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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 3205755" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #102 (part i)The earth shook each time Dumashg the ogre’s heavy morningstar missed Kazrack and bit into the dry grass.  Each time, Kazrack sidestepped just in time, predicting the wide gait of how all giant things fight, remembering the lessons taught to him by his father and uncle.  The dwarf felt Adder’s blows on his back, and had to turn again to keep his enemies abreast of him.Ratchis came charging in at Adder, but the monk dove and tumble away, coming back up wary of the half-orc.Roland leapt out of the tree with a roar meant to distract, but instead of joining the melee, he hopped over to where Bastian and Gunthar lay.  Seeing that the Neergaardian was hurt worse, he called to Bast of a cure critical wounds, and in a moment, Gunthar was sputtering awake, trying to shake off the lethargy of death’s door.  He was still critically wounded.The monk hustled away from the melee, running right up the side of a tree just as he had when Ratchis and Kazrack had seen him last.“Watch out for one of those fire beads!” Ratchis warned, charging for the tree himself.  “Everyone spread out!”  Kazrack ran right for the tree as well, the ogre on his tail. Gunthar held back looking back and forth from the fight with the monk and the ogre and Scartesh just standing and watching from a few feet away; bastard sword resting on his shoulder. Roland looked up at the melee from healing Bastian in time to see Adder toss a bead that smashed against Kazrack’s helmet. It exploded.Flames licked up the tree and Adder leapt higher into its branches.  Ratchis had rolled clear of the worst of it, but Kazrack hollered as patches of his face and beard were seared.  Dumashg’s armor was scorched, but he continued to attack relentlessly, oblivious to pain.Ratchis fumbled in his bag for a flask of oil, hoping to take the tree down with the monk in it, but Adder leapt out of the tree and hurried towards another.  Ratchis dropped the flask in the grass and charged after him, but Adder leapt up again too soon.  Kazrack withdrew from the ogre, keeping on the defense in order to pick the flask of oil up.So exhaustion might give way to simple fatigue, Roland cast lesser restoration on both Bastian and Gunthar.  He followed it up with another healing spell on the Neergaardian, while Bastian moved to get a view of the fight.Kazrack’s shield absorbed blow after blow from the ogre’s morningstar..  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adder leap down out of the tree striking Ratchis full on in the face.  The half-orc stumbled back half a step and hacked wildly with his sword to get some space.  The monk easily avoided the swings, but Kazrack came around from the other side to flank him.  The ogre still followed the dwarf, each blow meant to kill outright.Bastian called to the flame in his strange arcane dwarven, and a small ball of it appeared in his hand.  He flung it at Adder, but the monk easily leapt high to avoid it, twisting and bringing a kick to the side of Ratchis’ head as he came back down.  Ratchis fell stunned, and the monk kicked him viciously twice more in the head and neck.  He might have finished the now unconscious half-orc, if the pain of Kazrack’s flail to his kidney did not force him to turn and defend himself.  The monk avoided another of the small balls of flame Bastian produced, and Gunthar began launching arrows from a safe distant at the tireless ogre.“Scartesh! Call off the ogre!  We can still talk this out!” Bastian called. “Can’t you see something strange is going on?  I wasn’t trying to trick you!  The monk is our real enemy.…”Scartesh sneered.  “Once he gets all worked up like this you just have to let him work it out of his system.  There’s no stopping him.”Kazrack drew the fight away from his fallen companion, allowing Roland to hustle over to aid.  The dwarf moved around Adder, putting the monk between him and the ogre.  Dumashg, seeming to prefer a straight line whenever possible, slammed the monk in the head full on.  There was an explosion of blood and then monk was bleeding out, his blood intermingling with Ratchis’ own growing pool.  However, a moment later, Roland’s healing spells had the friar coughing and spitting out blood as he sat up.Again and again, Kazrack withdrew, absorbing the ogre’s blows on his shield, and trying his best to pierce its armor in return.  Finally, the ogre stopped and teetered atop his tree-trunk legs.  It let out a long low breath and then fell over.“All that huffing and puffing works better when you can kill things quick,” Scartesh quipped.