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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 1169702" data-attributes="member: 726">Hi everyone!Sorry I've been away for so long.  I don't even have as good an excuse as you think I do, since we haven't gone on our honeymoon yet.   But many things fell by the wayside during the run-up to the wedding*, and I have been fairly busy since then.  The good news is, I'm back and writing story hour again.  This admittedly short post will take you up to two runs ago.  (That is, there will still be two more undocumented runs.)  Also, I'm running my game again (either this week or next) for the first time in a month and a half.(The bad news is, there will be another hiatus coming up while Kodiak and I really do go on our honeymoon, in November.)Anyways, thanks for the bumps; I hope I haven't lost too many readers with this protracted absence.  * The wedding was great, by the way.  All of my players were there, including the one to whom I'm now married.  The weather was perfect, the company was grand, and the desserts were fabulous!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 200Dranko looks aghast at Step’s bloody remains.“Son of a bitch!” he exclaims.  “Aravis, I’m going to move in closer.”Aravis casts a second cone of cold at the beast.   For a fourth time his spell fails to penetrate its natural resistance to magic, and he wonders aloud if it’s only vulnerable to divine magic.   But with little else to do he throws up his hands and casts a fireball… and it works!  The creature is burned and angry.  Flicker and Dranko move in invisibly and attack.  After the halfling’s blade scores its legs, Dranko snarls, flanks and lands three more expertly-placed whip strikes.  Teeth, blood and fleshy chunks fly everywhere in a storm of flying leather.   When the carnage clears the monster has fallen dead.  The rest of the Company turns to engage the third beast.    Kibi shouts a warning that he’s put up a 20’ high wall of force.  Ernie, who’s closest, flies over the wall and aims himself directly at its head.  It gores him as he approaches, but he shrugs off the pain and lands a slash to the side of its face.“Any other monsters in here?” thinks Kibi to his familiar.“I don’t think so,” answers Scree.  “The only vibrations I sense are from you humanoid types, and that one large… thing.”As Snokas starts his charge across the cavern (slowly, knowing there’s an invisible wall hanging about), the monster tries to open the tin can that is Ernie.   Its right front claw and left tusk scrape off the plate mail but it savages the halfling with its other attacks.   Its right tusk pierces clear Ernie’s leg, plate armor and all.  Ernie feels his consciousness slipping away, blood pouring from his wounds onto the rocky floor some 25’ below.   It takes all of his effort not to black out.   Morningstar, hasted, and with an angle around the wall of force, summons an Elder Xorn, placing it directly next to the huge monster.  It immediately senses its conjurer’s enemy and takes a large bite out of the beast’s leg.“Oooh!” Scree observes.  “There’s a Xorn here.  How delightful!”Dranko kneels down by the largest piece of Step’s body, and gently closes the eyes with his hand.“Step, I’m so sorry.  May Kemma bless you and guide you home.”Then he moves quickly to stay near Aravis, while the wizard aims two fireballs over the wall, well away from Ernie.  One fails to affect the target but the other sears its flesh.  Ernie vaguely registers some nearby explosions.  Is someone shouting his name?  Everything is growing blurry, and sounds buzz in his ears.   No, wait!  That’s Morningstar.  She’s saying something about healing.   What a coincidence; he himself could use some healing!  On pure instinct he flies, wobbling, down to where Morningstar stands in the middle of the cavern.  As the rest of the Company converges on this final target, they watch with horrified fascination as the beast annihilates the xorn.  In a fury of claws, tusks and teeth the large earth creature is reduced from full health down to death’s door in a handful of bloody seconds.Kibi drops the wall of force.  “Wall’s down!  Have at it!”Then, to Scree, “Still nothing else around?”“Nope,” says Scree.  “For that matter, I barely sense the xorn anymore.”Snokas charges, ignoring a goring tusk and piercing it with his heavy pick.  Grey Wolf lobs a fireball to no effect, which elicits a suggestion from Bostock.  “Spells are useless against it, but I am not!”Morningstar casts heal on Ernie who has arrived at her feet slumped onto the ground.   Then she slams down a flame strike on the monster.  Kay charges in and smashes it with her hammer.  Flicker, who has been sprinting invisibly across the cave floor, closes, jumps, and grabs onto one of its flailing tusks.   He plunges his short sword into its massive eye.  Vitreous humor spews everywhere.  He stirs the sword around in the socket, pulls it out, jams it in again.  He rides down the head as it dies.It’s quiet.* *Dranko looks sadly at Step and punches a nearby stalagmite in anger, not caring that it scrapes skin from his knuckles.  Morningstar and Ernie cast healing spells while Grey Wolf and Dranko gather up the various pieces of the felled paladin.  Aravis looks back at the blue curtain of light hanging in the darkness.  It’s been less than five minutes since they came through from the woods near Green Valley.  He nods his head toward the portal and the others nod back at him with their silent assent.  Aravis walks to the magical gateway and steps through.There is the cold, the darkness, the pulling, and then the soft light of the orange sun spilling through the treetops.  The collected citizens of Green Valley grow silent as they notice him standing there, covered in blood and gore.  Aravis casts tongues.“The three creatures are dead, as well as one of our number,”  he announces simply.“Three!” exclaims Tog.“I think it would be wise for you to show at least some of your people what’s inside.” He motions to the curtain.“Are you sure it is safe?” asks Tog.“I believe it is.” Aravis turns his back and steps through the portal, returning to the cave.  Two minutes later Tog stumbles through, followed by six others, including Del.Dranko casts light.   The folk of Green Valley look around the cave in wonder.“It’s not the forest,” breathes Del.Then they see Step’s remains, and one of the bodies of the huge beasts.“Three of them,” says Tog, shaking his head.  “Now do you see?  I would not have had you come in here, thinking it was a doorway to freedom.  That man was a seasoned warrior with nine allies, all of whom more powerful than even the mightiest hunter in our village.  Think well upon the sight of that body, the next time you are inclined to curse me.”He stops and grows thoughtful.“However.  There were three of them, and you have slain them all…”“We don’t know what lies beyond,” Aravis points out.“Is it safe for us to explore the rest of this cave?”“We have not explored it ourselves yet,” says Aravis. “Look all you want,” says Tog to his half-dozen villagers.  “Tell the others exactly what you’ve seen here.  I’d rather you tell them than me.”Del has gone white at the sight of Step.   At Dranko’s request Aravis speaks softly to her.“This is why Dranko raised his voice to you before.”  Del nods quickly, then runs back through the blue portal followed closely by the others.  The Company is again alone in the cave with four corpses.They search the immediate area and gather the humanoid remains they noticed beneath the portal.  Flicker notes several objects that are probably enchanted.   Kay goes off to scout further into the cavern with Snokas.Morningstar raises her head and peers upward toward the high cavern roof.   The darkness here is comforting to her now that the dangerous creatures are dispatched.  She glances down and her eyes fall on Step’s gathered remains.   She feels that with prayer this dark cave will be suitable to hallow, a necessary step if she is to raise anyone from the dead.“What will it mean to Step to be raised by a cleric of the Goddess of Night?” she muses out loud.“That’s for Step to decide,” says Grey Wolf.“He has said before that if he died before his task was done, he wanted to be brought back,” says Dranko.“And I doubt his task was get shredded by a huge beast,” says Ernie.Flicker looks down at the corpse.“He wants to die some other way,” he says sadly.…to be continued…</blockquote>

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