Graywolf-ELM said:
FYI Your original website needs some links updated, as they all point to an old Internet connection you had. I was able to hand edit the URL's though and made it through all updates you have archived there.
GW
I've just recently started to fix those dead links -- I curse the day I built my website without knowing the power of relative links! Now, though, I'm torn, since if I have a free minute to work on game-related activity, I can a) work on the actual ongoing campaign, b) catch up on the woefully-behind story hour, or c) fix the website. (At least I may
have some free time now, since we've fairly well settled into the new house. Woo!)
Speaking of b): Here's a short update that finishes off the battle started in my last post.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 206
One Certain Step can feel the hairs rising on his neck, as he becomes the subject of ninety-six hollow eye sockets’ baleful regard. Briefly he is distracted from the skeletal hydras by the groaning of several mummies, who are now pointing at him with wrapped hands.
“They see me,” he deadpans. “I’m pretty sure of it.”
The closest hydra shifts its weight around and leans toward the paladin, preparing to move.
“I doubt I can run past them without being attacked,” Step continues. Then, with more resolve in his voice: “I know I was brought back to die for a specific cause, but this is
not it!”
He moves fluidly to the side, putting the large gray portal to his back to minimize the number of enemies that could attack him at once. This brings near enough to the closest mummy to slash at it with his bastard sword; he cuts deeply into its moldering flesh and oozing bandages. The hydras move in on him, bones a-clatter.
Grey Wolf realizes that there’s just as great a danger from the spellcasting skeletal snake. He flies over near to the boulder where he thinks the creature is hiding and plunges that entire area into an
obscuring mist. At the same time Ernie flies to Snokas and
dimension doors them both behind a different boulder, shielded from any other spells the creature might cast. Snokas is still shaking from the horrifying experience of having a mummy atop him without being able to fight back.
“Snokas, that was really gross,” Ernie commiserates. “And you were really brave!”
Snokas manages a weak smile of gratitude.
Several mummies lumber toward Step, entirely ignoring Morningstar as they move past. Three of them flail at him with their pustulant fists. For the most part he fends them off with his shield, but it’s of little import when the closest hydra moves in. Twelve long bony necks extend out over the mummies, and twelve toothy skulls snap and rend at the paladin from above. He tries in vain to deflect them all, but many find their way past the shield and through his armor. His friends, watching aghast, have flashbacks to Step’s death-by-rending in the Beast Cave. Blood spatters the rocky ground.. This time, though, One Certain Step survives. A second hydra tries to join in the savaging, but with Step’s back to the dead portal there’s no room for it. Realizing that the paladin won’t survive another attack like that, Kay (still hovering above) grabs him and airlifts him away, up the side of the hill’s near slope and out of harm’s reach. The hydras follow his flight, and one of the remaining two knocks a mummy to the ground as it moves in Step’s direction.
Back in the bedroom, Flicker scrambles onto Dranko’s back as the half-orc prepares to go back through the portal. Kibi casts
xorn movement, and steps through the blue gateway. Out of the corner of her eye, Morningstar sees the dwarf emerge and then immediately sink into the ground. She doesn’t let it distract her. Channeling her faith through the Ellish holy symbol given her by Abernathy, Morningstar uses her granted ability of
Greater Turning. Holy energy bursts forth with a hot white radiance, and the air ripples as ambient positive and negative energy mix and surge against each other. The mummies flinch and shield their faces with their arms against the flash of holy power, but for a moment it seems that the closest creature, one of the hydras, is unaffected. But its heads stop moving, and as the Ellish light subsides, the massive skeletal monster collapses into a heap of fine powdery dust.
The next-closest hydra turns its heads to regard Morningstar. She smiles grimly at it.
Aravis steps through the portal from the bedroom, surveys the battlefield, and with his expert eye decides just where he wants his sonic
fireballs to detonate. The battlefield is soon engulfed in a riot of roaring sonic energy, and three mummies are blasted apart while another two are badly shredded. One of the remaining hydras is nearly destroyed, its body cracking and starting to cave in on itself.
Dranko pops out of the portal, Flicker on his back. The half-orc sees that one of the hydras looks about ready to collapse, so he calls upon his Delioch-granted power to cast healing spells at range. But this time he channels his positive energy at the hydra, and the power of his prayer tears at the dark magics holding it together. With a terrible rending sound, the skeletal monstrosity collapses inward, legs snapping and necks disintegrating. In seconds it is nothing more than a great pile of unconnected bones.
