Hard to believe that I've caught up to the end of this thread! Awesome work everyone, thanks so much for sharing!
I started in on this Story Hour back around Thanksgiving I think it was, reading the pdfs (thanks, StevenAC!) and finally today catching up to the current postings. Really enjoyable, although I'm already missing those halcyon days of last week when it seemed as though the tale would go on forever...
Anyway, I came across some commentary while reading that made me curious, and I apologize if this has been documented somewhere else I've failed to see, but Sagiro, what exactly do you do for a living? I saw comments about work on Bioshock (awesome game, BTW) from some time back (no idea how long ago in the real world). Do you work for 2kBoston? And related to Bioshock, I just started Fallout 3 (yeah, I'm behind the curve on videogames, mostly) and the thing that struck me was how similar some of the illustrations seemed to the ones in Bioshock. Is there a relationship between 2k and Bethesda?
Thanks again for such a wonderful source of enjoyment, and may you and and your players have many more happy gaming moments (which you'll share!!) in the future.
SolitonMan, you surmise correctly that I design video games for 2K Boston (now Irrational Games again!), and I did work on BioShock. The aesthetic similarities with Fallout 3 are entirely coincidental, and we have no relationship with Bethesda.
I'm glad you're enjoying the Story Hour! Don't worry -- there's plenty still to come. I just haven't written it yet.
Hey, while I'm here, have some more!
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 302
Remains of the Day
The air quickly fills with the semi-coherent groans of revealed undead – more bugbear zombies, though the newer set is fresher and more spry. They dig their way out of the enormous pile of tombstones, mausoleums, bits of rusted iron fence, rotting coffins, bones and dirt. The hill of debris shifts as they emerge, which causes the Lucent Tower to slide a few feet. The Tower taps a teetering monument which in turn topples into a tombstone and cracks open. From a hollow chamber inside come fluttering a number of amorphous bird-sized creatures that flap and bob into the air, settling into a swirling cloud some twenty-five feet above their heads. It's hard to say exactly what they are, but they resemble little sickly-gray ghosts, dripping greasy droplets that evaporate before reaching the ground.
Three of these flying things fire beams of gray light at Kibi, who feels a sharp chill as strength is leeched from his bones. Morningstar, Grey Wolf and Ernie are each struck once, though Dranko is able to leap to the side and avoid one. Flicker dodges two beams but is struck by a third. Every touch of these beams drains away a small amount of bodily vigor.
Flicker finds himself not far from one of the risen zombies and stabs it through the chest. It grunts and stays on its feet.
“
Mass Heal coming up,” says Morningstar, prompting Grey Wolf to pick his way over the rubble to get in range. Dranko does likewise, and also casts
spiritual weapon. A mace of Delioch forms in front of him; he sends it upward where it destroys one of the floating zappers in a single stroke.
Morningstar's spell goes off, which not only heals all of the Company's wounds and lost strength, but also blasts a number of nearby zombies to ash, annihilated in a flash of darkness.
The lid of a coffin standing on its end splinters outward and a huge rotting and angry-looking bugbear steps out, clad in a patchwork of rusting armor and wielding an enormous morningstar. This is Stighrk, once a mighty barbarian and champion of the Bur-Kesh. A necklace of skulls hangs from his neck and a large metal shield dangles from his arm. Stighrk raises his weapon, steps forward, and smashes Morningstar heavily in the shoulder. She stumbles to one knee.
Ernie centers a
flame strike on this new arrival. The column of holy fire is tall enough to vaporize a few of the little flying ghosts, and it also turns a few zombies to cinders. Stighrk's armored body is smoking but still very much on its feet. Kibi, who doesn't have a good line of sight on the barbarian, blasts a number of the lesser zombies with an empowered
coldfire. A couple of creatures that survived the
flame strike are destroyed by the spell, and many more are badly damaged. He quickens a
magic missile and finishes one of them off.
