KidCthulhu
First Post
Sagiro said:
Frustum? I just met him!
[Thank you, I'll be here all week.]
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Frustum? I just met him!
[Thank you, I'll be here all week.]
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 188
[Here begins the first session captured on audio tape and transcribed directly. The dialogue you read here is 99% authentic, with only the mildest of cosmetic touch-up.]
----
Where giantish guards and clever decoys did not deter them, the Company is temporarily overcome by an unusual opposing force: indecision. They land on the roof of the courtyard buildings for a what-do-we-do-now debate. The topic at hand is whether or not to storm the tower now, or wait until tomorrow when they’ll have more spells available.
“We have no idea what’s on the other side of that door, and we have no dispelling magic left,” argues Morningstar.
“We have healing at least,” says Kibi. “What are we down?”
“Flies, invisibilities and wind walks,” says Morningstar, “plus some attack spells, and our dispels.”
“If we wait until tomorrow,” points out Flicker, “they could have a lot more in place to guard the tower.”
“And we’ll have cast all our spells again anyway,” says Aravis, siding with Flicker. “We have a better chance of getting through with very little injury if we just go now.”
“Do we have any auguries?” asks Kibi.
Ernie and Dranko answer in the negative.
“We know the Black Circle does sneaky, trappy, more thought-y-related stuff,” says Morningstar.
“But they are susceptible to blade barrier quips Ernie. “Everyone is.”
“I don’t have that either,” sighs Morningstar.
“It’s going to take a lot of boom, and some guile, to get around what’s surrounding the tower right now,” says Grey Wolf, motioning to the eight giants on the ground.
“We’re invisible, and they can’t detect us ‘cause of the Divination Sinks,” says Ernie.
“I’ve got a lot of spells left,” says Kibi.
“Me too,” says Aravis. “Well, except for mage hands.”
Morningstar refuses to back down.
“We have no way to get rid of traps, and we know that the Black Circle likes them...a lot.”
“In the Black Circle’s laboratory, all of the traps were disarmed or set off by Flicker,” says Aravis.
“Don’t remind me,” mutters Flicker.
“Sorry.”
“I’m actually thinking of the Bestiary,” says Morningstar. Then, under her breath: “I dispelled that one. Maybe it was cursed… it’s the last thing I remember dispelling successfully.”
The sleet continues to come down hard and cold. Those of the Company not wind-walking are getting soaked through. The giants look even more miserable, water dripping down their hair and faces, their slumped shoulders, some making a token effort to look around and be attentive. Whatever excitement the illusionary ettin might have incited has worn off completely.
“We could try taking out Eigomic tonight, without going for the tower,” says Kibi. “He’s probably discovering right about now that the key’s gone.”
“If we just go now, we know we won’t have to face him,” says Ernie. But to himself he continues, “On the other hand, if we go in the morning, he might not come himself, and then we can get through the door just as fast.”
“The question is,” says Kibi, “does Eigomic have some way of communicating with whoever’s inside the tower?”
“I really feel strongly about waiting,” says Morningstar.
“I want to go,” says Dranko impatiently.
“I think I want to wait,” answers Ernie. While they bicker, Ernie comes out mist-form long enough to heal himself and get thoroughly drenched, and then returns to his gaseous state.
“If we wait, we may have to use even more resources that we already have today, just to reach the point we’re at now,” says Aravis.
As is their custom when things reach an impasse, the Company has a vote. Snokas and Kay, like Morningstar, want to wait until tomorrow. Ernie and Grey Wolf are on the fence but tend to agree with Morningstar. Flicker, Step, Kibi, Aravis and Dranko just want to get on with it. It’s a tie vote, 5 to 5.
“We need an odd number of people in the party,” says Ernie.
“We are guaranteed to have to deal with Eigomic if we wait,” concedes Grey Wolf.
“Plus whatever he brings with him,” says Kibi.
“And he can put up more defenses over night,” admits Ernie. “We don’t know what he’s capable of. And we won’t be able to detect them because of the Divination Sink.”
For another few minutes the conversation goes around in circles.
“Well, If we wait, I really want to try taking out Eigomic now,” says Kibi, tiring of the debate.
“I’m liking that,” says Grey Wolf.
“Without him,” Kibi continues, “there’s not going to be any organization in the defense. It’ll make things a lot easier.”
