seasong's Light Against The Dark II (May 13)
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seasong
First Post
Road to Kithios
Cold, unforgiving stone slammed the breath from Merideth's lungs. Pinning her to the stone was liquid earth flowing down upon her torso, crushing the remaining breath. The earth spirit Greppa had esconced within her held the near-corpse together as best as it could, and Merideth fought unconsciousness and pain to focus on the healer's art.
She wasn't healing herself, naturally. She was ripping into the life force of whatever was pinning her down.
It half-released her, jerking its semi-liquid appendage from her like a burned child, and she tried to scramble backward from a half-prone position, looking around as she did so.
Bellos was whacking into it with his oversized meat cleaver, and it was batting him back and forth like a rag doll. Arkos was sprinting towards Bellos, Greppa was flying high into the sky. Oh good, she thought, Greppa's gonna blow it all up. Then she focused on healing herself and crawling away.
As she was reaching her feet, albeit unsteadily, the ground rocked again, and she fell down. Looking back, she saw that Arkos had bodily lifted the smaller Bellos and was beating his feet away from the monster. Hey, that's a good idea... and then Greppa had landed next to her, touched her, and she was, very suddenly, hundreds of feet away, the space between having parted like mist for Greppa's will.
The thing came for them. Flowing over the stone like a wave, it rushed in their direction, its sonerous voice vibrating through the stones... and more elementals began rising from the earth. They flowed slowly, however, and Greppa helped everyone into the air, where they fled for their lives.
Miles away, and resting around a hastily constructed camp, Merideth was already grinning. Her's and Bellos' wounds were healed, she was rested, and that... whatever-Greppa-called-it... was in the way of their adventure.
"A korkanthosuellios; it's not THAT big a word!"
Bellos grunted and smiled, Merideth rolled her eyes. It was an earth monster, was what it was.
They prepared to go back... and Greppa was running through his arcane contacts list, looking for an archon that spoke earth elemental.*
* Note: Archons can touch a sentient creature and instantly be able to speak their language; Greppa tried this during the combat and the elemental squashed the poor wee thing when it alighted on the elemental. So he's looking for one that can talk before getting in range.
Cold, unforgiving stone slammed the breath from Merideth's lungs. Pinning her to the stone was liquid earth flowing down upon her torso, crushing the remaining breath. The earth spirit Greppa had esconced within her held the near-corpse together as best as it could, and Merideth fought unconsciousness and pain to focus on the healer's art.
She wasn't healing herself, naturally. She was ripping into the life force of whatever was pinning her down.
It half-released her, jerking its semi-liquid appendage from her like a burned child, and she tried to scramble backward from a half-prone position, looking around as she did so.
Bellos was whacking into it with his oversized meat cleaver, and it was batting him back and forth like a rag doll. Arkos was sprinting towards Bellos, Greppa was flying high into the sky. Oh good, she thought, Greppa's gonna blow it all up. Then she focused on healing herself and crawling away.
As she was reaching her feet, albeit unsteadily, the ground rocked again, and she fell down. Looking back, she saw that Arkos had bodily lifted the smaller Bellos and was beating his feet away from the monster. Hey, that's a good idea... and then Greppa had landed next to her, touched her, and she was, very suddenly, hundreds of feet away, the space between having parted like mist for Greppa's will.
The thing came for them. Flowing over the stone like a wave, it rushed in their direction, its sonerous voice vibrating through the stones... and more elementals began rising from the earth. They flowed slowly, however, and Greppa helped everyone into the air, where they fled for their lives.
Miles away, and resting around a hastily constructed camp, Merideth was already grinning. Her's and Bellos' wounds were healed, she was rested, and that... whatever-Greppa-called-it... was in the way of their adventure.
"A korkanthosuellios; it's not THAT big a word!"
Bellos grunted and smiled, Merideth rolled her eyes. It was an earth monster, was what it was.
They prepared to go back... and Greppa was running through his arcane contacts list, looking for an archon that spoke earth elemental.*
* Note: Archons can touch a sentient creature and instantly be able to speak their language; Greppa tried this during the combat and the elemental squashed the poor wee thing when it alighted on the elemental. So he's looking for one that can talk before getting in range.
Last edited:
seasong
First Post
Note: Greppa's player reminded me that he cast dimension door rather than fly on Merideth - I remembered that he'd flown in and saved her (the elemental was knocking/holding her down while continuing to beat the tar out of Bellos and Arkos), I just forgot which spell 
.