The zombies attack. It's been a while since they've had a live enemy to menace, which may excuse their dismal lack of effectiveness. Most of the their attacks are ineffective; only the halflings are heavily damaged by their fists and broken weapons. (Flicker finds one assailant, a short zombie wielding its own off-arm as a bludgeon, to be particularly vexing.) The Company doesn't grow complacent; they grow chilled, as two bone-white snake-like creatures worm their way up from the remains of the Necropolis. They resemble fat overgrown larva, perhaps four feet long and a foot in diameter, and their bodies end in expressionless, human faces. It almost looks like they're wearing masks.
Aravis shakes off the chill but is zapped and strength-drained by two of the little flying ghosts. Assessing the battlefield and the various angles thereupon, he responds with an empowered
cone of cold that catches nearly every enemy in the fight. Most of the zombies drop, and Stighrk, Champion of Bugbears, is flash-frozen before he ever had a chance to get really riled up. The only disappointment is that the two white larvae seem to resist the spell entirely.
Flicker looks around at the mostly-cleared battlefield, then back at his personal zombie nemesis which has somehow survived.
“Why is mine still alive?!” he complains.
“I apologize,” says Aravis. “I'll do better next time.”
Grey Wolf is unable to resist the supernatural chill of the larvae-creatures. He can feel his muscles starting to seize up, and is reminded of nothing so much as his last moment of consciousness before he was
petrified in Het Branoi. Figuring he could use some speed bumps to take some of the heat (or cold, in this case), he begins to cast
summon the pack.
Dranko and Morningstar resist the worms' freezing calcification but their attacks aren't greatly effective. Dranko moves his
spiritual weapon and lashes once with his whip but does only modest damage, while Morningstar's
flame strike bounces off their spell resistance. Ernie has better luck, managing not only to avoid the heat-sapping aura but also to inflict grievous harm upon one of the worms with
Coiled Viper and
Beryn Sur.
Kibi is partially overcome by the cold auras, and irked that a feeling of ossification should be so objectionable. He has a moment of alarm as, just for a second, the back of his right hand looks as though it's turning into pure bone. He shakes it off and pegs both of the larvae with an empowered
earthbolt.
Flicker and his personal zombie antagonist exchange blows, while another rotting bugbear corpse flails harmlessly at Ernie. One of the larvae lashes with an unexpectedly quick tail-strike and slaps Dranko across the chest. The half-orc's bones stiffen slightly as fell magic infuses them.
Not wishing to see what prolonged exposure to these creatures will do, Aravis nails one with an
antimagic ray. At once the ambient chill from the worms drops to about half its original intensity. In response the remaining wispy ghosts above the battle field bombard Aravis and Kibi with weakening rays. Aravis slumps, the weight of his cloth robe nearly dragging him to his knees.
Flicker, feeling like he's figured out the herky-jerky moves of the zombie he's been fighting, is startled to see an enormous dire wolf appear behind it. The wolf leans forward lazily and bites the zombie's head off.
“Damn it!” Flicker yells. “I worked hard on that guy!”
Aravis rolls his eyes. “First you complain you're getting no help, and now you're complaining that we're helping? Make up your mind!”
As his wolves appear around the battlefield, Grey Wolf casts
chain missile at one of the zombies but it stubbornly keeps its feet. Dranko, now flanking the anti-magicked larva with a dire wolf, repeats his
gravestrike trick, and annihilates the thing in a flurry of whip-snaps. But he's still within the aura of the second, and he shudders from the sickening chill. Grey Wolf glances at him, alarmed to see what look like bone-white lesions on Dranko's neck and cheek. Another round or two and his friend could be a bone statue.
Morningstar channels the power of Ell through her holy symbol and
turns. The worm is too powerful for such measures, but the last zombie and one of the flying ghostlets are blasted to ash. Ernie hacks at the remaining worm with his blades while Kibi pops it with
magic missiles; in response the thing burrows down into the remains of the Walking Necropolis and out of sight. Its chill fades. Aravis and Grey Wolf finish off the remaining fliers with
magic missiles.