“There’ll be chaos,” says Grey Wolf, smiling.
“Yeah, why not?” says Dranko. “He’s kind of a jerk.”
“Evil does have degree,” says Step. “Eigomic’s degree is not strong. He is evil, but he is not diabolical.”
“He kicks puppies, but he doesn’t conquer worlds?” says Ernie.
“I cannot speculate as to what he does to puppies,” says Step.
“Let’s just kill everybody!” says Ernie unexpectedly.
“Ernest, that attitude does not become you,” says Step.
Ernie manages to look frustrated and embarrassed even in mist-form.
“Oh, I don’t mean it. I just.. .it’s just that I’m tired of it all being so hard!”
“If we really want to destroy everyone, we can just all fly away in different directions and wait for the universe to unravel,” says Aravis.
“That would spread some chaos and confusion, all right,” says Ernie.
“I was kidding.”
“But…”
“No…. just… no, no, no, no. Bad idea. Forget I said it.”
“Tell me why it’s a bad idea?” cries Ernie, growing more and more frustrated..
Scree starts to roil.
“I feel agitated,” says the earth elemental. “Well, it’s not really me, if you know what I mean.”
“Hey Eyes,” says Kibi, “do you think we should go inside the tower now, or do you think we should wait?”
“I think they’re agitated about Ernie’s suggestion,” says Aravis.
Ernie looks down at Scree and addresses the Eyes of Moirel directly.
“You guys dragged us from our happy house, with the… the relaxing, and the fame. You brought us here, to this crazy world which we don’t like, and now you won’t tell us what to do! Aaaaiee, that’s frustrating!”
“Are you castigating them?” asks Aravis, smirking.
“No. And I’m pretty sure they can resist my spells,” says Ernie.
“I’ll bet they don’t know what to do,” says Aravis.
“That is a frightening thought,” says Grey Wolf.
The sleet keeps falling. Seldom has the Company been so paralyzed with indecision and so evenly divided in their opinions. In the end, the decision is made for them.
“Er…hey, guys? What’s that?”
Kibi is pointing out across the courtyard. Dranko and Morningstar see it too… a dark shape moving through the sleet. And it’s somewhat higher than they are, even as they stand atop a forty-foot building.
“There’s something flying toward us,” says Kibi. “It’s moving slowly.”
Morningstar quickly fires off a silent detect thoughts. Kibi, already invisible, casts improved invisibility on himself.
“’Cause sometimes you just can’t be invisible enough,” whispers Aravis.
It’s difficult to make out details through the driving sleet, but as the shape moves out over the courtyard it’s at least clear that it’s roughly spherical and about five feet in diameter. Grey Wolf experiences a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Oh, joy,” he says.
A full-sized “tundra eye” floats slowly into clear view. Water drips from its bloated, purplish body. Ten eye-stalks wiggle and writhe above its bulk. Morningstar is unable to read its mind.
It’s huge central eye blinks open and stares at them. At once the wind-walkers become solid, the invisible folk become visible, the flying people stop flying, the telepathic bond shuts off, and everyone’s magic weapons stop glowing. There’s an imperceptible “plink” as someone’s Ioun Stone bounces on the ground.
“Why are you here?” The beholder’s voice is wet, grinding, sloppy.
“You have something we want,” Ernie pipes up.
“That may not have been the right answer to the question,” whispers Aravis.
“A bauble,” continues Ernie hopefully.
“Who sent you?” burbles the beholder.
“The universe,” says Ernie, improvising wildly. “It kind of hates us.”
“Oooh, we’re all going to die,” Grey Wolf predicts sullenly.
“We’d like to take the Eye and go now, please,” concludes Ernie.
The beholder looks them over for a few quiet seconds. Then it asks:
“Are you the chosen?
“Er… yes! Yes we are!” says Aravis, figuring that has to be the right answer.
“Then you will know the secrets that Dark Words taught. Speak the treasure that none have found.’
Uh… what?
“The Eye,” says Morningstar, trying to make it sound more like an assertion than a guess.
“Are you certain?” asks the beholder.
“That is certainly what we seek,” says Aravis.
“Name the prophets who saw the descent,” says the beholder.
Ernie’s face brightens as if he knows this one.
“Oh…oh…”
It’s just on the tip of his tongue…
“Nope,” he concludes suddenly. “No idea.”
