friggin’ wolves! I thought this was cat-land?” Gunthar swore. The Neergaardian was sitting on a stump and had the Left Blade of Arofel across his lap.
Bastian walked over to Martin who was sitting by the edge of the pond with his back to the others.
“How are you feeling?” the bearded warrior asked the watch-mage.
“Like strangling my companions,” Martin replied dryly, but he slapped his hands on the ground and standing, turned to Roland. “Can you at least give a guess of how likely the Tiger-Prince is to help us? And how dangerous the journey to see him will be?” The watch-mage instinctively held his right hand to his face to cover his disfigurement.
“As for the likelihood of aid, with no hubris I can say that the likelihood is based on my ability to convince him and display my faith and dedication to Bast, and thus, I have no doubt,” Roland replied. “As for the journey… Well, of that I am less certain. Chochikpi said we would have to pass through a place called the ‘Valley of Suffering Hunters’… Oh, and another place he referred to ‘the Realm of the Charging Beasts’.”
“Kazrack,” Martin turned to the dwarven priest. “I suggest you cast the stones.”
“I will certainly try, but I fear that so far from my gods in the realm of other gods the patterns in the runes may not come as clearly,” Kazrack said.
“Part of me feels that I should not be so prideful to I assume that only we can solve the problem of the Maze. Perhaps such puzzles require us to admit our shortcomings and seek out this help,” Ratchis said. “But at the same time, the risks involved in going after this possible aid has me doubting…”
“It seems perfectly clear to me,” Kazrack said. “Pure reason alone is enough to show we should return and not seek out this tiger-man.”
Roland snarled.
“Kazrack… Please go throw the stones,” Martin pleaded.
The dwarf nodded and walked off to consult his gods in private. Ratchis walked over to stand guard over his friend while still keeping his distance. Sergio and Gunthar were shearing swigs from a flask.
“Martin? Are you really willing to risk being killed by Osiris’ geas to go find this aid?” Bastian asked.
“I am not as important as what needs to be done,” Martin the Green replied.
“But aren’t you afraid that as you are weakened by the geas you will be more likely to succumb to the influence of the Corruptor’s book?”
“Uh…”
There was a long heavy silence.
Martin shrugged. “I’m going to die either way.”
After a time, Kazrack and Ratchis returned.
“I think the gods are telling us that this aside will be unnecessary and risky journey,” Kazrack began.
Roland opened his mouth to speak.
“But let me recite the words of my gods as exactly as I can, so you all might judge for yourselves,” Kazrack continued. “The capricious nature of beasts will delay and frustrate even the most patient dwarf, and ironically, may even kill a man despite his beastly nature.”
“Well, then… Who wants to go into the pond first?” Roland said, stalking off towards the water.
“Well, that settles that…” Ratchis said, and followed.
The Friar of Nephthys was sent first with a rope tied around his waist. He felt the slightest resistance as he passed through the portal of blue light, but relaxed and passed through. Ratchis went through the portal to re-appear in the Light Room, but the rope was cut off. Kazrack who was following behind holding on to the rope passed right through the portal, unwilling or unable to relax enough to pass through. (3) Worried that something might have happened to him Roland leapt in and saw Kazrack lying in the muck below, frantically stirring up the bottom of the pond trying to swim to the surface and clearly failing in his full plate armor.
Roland swam quickly to the top and told Martin what was happening.
“Gunthar, you have to go help Kazrack!” Martin said to the Neergaardian.
“Uh-uh, Ratchis told me to stay in the back,” Gunthar winked, but he sat down in the grass and began to take off his boots.
“Were you planning on leaving your boots here?” Martin asked, clearly disgusted with Gunthar’s delay.
Gunthar stopped and looked up at the watch-mage. “No, but I’m not going through the damned portal now, am I? I’m going trolling for a dwarf… Not that I haven’t done that before, if you know what I mean…” He winked.
“I mean, don’t you think you should hurry?”
“He’s got time,” Gunthar went back to his boots. “He’s got strong dwarven lungs. I’m sure if you asked him he’d tell you that himself.”
Sergio chuckled, and Roland would have certainly found it funny as well, but he dove back down into the pond and this time through the portal to leap out of the wooden frame behind the screen in the Light Room. However, at that same moment, Ratchis, concerned that no one had come through behind him, cut himself again and paid the price of blood to go back through the frame.
The half-orc broke the surface of the pond. Gunthar was pulling off his chain shirt and was about to leap in.
“Kazrack is drowning at the bottom of the pond!” Martin said. Ratchis leapt back in and Gunthar followed him.
It took some time before everyone was coughing and sputtering back in the Light Room. Martin activated the Wurfel Kraft as soon as everyone was through, and it was not a moment too soon, as the pink and green tentacles came through the wall to slam against the side of it.
A few moments later, when the blue cubic field of light dissipated near the center of the Light Room, the Keepers of the Gate fell to arguing again. Gunthar walked away from the others, and began to examine the beams of light that acted as bars to protect the golden book upon the pedestal within. Sergio joined him and the two began to discuss how they might be circumvented.
“Purely theoretically,” Sergio said, waggling his eyebrows.