* *
Dranko retracts the Lucent Tower, and there's a breath-holding moment of apprehension as the jumble of remains collapses further. The Company stands poised and ready to battle fresh undead but there are no more to be seen. The gentle hill before them looks as if a giant's hand has scooped up an entire graveyard and then dropped it from fifty feet up.
With time to take a closer look, they also see that it's speckled with glittering loot. Dranko rubs his chin.
“Do you think given what just happened, if it would count as grave robbing?”
“Not if the graves attacked you first!” says Flicker.
“They were bugbears,” Aravis says flatly. “So I don't care.”
After a few minutes of
heals and
restorations, Aravis makes Flicker and Dranko's lives easier by casting
detect magic and walking around with them as they dig in the piles of remains. They collect buried treasure for several hours while the others stand an anxious guard; the unnatural chill may be gone, and the strangely thick cloud cover may have cleared, but it's still a graveyard of monsters, surrounded by somber evergreens. By the time the sun has set behind the trees, the rogues have collected a pile of magic items, coins and jewelry. Flicker has also discovered an ornate gold-plated dwarf skill with opals set in its eyes, over which there is some debate considering how much more valuable it would be if sold intact.
The Company agrees to quit the graveyard for the night and set up a camp in the forest. Flicker badly wants to put up the Lucent Tower, but the others override him, opting for the safer option of
rope tricks.
Flicker grumbles. “Damn it! In the Lucent Tower I could make myself a comfortable bed. I'm sick up to here of stupid featureless
rope tricks!”
Dranko snorts. “A comfortable bed, in which you will no doubt be attacked in the middle of the night by insubstantial undead.”
Aravis looks over at the halfling. “A comfy bed? Have we really become that soft?”
“Yes!”
“Fine” says Aravis dismissively. “You can sleep in the Tower by yourself.”
“No, you can't,” corrects Dranko. “Too dangerous.”
* *
That night, Aravis dreams of the Crosser's Maze, or maybe it dreams of him.
Your wandering fragment of personality is once again at the now-familiar tavern, sitting across from its mysterious ally who still wears your face.
“I don’t know what he was trying to do,” he says. “Find someone, I think. His mind was incredibly strong – and still is, for what it’s worth – but it crumbled before he could make contact. He’s making his way back now, a long way yet from home, an insane wanderer flitting from dream to dream, scrawling his madness with the blood of passersby. I was close enough to hear him, just once, when he strayed into the waking world. His lunacy mixes with hate, and he spat the name of Morningstar.”
* *
Hearing about this over breakfast, Morningstar sighs, and immediately guesses the person described to be Octesian. They haven't run into the red-armored warrior since his assault on Semek's tower in Ava Dormo.
“I was looking forward to a showdown with Octesian,” Morningstar admits, “but not so much if he's insane.”
Grey Wolf looks at the bright side. “That could make him
more dangerous, and so more satisfying to kill.”
“That reminds me,” says Morningstar. “There's something I've been wanting to try.”
She takes Dranko into Ava Dormo with her, manifests a dagger, and asks her husband to put out his arm. Dranko winces as she makes a small slice. Morningstar drops them back out of Dream and sees, to her grim satisfaction, that his arm is still bleeding.
Flicker makes a face. “There are things about your relationship that I don't want to know.”
“You know what this means?” says Dranko with a leer. “It means that when we're having sexy dreams, we're
really doing it!”
“That,” says Flicker. “That right there, for example.”
“What it means,” says Morningstar, “is that when I kill Octesian in Ava Dormo next time, he'll be dead for good.”
While Kibi sets about identifying yesterday's magic item haul, Morningstar returns to Ava Dormo to give her sisters warning. She finds Previa at the temple in Tal Hae.
“Morningstar!” the Chronicler of Ell exclaims. “How are you?”
“I have some unsettling news,” Morningstar answers.
“I guess it's been weeks since the last such news,” says Previa, “We figured we were due.”
When Morningstar quirks an eyebrow at this, Previa adds, “We talk about you often. The Book of Morningstar? Really?”
“Yeah,” says Morningstar, without much enthusiasm.
“Can I read a draft?” Previa asks, awed.