“Well that just dashes our hopes,” says Grey Wolf.
Ernie grasps at straws.
“When you say ‘descent,” do you mean ‘the fall,’ or ‘the disagreement?’”
The beholder lets out a long gurgling sigh that sounds like: “Hmmmmmmmmm.”
Ernie tries one more time.
“The Eye belongs to Moirel, but I don’t think she saw anything…”
“You are here,” says the beholder. “You know what is here, but you are not the chosen.”
“Well, we’re often chosen,” says Ernie.
“The penalty is death,” concludes the beholder. It closes its large central eye. Magic springs back to life around the Company. Morningstar, Ernie, Flicker and Step are then struck by thin colored rays from the monster's eyestalks.
Ernie, Step and Flicker shrug off whatever the effects might have been. Morningstar shakes her head and looks around, slightly dazed.
Kibi glances over in concern. “Are you okay Morningstar?”
“Yeah. I don’t think it affected me.”
Which is true; she doesn’t. On the other hand, she is struck by the revelation that there is no reason for hostilities here; the beholder is just doing its job, and the Company is intruding on its turf. Surely everyone can come to some agreement. Better yet, they can just depart before misunderstandings turn to violence.
Grey Wolf, back to mist-form, starts the thirty-second process of turning solid. Aravis takes the opportunity to blanket his friends with a mass haste spell. Morningstar looks around and sees Kay string her bow.
“What are you doing?” she cries. “Let’s just get out of here!”
“Where can we go where it won’t chase us down?” asks Ernie.
“How about where we were last night?” answers Morningstar. “We ran from the small ones, and this is worse! We shouldn’t attack it!”
Ernie flies around to a different side of the courtyard, after which he starts de-misting. Some of the beholders eyestalks track him as he flies. Below him the eight giants have finally noticed the commotion. One of them points up at the beholder.
“Googa Flog!” it shouts. The others look up. One of them drops his club in surprise. They all begin to back away nervously at the sight of a really, really big tundra eye.
Dranko flies in the opposite direction from Ernie and also starts to de-mist. Kay fires her bow from the rooftop and hits with two out of the four arrows. They stick out of the beholder’s body like pins in a cushion. Flicker flies down to ground level right next to the tower (carefully keeping it between him and the eight giants – not that they’re paying any attention to him) and like most of the others starts coming out of mist form.
Snokas has his bow drawn but sees that Morningstar is waving frantically at him.
“Morningstar, should I shoot it?”
“No! Snokas, stop her.”
“Who?” asks Snokas, puzzled.
“Kay!” says Morningstar. Isn’t it obvious? Plinking the beholder with arrows is only going to end in heartbreak.
“Er…. ok,” says Snokas, sounding unconvinced.
Kibi, ever the straight man, complains: “Morningstar, I know you didn’t want to attack, but we are democratic… kind of. And it’s no good for some of us to attack and some of us not to”
Snokas puts himself between Kay and the Beholder. Kay glares at the half-orc, who shrugs his shoulders apologetically.
“This is crazy!” shouts Morningstar. “Attacking it is never going to work!”
“It’s certainly not going to work if we’re not all pulling together,” shoots back Kibi.
“Ok, we won’t kill it,” grumbles Snokas. “I don’t know why we won’t kill it...”
Morningstar throws up her hands in general frustration with Kibi’s failure to see reason and starts to de-mist herself. She could end the wind walk on everyone with a thought and gesture, but she feels right now that that would only increase hostilities.
Ignoring Morningstar, the hasted Kibi casts hold monster on the beholder. The monster resists. Undeterred he targets the beast with a charm monster but that also fails. He curses his ill-luck and then moves around the courtyard perimeter away from his increasingly-less-bunched-up comrades.
The beholder has identified Kay as the greatest threat. It floats a bit higher to get a good angle on her, tilts to train different eyestalks on her. A new colored ray strikes Kay in the chest. Nothing happens. A second ray striker her, this one dealing significant frost damage and covering her body with a icy glaze. With a third contemptuous zap the creature flicks her with a pale beam that sends her flying backward off the 40’ roof. It chuckles to itself for a second in satisfaction, but does a floating double-take when it sees Kay simply hovering in the air thirty feet back. Kay might have been standing on the roof to shoot, but she also had a fly spell active.