The skeletal snake glides out of the
obscuring mist and spots the small congregation of living beings near the portal. It casts
cone of cold. Twice. Aravis, Morningstar, Dranko and Flicker are caught in the pair of icy blasts. The rogues dance and dodge and evade the damage entirely, but Morningstar and Aravis aren’t so lucky. While neither is killed outright (Morningstar feels the buzzing shock of massive damage from the second one but doesn’t succumb), both are badly, badly wounded.
Step, held aloft by Kay, channels his faith and Turns. The two closest mummies turn and flee, cowed by the might of the Sun Goddess. Grey Wolf eyes the snake-mage.
“Charge them!” urges the sword Bostock, speaking telepathically to Grey Wolf. “Wield me, and slaughter those evil creatures!”
Grey Wolf starts casting
acid orb.
“Resorting to magic again?” Bostock snorts in disgust.
A blob of acid flies true and strikes the snake, hissing and bubbling as it burns away layers of bone.
Snokas and Ernie peer through the cloud of bone grit at the snake creature.
“Want to help me get that mage?” Ernie asks Snokas.
“Er… okay,” replies Snokas, not entirely convinced that’s a good idea.
“I’ll fly us over there. When I drop you off, get ready to attack it if it tries casting anything.”
Before Snokas can answer, Ernie does precisely that. “Get ‘em, Snokas!” shouts Ernie encouragingly, as he drops off Morningstar’s cohort in front of the snake. Snokas swallows and readies his picks, waiting from the creature to try casting again. (He knows that if it tries to back away from him before casting, it will re-enter the mist and lose lines of sight on any targets.) Flicker scrambles over to the snake as well, with the same idea.
One of the two remaining hydras, perhaps attracted by the movement, selects Snokas as its target. It shifts its massive body around, lumbers a few feet over, and unleashes a veritable storm of snapping jaws. One head actually lifts him off the ground for a moment, while the other heads take turns rending and biting, fighting over the morsel. When they eventually drop him back down to the ground, he’s horribly shredded.
“Holy toast with marmalade!” shouts Ernie. “Snokas, speak to me!”
“Oooooohhhh,” answers Snokas weakly.
Kay lands, lets go of Step, and heals him with a wand. But she pays for her altruism, as the fourth hydra savages her with its full complement of heads. Bits of her go flying everywhere. She takes an obscene amount of damage, one that would have killed several of her party-mates. Somehow she stays on her feet, but at this point several members of the Company are uncomfortably close to death.
Beneath the earth, Kibi
senses. He is still learning to read the vibrations from the surface, trying to form a picture in his mind of what is transpiring on the battlefield above. Scree, an expert in such matters, helps him to understand. The dwarf takes his best guess as to where the hydras are, based on the heavy thumping of their massive legs and feet on the ground above.
He pops up to the surface to discover he has guessed exactly right. Both remaining hydras are in perfect formation for his empowered
lightning bolt. Wild magic surges through his fingertips as the bolt flies, crackling and hissing and shattering
both of the remaining hydras into flying bone fragments. One of the nearby mummies is obliterated, and the larger armored mummy also takes damage from the stroke. Aravis, not to be completely outdone, follows this attack up with another
sonic fireball. Then, since a few enemies still seem to be standing, he casts a sonic
chain lightning targeting the bone snake. As the thunderous booms of his spells fade, bits of bone and bandages fall from the sky like snowfall.
Still the snake survives! It stares menacingly at Aravis. Morningstar casts
heal on her wizard companion, and with the renewed confidence that comes of not being inches from death, Aravis stares back at the snake with his starry eyes.
The snake glides back into the fog. They can hear the sound of a spell being cast. Kibi recognizes some of the arcane syllables – it’s fleeing via
dimension door.
After Kibi flies off and finishes the two Turned mummies with
magic missiles, and after several rounds go by with no sign of the snake-mage, and after the clerics apply more healing to the wounded, and after Dranko does a bit of flying reconnaissance of the area – only then does the Company decide that the battle has been well and truly won.
…to be continued…
). It's almost caught right up with this thread, now -- only the very last update Sagiro posted is not yet included.