Gunthar sneered.
The debate on what to do next sputtered when Martin announced it was pointless to argue until after he used the analyze portal spell he had prepared and they could see where the portals led.
“I also plan to take more time looking at each portal that I might actually get a view of what lies beyond,” he explained.
Martin cast his spell and soon was walking around to look at each portal. “Hell,” he said pointing to the portal near where the worm-like tentacles had emerged from the wall. Across from it was the way into the Air Room where the guest quarters and cloud rooms were. The portal back the way they came now led to somewhere Martin called the ‘Control Room’ and the portal opposite it led back to the Entrance room with its para-elemental guardians. (4)
Martin covered his eyes with his left hand and concentrated at the portal leading to the Control Room. Beyond was a room that he guessed was the same size as all the other chambers they had passed through, and much like the Light Room, it was brightly illuminated, but with blue-white light. There were broad metal steps leading up to a catwalk made of metal grates, which created a cross that hung over a misty chasm. The actual floor of the room was invisible in blue and white roiling mist. The center of the room was obscured by a similar mist within which was a blue twirling light sparking with a myriad of tiny lights along its incorporeal tubular surface. A dark-skinned figure hovered above a throne like chair in the room’s center platform.
“What do you see?” asked Roland. Martin waved the Bastite away and hurried over to the portal that he had determined led to the Air Room, and again he extended his visual senses through it. The room appeared empty, the cloud rooms floating lazily across the ceiling.
As the watch-mage described what he had seen to the others, Ratchis, Kazrack and Roland doled out the healing favors of their gods to the group.
“Could the ‘control room’ be the Modron Station?” Ratchis asked.
“I saw no machinery,” Martin replied. “I don’t think so.”
“The Modron Station must be like the works for the Maze, this is the Control Room; that figure must be Hurgun,” Roland said, shaking his head. He had transformed back into his normal human shape.
“And the swirling blue light must be the time elemental,” Bastian said.
“So does what you saw suggest a course of action?” Kazrack asked.
“Don’t touch the blue light?” Martin shrugged his shoulders.
“We’re supposed to fix the Modron Station,” Ratchis said. “Maybe we should not go into the Control Room yet.”
“We don’t know the way to the Modron Station,” Martin said. “And this might give us a chance to determine what we are dealing with.”
The others agreed and a moment later they were passing through the portal into the Control Room, one at a time.
Bastian saw Gunthar hang back and toss a copper coin through the bars of light that warded the golden book in the center of the Light Room. There was flash of light as the coin struck one of the bars and then the thing was gone…
--------------------------
The Control Room had a palpable cold, as if mountain water snaked invisibly in narrow rivulets in the air. The Keepers of the Gate gathered on the metal steps up to the catwalk before them, and could look down through the grating at the swirling mist fifteen feet below. There was no way to tell how deep the room went.
At the center of the crossed fifteen foot wide catwalks was a square metal platform another five feet up. It had a silvery metal obelisk about six inches to a side at the base and each just less than four feet tall. In the center was a metal throne-like chair on revolving disk, but no one sat on it. Instead hovering five feet above it was a man with his arms akimbo and his head slightly tilted back. He was stripped bare from the waist up, and had broad shoulders and well muscled arms. He had rich brown skin and his head and face were hairless, not even eyebrows. His eyes were closed. He was close to six and half feet tall.
“It is Hurgun of the Stone,” Martin whispered to the others.
Around Hurgun the swirl of blue tubular light spun, expanding and contracting at seemingly random pulses, sometimes reaching out as far as fifteen feet from the center platform. (5)
Suddenly they noticed a murmur as if of voices on a wind swelling and ebbing beneath them in the mist. The time elemental sparkled and pulsed and suddenly some of the voices became clearer.
“No Kazrack, go to the lifeboats,” the heard a woman’s deep voice over the rain and wind of a storm, and the muffled cries of a frantic ship’s crew. “I’ll be right behind you!”
Kazrack’s mouth opened in awe and consternation. He peered over the edge of the platform and tugged on his beard worriedly. He then turned to Martin. “What does it mean?”
“I…” Martin began, but suddenly the sound of young laughter wafted up from the mists below. “Martin wet his bed! Ha! Ha! ”
“Are you sure we should hole up in here, Roland? ” came a different, only slightly different voice.
“Yesh… Mmmm… Delicious! ” came another voice, this once was sibilant.
“Whatever is in here is responding to our presence,” Martin finally said, as another woman’s voice was shrieking, “Gwar! Gwar! I am so sorry! Love you; do you understand love? I love YOU! ”
“If we there is nothing we can do here until we have repaired the Modron Station, let us leave,” Ratchis said.
“Gunthar! You worthless little sh*t!” came a shrill slurring voice followed by a sound like an echoing smack. “Get the hell out of here before I sell you to the Jackal-Ghouls!” (6)
“Martin, can you check the portals out of here at least?” Roland asked. “What if one leads to the Modron Station?”
The watch-mage nodded and cast his spell. The portal across from the one they came through led to the somewhere called the Storage Room. The portal on the left led to the Dining Room. The one on the right led to the Dark Room, and the one they had come through was now leading to the Air Room. The Keepers of the Gate went back through the portal into the guest quarters.