A few seconds later the beholder realizes that while dangerous, Kay might not be the greatest threat after all. Aravis waves his arms and utters the arcane syllables that bring forth a sonic bolt. KABOOM! With its central eye closed, devastating sonic energy rips through its bloated body. Seeing the ragged bits of fleshy pulp sloughing off the monster’s form, the hasted Aravis fires off a second one. KABOOM! The beholder wobbles in the air. It’s eyestalks quiver in pain.
Morningstar is shaking her head. The beholder is her friend. But then why was it just attacking her other friends with its magic bolts. Self defense?
“No!” she cries in confusion. “Not sonic bolts! Stop it!”
But Aravis was just reacting to the beholder’s attack on Kay, right? It’s a monster, and it’s attacking them, attacking her friends… her real friends… But… but…
Ahhh! It was a trick!
“Damnit!” shouts Morningstar, finally clearing her head of the beholder’s charm attack. “It got into my brain!”
“Hey! That’s my brain!” shouts Dranko, incensed. “Er, I mean, my fiancées brain! And if anyone’s going to mess with her mind, it’s going to be me!”
Kay, hovering, fires another volley of arrows. Three go wide, but the fourth sticks into the monster’s mass with a meaty thunk. The force of the arrow spins the weakened beholder around about thirty degrees, such that it’s front-facing eye-stalks are looking directly at Kibi.
The dwarf smiles.
ZOT!
A traditionally electrical lightning bolt cracks from Kibi’s fingers and slams into the beholder. It’s eyestalks all go rigid for a second before the monster falls, crashing down to the icy grass like a downed zeppelin.
…to be continued…
[Here begins the first session captured on audio tape and transcribed directly. The dialogue you read here is 99% authentic, with only the mildest of cosmetic touch-up.]
----
Where giantish guards and clever decoys did not deter them, the Company is temporarily overcome by an unusual opposing force: indecision. They land on the roof of the courtyard buildings for a what-do-we-do-now debate. The topic at hand is whether or not to storm the tower now, or wait until tomorrow when they’ll have more spells available.
“We have no idea what’s on the other side of that door, and we have no dispelling magic left,” argues Morningstar.
“We have healing at least,” says Kibi. “What are we down?”
“Flies, invisibilities and wind walks,” says Morningstar, “plus some attack spells, and our dispels.”
“If we wait until tomorrow,” points out Flicker, “they could have a lot more in place to guard the tower.”
“And we’ll have cast all our spells again anyway,” says Aravis, siding with Flicker. “We have a better chance of getting through with very little injury if we just go now.”
“Do we have any auguries?” asks Kibi.
Ernie and Dranko answer in the negative.
“We know the Black Circle does sneaky, trappy, more thought-y-related stuff,” says Morningstar.
“But they are susceptible to blade barrier quips Ernie. “Everyone is.”
“I don’t have that either,” sighs Morningstar.
“It’s going to take a lot of boom, and some guile, to get around what’s surrounding the tower right now,” says Grey Wolf, motioning to the eight giants on the ground.
“We’re invisible, and they can’t detect us ‘cause of the Divination Sinks,” says Ernie.
“I’ve got a lot of spells left,” says Kibi.
“Me too,” says Aravis. “Well, except for mage hands.”
Morningstar refuses to back down.
“We have no way to get rid of traps, and we know that the Black Circle likes them...a lot.”
“In the Black Circle’s laboratory, all of the traps were disarmed or set off by Flicker,” says Aravis.
“Don’t remind me,” mutters Flicker.
“Sorry.”
“I’m actually thinking of the Bestiary,” says Morningstar. Then, under her breath: “I dispelled that one. Maybe it was cursed… it’s the last thing I remember dispelling successfully.”
The sleet continues to come down hard and cold. Those of the Company not wind-walking are getting soaked through. The giants look even more miserable, water dripping down their hair and faces, their slumped shoulders, some making a token effort to look around and be attentive. Whatever excitement the illusionary ettin might have incited has worn off completely.
“We could try taking out Eigomic tonight, without going for the tower,” says Kibi. “He’s probably discovering right about now that the key’s gone.”
“If we just go now, we know we won’t have to face him,” says Ernie. But to himself he continues, “On the other hand, if we go in the morning, he might not come himself, and then we can get through the door just as fast.”
“The question is,” says Kibi, “does Eigomic have some way of communicating with whoever’s inside the tower?”