“I would really appreciate it if you would,” says Morningstar. “I'm much better at fighting large ugly monsters than writing scripture.”
Previa laughs. “I'm sure that you're good at all sorts of things. And just the thought of it... I don't think anyone has written official canon in a century or more.”
Morningstar smiles. “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”
“So,” says Previa, looking serious again. “What did you want to talk about?”
“About Octesian. I have some indication that he's gone mad...”
“Oh!” Previa interrupts. “That's a terrible shame!”
“...and that he may be rampaging through Dream looking for me.”
“Oh. That
is a terrible shame. I'm surprised word hasn't filtered back to us if that's the case. I'll spread the word, and we'll increase patrols.”
Morningstar nods. “If you have any sign of him, let me know immediately.”
“We will! There will be Dreamwalkers lining up to help you dispose of him once and for all, I promise. Is there anything else I can do? Avenues of research you'd like me to pursue?”
“Yeah, one thing,” says Morningstar. “If you can find out anything about Nazg Hodeth, that would be good.”
She gives Previa a rundown of their current quest, up to and including their recent encounter with the Walking Necropolis.
Previa shakes her head. “I'm happy to say that I've never heard about it or anything like it, but I'll see if I can dig anything up. Figuratively speaking, of course.”
* *
Kibi holds up a leather belt with a tarnished silver buckle.
“Doesn't look like much, but it's as powerful as they come.”
The haul from the graveyard includes a few nice pieces, about half of which were on the body of Stighrk, the flash-frozen bugbear champion.
A belt of strength +6
Chainmail +3
A +3 shield, +5 vs. melee attacks from humans.
A necklace of bellows, strung with skulls. Each skull is a charge, and allows the wearer to knock back adjacent enemies. (Most of the skulls are from animals, though one is that of a small human child.)
An Ioun Stone that grants a +2 insight bonus to AC
A bag of holding that's filled with bugbear corpses, some mummified and adorned with personal effects including jewelry. (Flicker takes that one, with a promise to clean it out himself.)
A rich maroon cloak, that grants a +5 diplomacy check, and possibly something else. Kibi's not entirely sure, but guesses that more can be learned about it through use.
He finds the cloak very pleasing to look at. In fact, the more the party looks at it, the nicer it seems. Morningstar admonishes her husband: “Don't lick it.” For the moment no one trusts it enough to put it on.
* *
With the items ID'd, breakfast eaten and spells prepped, the Company heads back to the graveyard. There are no signs of anyone having visited the place overnight; all of the chaos and destruction are exactly as they left it. Ernie casts another
find the path, which points him up the hill towards a part of the graveyard undisturbed by the previous day's excitement.
They don't have far to go. Not more than fifty feet beyond where the ground was churned by the Walking Necropolis stands a mausoleum, ten feet tall and with a large stone door slightly ajar. Ernie's spell indicates that the door leads to Nazg Hodeth – and is also trapped.
“Nazg Hodeth is smaller than I expected,” says Flicker as he gives the door a once-over. “Everyone stand back for a minute.”
With a twist of his fingers he springs the trap, sending a poisoned metal barb zinging into the dirt.
It takes several of them to pull open the heavy stone door, which grinds against its frame as it grudgingly gives way. Inside the small single chamber is a stone coffin on a stout pedestal. When a quick search of the room fails to uncover anything else of note, Flicker and Kibi lever off the coffin lid. Inside is – surprise! – the skeletal remains of a bugbear. Ernie concentrates on his
find the path and learns that the way to Nazg Hodeth is through the floor of the coffin.
They unceremoniously shovel the crumbling remains out onto the floor, after which Flicker leaps in and searches. Ernie is secretly glad that Yoba isn't here to witness such irreverence.
Click!
“Just as I suspected,” says Flicker. “A trap door in the bottom of the coffin.”
The others peer over the side to see a tiny winding staircase descending beneath the mausoleum. It's too small for a large bugbear, but they should be able to squeeze down single-file.
Aravis casts
mass darkvision, and down they go.
...to be continued...