“Tell me why I shouldn’t cut you a new one?” Gunthar challenged.“Because you are all seriously hurt and you can’t take me on your best day,” Scartesh replied matter-of-factly.“Wanna find out for sure?” Gunthar raised his swords.“Gunthar! No!” Ratchis barked.  The Neergaardian stopped.  “Pig-f*ckers always stick together…”“We letting Adder bleed out?” Bastian asked quietly.Ratchis and Kazrack nodded silently, but Roland purred his assent.“Now can someone tell me what is happening?” Scartesh asked.“I do not know why we should explain ourselves to you,” Kazrack replied.  “Bastian never told me he had among his companions one of our heritage,” Scartesh said, approaching Ratchis familiarly.“You know each other?” Ratchis looked back and forth from the other half-orc to Bastian.  Bastian nodded.Kazrack glared at Bastian. Roland pawed over and rubbed against Bastian’s legs lovingly, still in panther-form.“It seems like there is a lot of explaining to do,” Kazrack said.        “And I shall try my best to explain but…” A tall broad figure was stepping out of the overgrowth.  It was a brown-skinned man with a bare chest, a bald head and a gray skull cap.  He had muscular arms, baggy dark blue pants, and muscular arms.  It was Hurgun of the Stone, and a trail of blue-white sparkling light was spiraling out from around him.  Tholem, the 4th of Ese – 565 H.E.Perception rippled.  Sight, sound, smell and sensation warped and twisted into a sharp blue-white wave that washed over them. Suddenly they were standing about the dais and central throne of the Control Room, and Hurgun was standing before it still talking to them. “In this moment in time the time elemental is gone, and I am free thanks to your intervention, however, though this is the conclusion, it is not the end.  The anomaly is a deep one, and you have one more place you have been, but you have not been there yet.”“I don’t understand…” Kazrack began.“Where are the others?” Roland asked. “Sergio? Razzle?”“Your group is bound by destiny, just as others are bound to their own,” Hurgun replied.  “They have their own places to be.”“I don’t understand…” Kazrack said again.“It will all be made as clear as possible very soon,” Hurgun replied.  He had an incredibly deep and commanding voice.  “Just remember, whatever else happens you have already succeeded in freeing me and saving my Maze – just be cautious.  The flow of time is always repairing itself, attempting to undo paradox, rewriting memory to fit actuality and vice versa.  However, though you are in the present now, there is one more stop in the future, and the future is always in flux.  Die there… Be defeated there… and though the world may not be changed, you can be… And what you see and find there is a good indication of the events of the future, so remain alert and observant… Defeat what you find there… These moments of conflict and crisis resonate through time the more important their outcome is to the direction of history…”“Where…uh… when are we going to?” Roland asked.“Can you not feel it coming?” Hurgun asked. “It is happening now…” The last word stretched out and warped into a long low hum that reverberated with the Control Room.  There was a blast of blue-white light, and once again the Keepers of the Gate were gone.                                                                                                             Teflem, the 13th of Oche – 565 H.E.            “Where in the Hells are we?” Gunthar asked.  They were spread out in knee-deep murky water, in the entrance to some kind of cave choked with dripping vines and reeds.  There was a sliver of light from way behind them through the undergrowth, peeking through, but barely enough for the humans to see by.  Warm air was wafting up out of the cave.“There is a terrible smell here…” Roland whispered.  “Some big animal… Monster…”“Huh? What? How did I get here?” came a voice from the reed-choked darkness that shocked them.  Ratchis looked in that direction, his darkvision flipping everything into shades of gray, black and white.  It was a  tall figure in the robes of an Academy mage, with shaggy red hair that was long in the back.  Thomas the Squirrel came to life on the half-orc ranger’s shoulder, chittering happily as it leapt to the figure.  It was Martin the Green.“Martin!” Kazrack cried happily, and the dwarf’s voice echoed in the cave.”Hush!” Ratchis admonished, but trudged over to the watch-mage and clapped a big ham-hand on his shoulder.  “We thought you were dead…”“I think I was…” Martin replied in a shaken voice.  “What is this place?  How did I get here?  