“I really feel strongly about waiting,” says Morningstar.
“I want to go,” says Dranko impatiently.
“I think I want to wait,” answers Ernie. While they bicker, Ernie comes out mist-form long enough to heal himself and get thoroughly drenched, and then returns to his gaseous state.
“If we wait, we may have to use even more resources that we already have today, just to reach the point we’re at now,” says Aravis.
As is their custom when things reach an impasse, the Company has a vote. Snokas and Kay, like Morningstar, want to wait until tomorrow. Ernie and Grey Wolf are on the fence but tend to agree with Morningstar. Flicker, Step, Kibi, Aravis and Dranko just want to get on with it. It’s a tie vote, 5 to 5.
“We need an odd number of people in the party,” says Ernie.
“We are guaranteed to have to deal with Eigomic if we wait,” concedes Grey Wolf.
“Plus whatever he brings with him,” says Kibi.
“And he can put up more defenses over night,” admits Ernie. “We don’t know what he’s capable of. And we won’t be able to detect them because of the Divination Sink.”
For another few minutes the conversation goes around in circles.
“Well, If we wait, I really want to try taking out Eigomic now,” says Kibi, tiring of the debate.
“I’m liking that,” says Grey Wolf.
“Without him,” Kibi continues, “there’s not going to be any organization in the defense. It’ll make things a lot easier.”
“There’ll be chaos,” says Grey Wolf, smiling.
“Yeah, why not?” says Dranko. “He’s kind of a jerk.”
“Evil does have degree,” says Step. “Eigomic’s degree is not strong. He is evil, but he is not diabolical.”
“He kicks puppies, but he doesn’t conquer worlds?” says Ernie.
“I cannot speculate as to what he does to puppies,” says Step.
“Let’s just kill everybody!” says Ernie unexpectedly.
“Ernest, that attitude does not become you,” says Step.
Ernie manages to look frustrated and embarrassed even in mist-form.
“Oh, I don’t mean it. I just.. .it’s just that I’m tired of it all being so hard!”
“If we really want to destroy everyone, we can just all fly away in different directions and wait for the universe to unravel,” says Aravis.
“That would spread some chaos and confusion, all right,” says Ernie.
“I was kidding.”
“But…”
“No…. just… no, no, no, no. Bad idea. Forget I said it.”
“Tell me why it’s a bad idea?” cries Ernie, growing more and more frustrated..
Scree starts to roil.
“I feel agitated,” says the earth elemental. “Well, it’s not really me, if you know what I mean.”
“Hey Eyes,” says Kibi, “do you think we should go inside the tower now, or do you think we should wait?”
“I think they’re agitated about Ernie’s suggestion,” says Aravis.
Ernie looks down at Scree and addresses the Eyes of Moirel directly.
“You guys dragged us from our happy house, with the… the relaxing, and the fame. You brought us here, to this crazy world which we don’t like, and now you won’t tell us what to do! Aaaaiee, that’s frustrating!”
“Are you castigating them?” asks Aravis, smirking.
“No. And I’m pretty sure they can resist my spells,” says Ernie.
“I’ll bet they don’t know what to do,” says Aravis.
“That is a frightening thought,” says Grey Wolf.
The sleet keeps falling. Seldom has the Company been so paralyzed with indecision and so evenly divided in their opinions. In the end, the decision is made for them.
“Er…hey, guys? What’s that?”
Kibi is pointing out across the courtyard. Dranko and Morningstar see it too… a dark shape moving through the sleet. And it’s somewhat higher than they are, even as they stand atop a forty-foot building.
“There’s something flying toward us,” says Kibi. “It’s moving slowly.”
Morningstar quickly fires off a silent detect thoughts. Kibi, already invisible, casts improved invisibility on himself.
“’Cause sometimes you just can’t be invisible enough,” whispers Aravis.
It’s difficult to make out details through the driving sleet, but as the shape moves out over the courtyard it’s at least clear that it’s roughly spherical and about five feet in diameter. Grey Wolf experiences a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Oh, joy,” he says.
A full-sized “tundra eye” floats slowly into clear view. Water drips from its bloated, purplish body. Ten eye-stalks wiggle and writhe above its bulk. Morningstar is unable to read its mind.