Oh, and just as a side comment, earth elementals who grapple are not CR 7. They're just lucky this one had never learned to throw rocks, giant style.
.Oh, and just as a side comment, earth elementals who grapple are not CR 7. They're just lucky this one had never learned to throw rocks, giant style.
Greppa of Tartwater
First Post
*Shudder*
If it did throw rocks, I'd have to get all Texan on its butt.
If it did throw rocks, I'd have to get all Texan on its butt.
seasong
First Post
My next post is taking me a while to write. Might not be done until tomorrow morning. As a break from trying to write it...
Cached Transit
Note: this is entirely OOC; the only reason I'm posting it is because some of it Greppa has already guessed at and figured out, and the rest of it is not germane to the plot.
Kithios was rich, huge, and heavily populated. Unlike Theralis, they were not particularly militant, and tended to focus more on magical solutions than manpower solutions (this may or may not have had something to do with their god-king-wizard leader). For example, they summoned and bound earth elementals to build and protect their highways, levitated towers to make them more defensible against ground-limited armies, and so on.
One of their other magical solutions was their cached transit system. The essential method was simple: an earth elemental was used to create a pocket of air deep in the earth, and then wizards would shape layers of stone and steel to support the cavern. Each pocket was fairly sizable, roughly a hundred feet across and a hundred feet high, with a flat, circular floor. They would then create permanent teleport circles covering 50% of the floor, keyed to another cache point, and keyed to the surface of the land. These formed an unbroken chain across the width and breadth of the empire, starting in the regions near Kithios itself, and gradually expanding as funds and wizardly manpower dictated.
An army could march to any point in Kithios within a day, restock from the cache point, and then march out onto the surface. Within a cache point, there was usually sufficient supplies to arm a small warband, and sufficient food and basic goods to survive for a month or two. Some of the more lavish or well placed cache points also had water wells or carved apartments.
Although it might have made sense, from an eceonomic perspective, to open the cache transport system up to merchants and others, this was never done. It was more important to Kithios that the enemy not be able to use the cache points, and that the cache points be clear and open if they suddenly had to march a vast quantity of people through them.
When the dragon died and the earth began to shake, the cache transport system was the first thing to collapse. Most of them are nonfunctional today, even if someone knew to look three hundred to five hundred feet below the earth for them.
Cached Transit
Note: this is entirely OOC; the only reason I'm posting it is because some of it Greppa has already guessed at and figured out, and the rest of it is not germane to the plot.
Kithios was rich, huge, and heavily populated. Unlike Theralis, they were not particularly militant, and tended to focus more on magical solutions than manpower solutions (this may or may not have had something to do with their god-king-wizard leader). For example, they summoned and bound earth elementals to build and protect their highways, levitated towers to make them more defensible against ground-limited armies, and so on.
One of their other magical solutions was their cached transit system. The essential method was simple: an earth elemental was used to create a pocket of air deep in the earth, and then wizards would shape layers of stone and steel to support the cavern. Each pocket was fairly sizable, roughly a hundred feet across and a hundred feet high, with a flat, circular floor. They would then create permanent teleport circles covering 50% of the floor, keyed to another cache point, and keyed to the surface of the land. These formed an unbroken chain across the width and breadth of the empire, starting in the regions near Kithios itself, and gradually expanding as funds and wizardly manpower dictated.
An army could march to any point in Kithios within a day, restock from the cache point, and then march out onto the surface. Within a cache point, there was usually sufficient supplies to arm a small warband, and sufficient food and basic goods to survive for a month or two. Some of the more lavish or well placed cache points also had water wells or carved apartments.
Although it might have made sense, from an eceonomic perspective, to open the cache transport system up to merchants and others, this was never done. It was more important to Kithios that the enemy not be able to use the cache points, and that the cache points be clear and open if they suddenly had to march a vast quantity of people through them.
When the dragon died and the earth began to shake, the cache transport system was the first thing to collapse. Most of them are nonfunctional today, even if someone knew to look three hundred to five hundred feet below the earth for them.
seasong
First Post
Road to Kithios
The second day went much better. Greppa got everyone airborne, despite bitter complaints from the unskilled Arkos and Bellos, and they flew back to the patch of highway where they had spotted the earth elemental. Merideth touched down and stomped around a bit, her hand crackling dangerously green, and then dashed upwards into the air when it surfaced, desperately dodging its grabbing limb.
