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Story Hour
The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7227880" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 20: MOURNING IN SPARKLETOWN</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 11</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 11</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 16 September 2017</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"I'm bushed," admitted Sam Crow, crawling into his hammock strung across two beams in the lower deck of the troll airship.</p><p></p><p>"Me too," agreed Baabby, already swinging slightly in his own hammock from the airship's motion. The movement was like nothing so much as being rocked back and forth in a place of safety and generally made it remarkably easy to fall asleep. Add in tired muscles from a day of fighting demons and the undead in the depths of the underworld, and it got even easier - which likely explained the quiet snores already coming from Sapphrina's hammock.</p><p></p><p>It wasn't long at all before two more sets of snores joined those of the tired fairy, to intermingle into an unintended melody performed by three unconscious practitioners of the snoring arts. One deck above, the animated statue of Xacho's son kept his unsleeping vigil at the helm of the troll airship, expertly piloting the craft back to Skylanders Academy, where the trio would decide their next course of action. It was nice not having to set up a guard shift for the night, leaving that in the unliving hands of their unnamed statue construct.</p><p></p><p>A sudden lurch caused the airship to shudder and founder to starboard for a moment, before regaining its normal heading. The turbulence sent the three hammocks swinging off to the side, but neither of the exhausted heroes awoke from the jostling. Instead, each was caught up in a particular dream of lifelike intensity....</p><p></p><p>Sam raced through a maze of alleyways, the clicking of claws behind him letting him know the glabrezu was still right behind him, eager to cut him in half. Off to both sides, flitting past the buildings Sam ran between, the archer could see the wispy forms of wraiths keeping pace with him. They were no doubt trying to cut him off, which would force him to deal with them or turn and face the crab-demon behind him. And Sam wasn't sure when he had dropped his Dynabow 3.0 and his other weapons, but they weren't with him now. Glabrezu or wraiths, it didn't matter - he had no real chance of beating either without his weapons....</p><p></p><p>Baabby, meanwhile, was trapped in a tight-fitting box that didn't allow him the slightest bit of movement. In the manner of dreams, he simultaneously felt that he'd been there for a long, long time and yet was just now noticing that the box was painted in various-colored stripes. Only the purple stripes were fading away to nothingness. It didn't allow him any further movement, but Baabby realized that his minions had somehow weakened the imprisoning box, and that if they could continue to make the other colors go away he'd finally be free. Baabby cracked his knuckles in anticipation of the havoc he'd wreak if he ever got out of this accursed box, causing the eyeballs on the ends of his tentacle-fingers to writhe in eagerness....</p><p></p><p>Sapphrina stood in her hometown, surrounded by piles and piles of colored dust. Everywhere she looked, the buildings were covered in glitter, which formed little swirls with each stray breeze. But she knew she was the only one of her kind still alive, and that she could search each and every building and find nothing but glitter where her people should be....</p><p></p><p>Another round of turbulence hit the ship, and the statue pilot wrestled to keep the vehicle aloft. Fortunately, the disturbance slammed Sam into the side of the wooden hull, forcing him awake from his nightmare. He half crawled, half fell from his hammock and was glad to see his quiver of arrows and his Dynabow 3.0 right where he had left them. Grabbing them up - along with his other gear - he shook Baabby awake.</p><p></p><p>"Whaat's going on?" the baabarian asked, looking around groggily in the weak light - for outside, the sun was just starting to rise.</p><p></p><p>"Dunno," Sam admitted. "I'm gonna go upstairs and find out." As the little crow fought his way to the stairwell in the bobbling airship, Baabby crawled out his hammock and shook Sapphrina awake, noticing her eyes were wet with tears.</p><p></p><p>Up above, Sam could see what was causing the problem: a vertical tear in the fabric of reality, rising as high as the eye could see and extending at least as far down. The tear was covered in vertical stripes of various colors, rather like the bands of clouds in a gas giant planet. "What in the world is <em>THAT</em>?" Sam asked.</p><p></p><p>"It appears to be a rip in the fabric of space," replied the statue. "At our present heading, we will likely fly into it within an hour."</p><p></p><p>"Hey, here's a crazy idea: let's not do that!" cried Sam. Then he decided to ask the one person he thought might have an idea about what was going on and how best to proceed. Preparing a <em>speak with animals</em> spell and casting it as soon as it was ready, he turned to the snail pacing in slow motion on his left shoulder, with his eyestalks swinging around crazily - easily, the most panic-stricken the crow had ever seen his little snail pal since they'd met - and asked Shelldon what was going on.</p><p></p><p>"It's a rip in the fabric of space!" cried Xacho.</p><p></p><p>"We got that part figured out," replied Sam. "How did it happen, and how do we fix it?"</p><p></p><p>"Long ago, I determined there were eight 'weak spots,' for lack of a better term, in the fabric of space, one aligned with each of the eight elements we recognized at the time. I used the power of the sword to create gates around six of them, but I was never able to find the Tech or Magic leaks before I was turned into my present form. Apparently, someone's found the Magic weak spot and taken advantage of it, to cause this tear!"</p><p></p><p>"What'll it do?" Sam asked, steeling himself for an answer he was almost 100% positive he wasn't going to like - after all, if the answer was "Nothing much, it'll just repair itself on its own," Shelldon wouldn't be in a panic.</p><p></p><p>"Left alone, it will eventually swallow all of the Skylands!" moaned Shelldon.