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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2750837" data-attributes="member: 143">I agree, it can be a bit jarring especially with 3e's rapid advancement. My Monday night NWN group has just begun to hit the epic levels after weekly sessions that started in Sept. 2003; that represents about 6-7 years of game time (including down time between each module).  Some of the PCs in that campaign have gotten married, and have kids. I am planning one more epic mod after the current one, and am going to FF 10 years of game time (luckily NWN supports gray hair and bulging guts!). In this story I've tried to occasionally reference how unusual this rapid advancement is (I think I had Zenna comment on it a few times when she was still around). I think the series was written for relatively fast advancement, and I didn't want to mess with the urgency and drama by allowing for a year off here and there. Well, thanks!  I am not running a PnP campaign at the moment, so don't have much need for supplements... but that said, I certainly wouldn't refuse anything!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  I think my email is posted here, but if not I can certainly share it with any generous readers who are interested. And I'll take a look at what the ENWorld store has to offer. I'm getting close to the story catching up to where I am in writing, as I haven't had time to write much over the last few weeks. Usually after being away for some time it's harder to get back into the "flow".  But I've got an outline and intend to just force it some in the coming days (it's the only way to get through a block IMO), so hopefully I can stick to the "post-a-day" schedule for the remainder of the story. Don't worry, there's a lot left, including a few twists that you might find... amusing.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> * * * * * Chapter 500The dwarves were all veterans, but luck abandoned them as they fell prey to the grimlock trap.  When the levers were pulled, two trapdoors the full width of the passage, twenty feet wide by ten feet long, had fallen open beneath the charging dwarves, one on either side of the intersection in the middle of the passage.  Umbar tumbled facedown into the first, and Beorna, close on his heels, could not arrest her charge in time to avoid following him in.  She tried to leap across the gap; normally a ten-foot jump would have been trivial for one of her strength, but her armor weighed her down, and she slammed hard into the far edge, her sword going flying from her grasp as she clutched at the bare stone, the weight of her gear threatening to drag her down after the cleric.  She held on as a wave of heat rushed up from below, enveloping her in wisps of white flame. Arun’s monentary delay had put him right over the second pit, and luck was not with him as he tumbled down into the black opening.  Hodge was the only one not to fall, the dwarf halting right at the edge of Arun’s pit.  But he could do nothing but watch as the paladin landed hard on the spikes below.  Arun’s armor protected him from serious injury from the spikes, but their situation was complicated an instant later as the flasks that the grimlocks had piled under the debris choking the tunnel shattered on the spikes, flooding the pits with an explosion of white fire.  Hodge fell back, blinded by the intensity of the flare, hoping that the paladin, lost within the inferno, could withstand the immolation. Beorna looked up to see the two grimlocks rushing forward toward her, their axes poised to drive her back into the burning pit.  Calling upon Helm for a surge of strength, she roared and pulled herself up in time to meet them.  One tried to bull rush her back into the pit, but against her augmented strength it may as well have been trying to topple a stone wall.  It rebounded off her her as she stood, and she reached out, snaring it by the throat with the iron grip of a gauntleted hand.  The grimlock tried to shake free, and its companion laid into her with a powerful blow of its axe, but she ignored both and bodily hurled her captive into the pit behind her. “Arun!” Hodge yelled, as the white fire continued to engulf the pit, hiding the paladin from view.  The dwarf had a rope, but if he could not see his friend within the pit, then how was Arun supposed to see the line?  But the question became moot a moment later, as a glowing length of steel rose up out of the pit, wreathed in wisps of persistent fire and trailing smoke.  Arun’s sword landed with a loud clatter on the far side of the pit, followed a moment later by the paladin himself, leaping out from the smoke to seize the pit edge, pulling himself up with a surge of strength before he collapsed in the middle of the intersection, blinded and coughing.  Thus incapacitated, he didn’t see the door at the end of the side corridor to the east burst open, or the half-dozen grimlocks that surged through it, axes raised as they rushed toward him.  Beorna turned to face her remaining foe, taking an axe hit across the front of her helmet that failed to do anything more than cause her ears to ring.  Her bastard sword was out of reach, so she drew forth her backup weapon, stepping into the grimlock’s reach to punch the dagger meatily into its torso.  