Greppa sent a lantern archon down, and it began to speak with the elemental. Time passed. Then more. Merideth sighed and looked up at the sky, but the sun had not budged much. The light archon and earth elemental spoke for some minutes, and finally the archon zipped up to Greppa.
Its voice tiny and sweet compared to the earth-shaking bass of the creature below, it explained what the long conversation was about, "He apologizes. He did not know you were not the other spindly little things that are destroying his protectorate."
The heroes glanced at each other, "Other spindly little things? Protectorate? What?"
The archon dimmed in brightness, the celestial equivalent to slumping its shoulders, "I'll go ask..." and it zipped down for another long conversation. Merideth floated closer to Greppa, and soto voiced, "I take it the earth tongue is slow?" Greppa just shrugged. Hell if he knew.
Although, over the minutes, it became obviously so. Back and forth the archon zipped, passing bits of conversation before diving back in, while Greppa continuously renewed the gate holding the archon in this plane. It was a long process, and by the end of it, the poor little puffball of light looked ready to cry.
But duty called. They learned, gradually, that there were other humanoids of a size similar to the young adventurers, who were stealing stones from the road under the cover of a spell which prevented the earth elemental from approaching them. They also determined that the earth elemental had been here, in this spot, guarding this patch of long-forgotten highway, since before Thera had been a gleam in some slave boy's eye. That he was, in fact, a remnant of that ancient civilization, bound by duty and oath to protect the road no longer in use.
Greppa was not fond of Kyriotes, finding him an insufferably arrogant man with his dozen apprentices and tens of sub-apprentices, and his grandiose summonings.. but this poor elemental needed help, that Greppa knew he couldn't provide himself. And... it would be nice to have it working for Theralis. While he continued asking questions, Greppa's brain whirled furiously as he planned how to approach Agina to make sure that Kyriotes didn't get all the glory.
As they learned what they could, the earth elemental made an offer: essentially, if they could stop the bad spindly ones from stealing his road bit by bit, he would reward them with treasures from his cache... he considered the situation dire enough to part with them, and the military had not needed such things in centuries. It was agreed, and they decided to camp hidden at the edge of the wood.
Greppa dismissed the archon to its pleasurably simple existence elsewhere, and Bellos put together a concealing leanto, behind which they hung out, napped, and watched. Finally, Greppa's keen ears caught something moving unstealthily through the woods on the opposite side of the road. Tapping the others to let them know, he soared into the sky for a better look.
What he saw were two hooded and robed figures, dressed darkly and keeping themselves covered against sight, and the faint echoes of esper magic... an esper spell of warding, perhaps? he thought as he planned how to approach them. He decided on the bold approach.
He summoned daylight.
And as they looked up, impossibly long fingers shielding their faces from the glare, he saw too many eyes peeking from behind those fingers, and a small, lipless mouth that brought nightmares screaming back to him.
The second day went much better. Greppa got everyone airborne, despite bitter complaints from the unskilled Arkos and Bellos, and they flew back to the patch of highway where they had spotted the earth elemental. Merideth touched down and stomped around a bit, her hand crackling dangerously green, and then dashed upwards into the air when it surfaced, desperately dodging its grabbing limb.
Greppa sent a lantern archon down, and it began to speak with the elemental. Time passed. Then more. Merideth sighed and looked up at the sky, but the sun had not budged much. The light archon and earth elemental spoke for some minutes, and finally the archon zipped up to Greppa.
Its voice tiny and sweet compared to the earth-shaking bass of the creature below, it explained what the long conversation was about, "He apologizes. He did not know you were not the other spindly little things that are destroying his protectorate."
The heroes glanced at each other, "Other spindly little things? Protectorate? What?"
The archon dimmed in brightness, the celestial equivalent to slumping its shoulders, "I'll go ask..." and it zipped down for another long conversation. Merideth floated closer to Greppa, and soto voiced, "I take it the earth tongue is slow?" Greppa just shrugged. Hell if he knew.
Although, over the minutes, it became obviously so. Back and forth the archon zipped, passing bits of conversation before diving back in, while Greppa continuously renewed the gate holding the archon in this plane. It was a long process, and by the end of it, the poor little puffball of light looked ready to cry.
But duty called. They learned, gradually, that there were other humanoids of a size similar to the young adventurers, who were stealing stones from the road under the cover of a spell which prevented the earth elemental from approaching them. They also determined that the earth elemental had been here, in this spot, guarding this patch of long-forgotten highway, since before Thera had been a gleam in some slave boy's eye. That he was, in fact, a remnant of that ancient civilization, bound by duty and oath to protect the road no longer in use.