I…  I… uh, have a vague set of memories regarding a journey to this place, but they are foggy… Just like my memories of…” The watch-mage shuddered. “…Of that place where I had to destroy the book…” It was then that those who could see noted that Martin the Green seemed whole. His face was not disfigured, his teeth were all there, and his skin was not sallow and blackened in places. “How is this possible?” Kazrack asked.“How has any of this been possible?” Roland asked.  “But since we are in the future, and Martin is here, we have reason to hope that he will be brought back to life.”“N’kron?” Bastian reached out to his familiar mentally, and this time there was a response. “Where are you?”“Flying high above… Confused…” the hawk replied.“What do you see?”“A cold marsh surrounding a high round place - you are underneath,” N’kron said.  Bastian relayed this to the others.The Keepers of the Gate realized that they had a full compliment of spells, even spells they did not recall preparing, and their many wounds and their fatigue was gone. (1) There was a flurry of castings: bull’s strength, bear’s endurance, magic circle of protection from evil, and mage armor.“We might be watched,” Martin suggested, and cast detect scrying.  But he shook his head no.  “Should I take the time to cast arcane eye and explore the cave beyond?” (2)“Let us move into the cave a bit,” Kazrack suggested. “Our mobility is limited here in this vine-choked entrance. I would rather we be able to spread out and defend ourselves.”It was agreed.  The cave beyond was much wider and deeper than they could see across, even with darkvision, and the murky water lapped against their knees, except for Kazrack, as the water reached his thighs, splashing up to his waist whenever he took a step.  Gunthar snapped on his darkvision goggles.In the middle of the chamber a plateau of stone rose fifteen feet out of the water. To their right, a jagged pillar of stone, nearly flat on top reached six feet.  In the far right corner, a tangle of roots fifteen feet across hung from the ceiling to kiss the murky water. (3)Martin the Green began his casting.Bastian cried out in alarm as the long jagged maw of a crocodile snapped shut right beside him.  He had leapt back at the last possible moment to keep from being grabbed.  The narrow wake of a second beast was making it way towards him as well. Roland pounced atop the first one, worrying at its thick hide with his panther’s teeth, as Bastian slammed it on the head with his warhammer, and withdrew.  However, the second animal cut off his retreat, as he felt the hard slap of its tail against the back of his legs and he nearly fell.Kazrack stepped forward with one mighty blow, he crushed the thing’s skull.  Gunthar charged in and skewered the one Roland was working at, killing it as well.  Noting a third of the animals, Roland leapt over and attacked, getting bitten for his trouble, as Bastian hustled in, struck and moved away again, in his usual cautious style.Ratchis remained near the still casting Martin, to guard the mage from interruption and noticed small figures hopping up onto the central platform of stone out of the darkness.“Look!” he pointed.  Kazrack looked up from killing the final crocodile.  There were five gnomes lining up along the edge of the plateau.  They wore rags.“Those better not be more friggin’ demon gnomes,” Gunthar swore.“More demon gnomes?” Roland asked, as he could not see.“They look like normal gnomes to me,” Kazrack said.  “Hello?” He called to them.“Run away!” One of the gnomes peeped in a whispered yell.  “She’s coming!”Roland walked over towards Ratchis and Martin, “What does he mean ‘she’s coming’?”And as if in answer, a large draconic form flew out of the darkness to land behind the line of gnomes.  Her body, bristling with wiry muscle was just over ten feet long, though her tail and neck nearly tripled that.  She snapped her leathery wings as she landed, showing their nearly thirty-five foot span, and as her mouth opened she revealed row after row of vicious teeth, as her long forked tongue licked them clean.  “Oh, no…” Ratchis said.Glamorgana roared.----------------------------------------------------Notes:(1)    DM’s Note: (slight spoiler if you are reading the notes as you come across them) [spoiler]At the end of the previous session, I told the players that they’re homework was to prepare a spell list as if they were about to face a dragon. At the beginning of this scene, I told them they were fully healed and they now had that prepared list to cast from. [/spoiler](2)    Arcane Eye has a casting time of 10 minutes.(3)    Put behind an S-block to avoid spoilers for those who have not read the installment yet: [sblock]<img src="http://www.aquerra.com/OOTFP/images/dragons_lair.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />[/sblock]</blockquote>

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