It’s huge central eye blinks open and stares at them. At once the wind-walkers become solid, the invisible folk become visible, the flying people stop flying, the telepathic bond shuts off, and everyone’s magic weapons stop glowing. There’s an imperceptible “plink” as someone’s Ioun Stone bounces on the ground.
“Why are you here?” The beholder’s voice is wet, grinding, sloppy.
“You have something we want,” Ernie pipes up.
“That may not have been the right answer to the question,” whispers Aravis.
“A bauble,” continues Ernie hopefully.
“Who sent you?” burbles the beholder.
“The universe,” says Ernie, improvising wildly. “It kind of hates us.”
“Oooh, we’re all going to die,” Grey Wolf predicts sullenly.
“We’d like to take the Eye and go now, please,” concludes Ernie.
The beholder looks them over for a few quiet seconds. Then it asks:
“Are you the chosen?
“Er… yes! Yes we are!” says Aravis, figuring that has to be the right answer.
“Then you will know the secrets that Dark Words taught. Speak the treasure that none have found.’
Uh… what?
“The Eye,” says Morningstar, trying to make it sound more like an assertion than a guess.
“Are you certain?” asks the beholder.
“That is certainly what we seek,” says Aravis.
“Name the prophets who saw the descent,” says the beholder.
Ernie’s face brightens as if he knows this one.
“Oh…oh…”
It’s just on the tip of his tongue…
“Nope,” he concludes suddenly. “No idea.”
“Well that just dashes our hopes,” says Grey Wolf.
Ernie grasps at straws.
“When you say ‘descent,” do you mean ‘the fall,’ or ‘the disagreement?’”
The beholder lets out a long gurgling sigh that sounds like: “Hmmmmmmmmm.”
Ernie tries one more time.
“The Eye belongs to Moirel, but I don’t think she saw anything…”
“You are here,” says the beholder. “You know what is here, but you are not the chosen.”
“Well, we’re often chosen,” says Ernie.
“The penalty is death,” concludes the beholder. It closes its large central eye. Magic springs back to life around the Company. Morningstar, Ernie, Flicker and Step are then struck by thin colored rays from the monster's eyestalks.
Ernie, Step and Flicker shrug off whatever the effects might have been. Morningstar shakes her head and looks around, slightly dazed.
Kibi glances over in concern. “Are you okay Morningstar?”
“Yeah. I don’t think it affected me.”
Which is true; she doesn’t. On the other hand, she is struck by the revelation that there is no reason for hostilities here; the beholder is just doing its job, and the Company is intruding on its turf. Surely everyone can come to some agreement. Better yet, they can just depart before misunderstandings turn to violence.
Grey Wolf, back to mist-form, starts the thirty-second process of turning solid. Aravis takes the opportunity to blanket his friends with a mass haste spell. Morningstar looks around and sees Kay string her bow.
“What are you doing?” she cries. “Let’s just get out of here!”
“Where can we go where it won’t chase us down?” asks Ernie.
“How about where we were last night?” answers Morningstar. “We ran from the small ones, and this is worse! We shouldn’t attack it!”
Ernie flies around to a different side of the courtyard, after which he starts de-misting. Some of the beholders eyestalks track him as he flies. Below him the eight giants have finally noticed the commotion. One of them points up at the beholder.
“Googa Flog!” it shouts. The others look up. One of them drops his club in surprise. They all begin to back away nervously at the sight of a really, really big tundra eye.
Dranko flies in the opposite direction from Ernie and also starts to de-mist. Kay fires her bow from the rooftop and hits with two out of the four arrows. They stick out of the beholder’s body like pins in a cushion. Flicker flies down to ground level right next to the tower (carefully keeping it between him and the eight giants – not that they’re paying any attention to him) and like most of the others starts coming out of mist form.
Snokas has his bow drawn but sees that Morningstar is waving frantically at him.
“Morningstar, should I shoot it?”
“No! Snokas, stop her.”
“Who?” asks Snokas, puzzled.
“Kay!” says Morningstar. Isn’t it obvious? Plinking the beholder with arrows is only going to end in heartbreak.
“Er…. ok,” says Snokas, sounding unconvinced.
Kibi, ever the straight man, complains: “Morningstar, I know you didn’t want to attack, but we are democratic… kind of. And it’s no good for some of us to attack and some of us not to”
Snokas puts himself between Kay and the Beholder. Kay glares at the half-orc, who shrugs his shoulders apologetically.