Martin hurried ahead to get a look at the portals out of this chamber before his spells’ duration expired. From left to right they led to the Light Room, the Earth Room (which was the Audience Chamber) and the ‘Chambers’.
“Do you think the modrons will attack us if we run across any as we explore the Maze?” Roland asked.
“Probably,” Ratchis replied.
“Modrons are the least of our worries,” Martin the Green said, uncharacteristically.
“Lady Aureliana? Are you still here?” Ratchis called out.
Lady Aureliana came floating down out of one of the rooms. Her sea-blue hair looked ruffled as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep, and her white gossamer gown hung off her bare shoulders. Her insect-wings buzzed as she landed.
“Oh? Are you back?” she asked in her high-pitch, but mellifluous voice. “I fear terrible things have been happening in the Maze…”
“What have you seen or heard?” Ratchis asked.
“Modrons moving through the room in a state of alert, many of them were wounded,” she replied, looking right at Ratchis. He noted how she no longer seemed to tense up nervously and look away when she addressed him. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
“The Control Room,” Kazrack replied, and then turned to his friends. “I still think we should go back in there and experiment a bit and see more about the nature of the time elemental. We do not know where the Modron Station is, but we know where this room is… At least until the rooms begin to move again. We have no time."
“Oh yes, I agree,” said Lady Aureliana. “If you have discovered something so important, to abandon it in hopes of finding something else might be foolish. Remember, I was lost in this Maze for a time and only made my way back here quite by accident. I will come with you to this Control Room, and give what aid I can.”
Ratchis frowned. “Why have you changed your mind?” He asked the sylph.
“Changed my mind?”
“Before you did not want to leave here,” the half-orc replied.
“Before you were not sure where you were going, but now there is a more definite goal,” Lady Aureliana reasoned, as she brushed a lock of her wispy hair behind her pointed ears.
“It is futile to tamper with it until the Modron Station is repaired,” Martin insisted. “Has Gilbart returned?”
“I have not seen Gilbart.”
“She is lying,” Ratchis whispered to Martin in orcish, moving to one side with the watch-mage. (8)
“But what can we do?” Martin whispered back, his inflection might have been humorous to Ratchis under different circumstances.
“You know, I am not sure of Aquerra, but where I come from whispering like that is not polite,” Lady Aureliana admonished them with a smile.
“They have no manners,” Roland responded. “But if you’ll excuse me, I left some of my things in one of the rooms, and need to collect them. The Bastite willed himself to enter one of the floating rooms.
Ratchis flashed Kazrack a look of warning and the dwarf frowned.
“Tell me, Lady Aureliana,” the dwarf said. “How did you like the gift I gave you before?” (9)
The sylph paused, and furrowed her brow. “Gift? What gift was that?”
“You do not remember?” Kazrack asked.
“Kazrack…” Ratchis began, but the dwarf raised a hand.
“I find it interesting that you suddenly want to go exploring the Maze when before you did not want to,” Kazrack said to the sylph.
“Yes, your orcish companion said as much,” she replied. “If you do not wish to accompany me, I am willing to go alone.”
“You see, that is even odder,” Kazrack said. He stepped before the portal. “I am afraid I will not be able to allow you to go the Control Room, either with us or without us.”
“Kazrack…” Ratchis began again.
“You folk of the earth are so strange,” Lady Aureliana said. “But I suggest that you and your companions are better off letting us each try to do what we can in the Maze without interfering in each other’s goals.”
Kazrack shook his head.
Roland came back out of the cloud room looking pale. He held something in his arms, and turned his back to the others to show it to Martin the Green. It was the twisted and broken corpse of Lady Aureliana’s pseudo-dragon companion.
Ratchis noticed it out of the corner of his eye.
“Martin! Can we possible let her through?” Ratchis asked in orcish again. “We cannot allow her into the Control Room. We must stop her here or die trying!”
The half-orc reeled as he heard Ora-Amira-El’s laughing voice in his head. “I can hear your every thought, worm!”
Lady Aureliana began to laugh as her form changed. She grew to a great height and another set of muscular arms stretched out of her expanding torso, revealing two-sets of veiny breasts. “Fine. You want to choose to face me here and now? At least I will get the pleasure of watching you kill another of your friends, Kazrack.”
--------------------
Notes:
(1) This session was played on July 23rd, 2005.
(2) See Session #29
(3) DM’s Note: In order to pass through they had to fail a DC 6 Will save, or willingly fail the save.
(4) See Sessions #91 & 92
(5) The layout of the Control Room can be seen behind the sblock: [sblock]
(6) ‘Jackal-Ghoul’ is a common nickname for Monks of Anubis.
(7) Wizards may change prepared spells at the rate of 15 minutes per spell level per spell.
(8) Ratchis taught Martin some basic orcish while the watch-mage taught Ratchis some basic reading on the trips to and from Nikar and while they were in that town.
(9) DM’s Note: Suspecting that Lady Aureliana was not who she appeared to be, Kazrack was trying to bluff her into revealing it; rather ineptly.
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