Greppa was not fond of Kyriotes, finding him an insufferably arrogant man with his dozen apprentices and tens of sub-apprentices, and his grandiose summonings.. but this poor elemental needed help, that Greppa knew he couldn't provide himself. And... it would be nice to have it working for Theralis. While he continued asking questions, Greppa's brain whirled furiously as he planned how to approach Agina to make sure that Kyriotes didn't get all the glory.
As they learned what they could, the earth elemental made an offer: essentially, if they could stop the bad spindly ones from stealing his road bit by bit, he would reward them with treasures from his cache... he considered the situation dire enough to part with them, and the military had not needed such things in centuries. It was agreed, and they decided to camp hidden at the edge of the wood.
Greppa dismissed the archon to its pleasurably simple existence elsewhere, and Bellos put together a concealing leanto, behind which they hung out, napped, and watched. Finally, Greppa's keen ears caught something moving unstealthily through the woods on the opposite side of the road. Tapping the others to let them know, he soared into the sky for a better look.
What he saw were two hooded and robed figures, dressed darkly and keeping themselves covered against sight, and the faint echoes of esper magic... an esper spell of warding, perhaps? he thought as he planned how to approach them. He decided on the bold approach.
He summoned daylight.
And as they looked up, impossibly long fingers shielding their faces from the glare, he saw too many eyes peeking from behind those fingers, and a small, lipless mouth that brought nightmares screaming back to him.
seasong
First Post
Road to Kithios
Greppa screamed as his eyes met those of the eye tyrant, but he found his gaze focusing mostly on the mouth... a toothless, lipless slit, nightmare memories of susurrant voices surrounding him as his mind was raped bubbled up from somewhere inside. he didn't even think, his hands just traced the lines, and streaking bolts of pure light rained down from the sky and turned his nightmare into charcoal.
The other one said nothing, simply flew, silent and dark, back into the concealing forests. Greppa continued to scream, managing to say "eye tyrants" somewhere in his primal voice, and the other three raced through the woods to catch it.
Once they were out of sight, Greppa landed to make sure it was dead. Part of its right arm fell off at the middle of the upper arm, where small embers continued to glow.
The fight in the woods was ugly and one-sided. Arkos and Merideth brought the prey down, and Bellos whacked its head off. Then, in the time honored tradition of battle fields in all worlds, they stripped it of everything of value. A pair of rings, a slim wand tucked into a forearm sheath, some odd coins...
Greppa, the rage momentarily out of his system, caught up with them and looked the stuff over. There was nothing he was particularly interested in, but he did not, "It's all esper stuff. Merideth, you might want to take it, just in case it's useful to you."
Then Bellos, nodding at that, added, "If they were stealing rocks, there's likely to be others who needed the rocks. We should stay a few days to be sure." Merideth looked ill at the prospect. Arkos grinned at the idea of another chance at whacking one. Greppa, face as serious as death, simply nodded.
Greppa screamed as his eyes met those of the eye tyrant, but he found his gaze focusing mostly on the mouth... a toothless, lipless slit, nightmare memories of susurrant voices surrounding him as his mind was raped bubbled up from somewhere inside. he didn't even think, his hands just traced the lines, and streaking bolts of pure light rained down from the sky and turned his nightmare into charcoal.
The other one said nothing, simply flew, silent and dark, back into the concealing forests. Greppa continued to scream, managing to say "eye tyrants" somewhere in his primal voice, and the other three raced through the woods to catch it.
Once they were out of sight, Greppa landed to make sure it was dead. Part of its right arm fell off at the middle of the upper arm, where small embers continued to glow.
The fight in the woods was ugly and one-sided. Arkos and Merideth brought the prey down, and Bellos whacked its head off. Then, in the time honored tradition of battle fields in all worlds, they stripped it of everything of value. A pair of rings, a slim wand tucked into a forearm sheath, some odd coins...
Greppa, the rage momentarily out of his system, caught up with them and looked the stuff over. There was nothing he was particularly interested in, but he did not, "It's all esper stuff. Merideth, you might want to take it, just in case it's useful to you."
Then Bellos, nodding at that, added, "If they were stealing rocks, there's likely to be others who needed the rocks. We should stay a few days to be sure." Merideth looked ill at the prospect. Arkos grinned at the idea of another chance at whacking one. Greppa, face as serious as death, simply nodded.
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