“This is crazy!” shouts Morningstar. “Attacking it is never going to work!”
“It’s certainly not going to work if we’re not all pulling together,” shoots back Kibi.
“Ok, we won’t kill it,” grumbles Snokas. “I don’t know why we won’t kill it...”
Morningstar throws up her hands in general frustration with Kibi’s failure to see reason and starts to de-mist herself. She could end the wind walk on everyone with a thought and gesture, but she feels right now that that would only increase hostilities.
Ignoring Morningstar, the hasted Kibi casts hold monster on the beholder. The monster resists. Undeterred he targets the beast with a charm monster but that also fails. He curses his ill-luck and then moves around the courtyard perimeter away from his increasingly-less-bunched-up comrades.
The beholder has identified Kay as the greatest threat. It floats a bit higher to get a good angle on her, tilts to train different eyestalks on her. A new colored ray strikes Kay in the chest. Nothing happens. A second ray striker her, this one dealing significant frost damage and covering her body with a icy glaze. With a third contemptuous zap the creature flicks her with a pale beam that sends her flying backward off the 40’ roof. It chuckles to itself for a second in satisfaction, but does a floating double-take when it sees Kay simply hovering in the air thirty feet back. Kay might have been standing on the roof to shoot, but she also had a fly spell active.
A few seconds later the beholder realizes that while dangerous, Kay might not be the greatest threat after all. Aravis waves his arms and utters the arcane syllables that bring forth a sonic bolt. KABOOM! With its central eye closed, devastating sonic energy rips through its bloated body. Seeing the ragged bits of fleshy pulp sloughing off the monster’s form, the hasted Aravis fires off a second one. KABOOM! The beholder wobbles in the air. It’s eyestalks quiver in pain.
Morningstar is shaking her head. The beholder is her friend. But then why was it just attacking her other friends with its magic bolts. Self defense?
“No!” she cries in confusion. “Not sonic bolts! Stop it!”
But Aravis was just reacting to the beholder’s attack on Kay, right? It’s a monster, and it’s attacking them, attacking her friends… her real friends… But… but…
Ahhh! It was a trick!
“Damnit!” shouts Morningstar, finally clearing her head of the beholder’s charm attack. “It got into my brain!”
“Hey! That’s my brain!” shouts Dranko, incensed. “Er, I mean, my fiancées brain! And if anyone’s going to mess with her mind, it’s going to be me!”
Kay, hovering, fires another volley of arrows. Three go wide, but the fourth sticks into the monster’s mass with a meaty thunk. The force of the arrow spins the weakened beholder around about thirty degrees, such that it’s front-facing eye-stalks are looking directly at Kibi.
The dwarf smiles.
ZOT!
A traditionally electrical lightning bolt cracks from Kibi’s fingers and slams into the beholder. It’s eyestalks all go rigid for a second before the monster falls, crashing down to the icy grass like a downed zeppelin.
…to be continued…
Old Fezziwig
Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
Sweeeeet.
tKL
LightPhoenix
First Post
Well, now everyone knows they're there! So much for argument
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
I'm only going to answer these once.coyote6 said:Nice. Now, three questions.
Was "The Eye" really "the treasure that none have found"?
Has the Company figured/found out who the prophets were?
And most importantly, how many more updates before we're caught up (and then sentenced to the Doom of Waiting)?
1. No
2. Yes
3. Right now, probably 2 or 3. But we play again this Friday, which will probably produce another 2 to 4 posts.
-Sagiro
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
nemmerle said:
I too was surprised that the beholder went down as easily as it did, though it wasn't quite as deadly as a by-the-book beholder. Because of my personal aversion to Save-or-Die spells, I changed its disintegrate ray to the no-saving-throw cold ray power from Otiluke's freezing sphere. I also changed finger of death to something else, but I can't remember right now (notes are at home). To partially balance this, I allowed the beholder to use four eyestalks per arc instead of three.
Since the visible PC's were fairly clumped together, the beholder only fired off 8 rays before it was killed. One of these was the freeze-ray, which did some hefty damage to Kay. Another was the charm monster that affected Morningstar. A third was the telekinesis used on Kay. And against the remaining five, the PC's made all of their saves (which included two flesh to stone rays).
Ah well. Live and learn. Next time there'll just have to be more beholders!
-Sagiro
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