A foot of steel stuck into its side had to have hurt it, but the creature only unleashed another series of attacks with its axe, each of the blows clanging uselessly off of the templar’s adamantine armor. But her prospects took a turn for the worse as the double doors behind it opened, and a horde of the creatures came charging through it.  And beyond the doors, a shadowy figure momentarily stepped into view, but behind the more pressing wave of grimlock barbarians, the templar failed to notice it.  She saw her sword, lying about six feet away down the corridor, but there was no way that she was going to be able to recover it before the wave broke upon her. So, being practical, she called upon Helm and transformed her dagger into a holy sword. The grimlocks surged into her, moving to flank her, leaping at her with powerful two-handed blows from their stolen axes and swords.  The pit, a mere pace behind her, protected that flank, but that still left her open to up to five attackers at time, pressing in at her from every direction.  Another tried to grapple her, but she dissuaded it by punching her dagger into its shoulder, opening a gusher of red blood that ran down the front of its scarred torso. Behind her, white smoke billowed out of the pit, forming a wall at her back.  A familiar roar signaled the arrival of reinforcements, as Umbar vaulted out of the pit.  The cleric was transformed, filled with the righteous might of Moradin to double his normal size.  He’d dropped his shield in the pit, but as he clambered up into the corridor he drew his warhammer—likewise significantly increased in size—out of his belt, driving it into the face of the first grimlock that turned his way.  The creature staggered back, but was immediately replaced by three others that violently surged at the cleric, trying to keep him off balance.  The priest, his defenses significantly augmented by his spell, shrugged off the hits. “Fall before the righteous!” the cleric said, laying about him with powerful blows of his hammer, crushing bones with each solid impact. “Arun, look out!” The paladin was trying to pull himself to his feet as Hodge’s warning reached him.  His sword was lying just a few feet away, but even with its bright glow he could not see it, the aftereffects of the flare and stinging white fire having thoroughly blinded him.  The first grimlock eschewed its axe and hurled itself on top of the paladin, seeking to bring him down with sheer weight and fury.  Arun straightened, refusing to be overborne, but the movement opened himself to powerful blows from the axes of the grimlock’s friends.  One blow cracked heavily into his left elbow, drawing a cry of pain from the paladin; his shield too had been lost in the escape from the pit.  “Damnation!” Hodge cursed, watching the grimlocks surge over his friend.  The ten-foot gap between them might have been a league for the armored dwarf; he’d watched Beorna, who was far stronger than he, fail that leap, and while he was a decent climber, Hodge had never been much for jumping over chasms.  Especially not ones filled with spikes and lingering wisps of white fire and burning smoke. “Moradin’s balls!” he finally yelled, dropping back and shucking his shield, taking his axe up in both hands as he rushed toward the gap.  The smoke seemed to swirl up to enfold him, and he nearly misjudged the edge; but then he was flying across, the smoke absorbing his vision for a moment before he was through, and a grimlock was rushing straight for him.  He was a bit surprised when his boots landed on solid ground.  “Aaaaaaaaar!” he shouted, bringing his axe down into the grimlock’s chest.  The weapon tore a deep gash in its chest but snagged on its breastbone.  Two grimlocks were on him in a flash, stabbing with hook-shaped curving swords that tried to find gaps in his plate armor.  He suspected that if he let them, they’d gut him and hang him up to rot soon enough. “Eat crap, ye bastards!” he yelled, laying out with everything he had.  It was a gamble, since these guys were tough and agile, and too much strength would overextend himself and cause a miss, leaving him open to the inevitable counterattacks.  But his first power attack connected, hitting the one he’d injured with enough force to cut through its body all the way to the spine.  The grimlock went down in a bloody mess, almost wrenching his axe from his grip before he could yank it free.  A sharp point snagged in his side, no doubt puncturing something significant, but there wasn’t time to worry about that just now. “By yer right foot!” he yelled at Arun, not able to spare even a moment to look over to see how the paladin was doing.  Well, he hoped; he had a feeling he was going to need some help in a couple of seconds, and he’d lost sight of Beorna and the cleric in all the smoke and confusion. Something hard caromed off of the side of his head, and he staggered.  The white smoke rose up and he could feel the edge of the pit drop off on the side of his boot.  Damn, that was close, he thought.Then a pair of grimlocks slammed into him, and the lot of them went over, swallowed up into the searing white fog.</blockquote>

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