</p><p></p><p>"<em>That's</em> no good!" agreed Sam. "I <em>live</em> in the Skylands, and intend to continue doing so for a <em>lot</em> more years! So how do we fix this?"</p><p></p><p>"The sword can be used to implode it, just like Baabby did with the undead gate. Imploding it will cause the energy spill to go away, taking the inherent weakness with it."</p><p></p><p>"Well then, that's easy!" replied Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Not so!" argued Xacho. "The closer you get to the rip, the more susceptible you are to its unbound energies!" Sam squinted at the rip and thought he could see multicolored arcs of energy flashing out from the tear. "Plus, without the Magic Rune activated in the sword, he won't be able to close the tear!"</p><p></p><p>"So we need to find the Magic Rune first," pondered Sam.</p><p></p><p>"No, just enough energy to form the Magic Rune," corrected Xacho.</p><p></p><p>Sapphrina and Baabby had come up from the lower deck by this time and heard the last bit of the conversation - or at least the crow's half of it, for the <em>speak with animals</em> spell didn't allow those nearby to be able to understand Xacho's snail-speech, only Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Do you think we can somehow siphon off the energy spilling out of the rift to power the Magic Rune?" Sapphrina asked.</p><p></p><p>"It's technically possible," agreed Xacho. "Shelldon says yes," translated Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Then let's go!" called Baabby, turning to the statue of Xacho's son. "Head for the rift!"</p><p></p><p>"The bottom of the rift," specified Xacho. "That's where you'll be able to close it, if it's even possible."</p><p></p><p>"The bottom of the rift," Sam echoed. Then, looking at the animated pilot, he said offhand to the others, "Did we ever learn Statue Boy's name?"</p><p></p><p>"I don't think so," admitted Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"I should know his name," admitted Sapphrina. "I adventured with Xacho and his son all those years ago. But...I can't remember."</p><p></p><p>Sam opted to go to the source. "Hey, Statue Boy!" he called. "What the name of the person you're carved in the image of?"</p><p></p><p>The animated statue looked off to the side, mentally gazing inward. Finally, he responded, "...Information not found."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, fer criminey's sake," muttered Sam Crow. Since his spell was still active, he turned to Shelldon and asked "Hey, what's your son's name?"</p><p></p><p>"I...do not know," admitted Shelldon, his eyestalks hanging low. "When the Rift-Weavers didn't believe me about the threat caused by the Devourer of Nightmares and banished me from their ranks, and my son tried usurping the group for his own ends, I was so upset I cursed his name to be erased from history."</p><p></p><p>"Wow," Sam said, mentally warning himself to never tick his pet snail off if he wielded <em>that</em> kind of power. Then, to change the subject, he turned to the animated pilot and said, "It's official, then: your name is <strong>Statue Boy</strong>."</p><p></p><p>"Acknowledged," replied Statue Boy. "We will arrive at the bottom of the magic rift within 30 minutes."</p><p></p><p>Baabby spent the time preparing his day's ration of spells, while Sam did likewise for the other two spells he could handle each day; as a sorcerer, Sapphrina didn't have to worry about such things. But as they approached the bottom of the rift - when they could actually see where the rift ended - the fairy gave a gasp of fear. "That's Sparkletown!" she cried.</p><p></p><p>"What about it?" asked Sam, confused - he'd never heard of Sparkletown (not entirely surprising; the Skylands were, after all, practically infinite).</p><p></p><p>"That's my hometown!" she said, the color draining from her face as she recalled the dream she'd been wakened from in her hammock.</p><p></p><p>"Fairyland?" gasped Sam, his eyebrows rising in excitement. He didn't mind playing the hero and rescuing a town from imminent disaster, but if the inhabitants happened to be good-looking fairies - good-looking, <em>grateful</em> fairies, at that - well, that made it all the better! Fortunately for Sam, the <em>speak with animals</em> spell had run its course by that point so Shelldon couldn't chide him for his attitude.</p><p></p><p>As Statue Boy brought the airship to the landing dock on a small island among the clump that made up Sparkletown, the group could see the bottom of the rift attached to what was once the largest of the islands, and what was now a mass of much smaller chunks of floating rock, twisting slowly in its wake. "That's where the town hall used to be!" cried Sapphrina, already imagining the death toll this rift could cause - if it hadn't done so already. There were several small, red buildings scattered along the islands, all intact, but no visible inhabitants; presumably the fairies were all hiding in their tiny, tiny houses.</p><p></p><p>Of course, that didn't mean Sparkletown was uninhabited. Far from it: standing on an island adjacent to the one the airship had parked alongside stood four magic elementals, two of them as big as Baabby and another pair twice that tall. They looked just as Sam remembered: vaguely humanoid in build, with bodies trailing off into nothingness below the waist (rather like fairies, the crow thought bemusedly), but with wicked teeth and hands full of lengthy claws built for eviscerating.</p><p></p><p>Sam decided to begin combat like he almost always did: with an explosive arrow. After having it charged up by his Dynabow 3.0, he sent it flying at the nearest of the magic elementals. This was one of the smaller ones, so after it wandered dazedly from the blast of his first arrow, he peppered it with two more normal arrows in quick succession. That was enough to take it out, and Sam congratulated himself for diminishing their opponents by one-quarter, all by himself. (Not quietly, mind you - he was quick to ask the others if they'd seen his awesome display of awesomeness.)</p><p></p><p>With a roar, Baabby catapulted himself over the railing and ran to the Large magic elemental sharing the same island. He got in a swing with the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> which was enough to wound it but not enough to bring it down. Sapphrina fluttered her fairy wings to bring her into position, then fired off a <em>lightning bolt</em> spell that caught the other two elementals in its path. Of the two, the larger one seemed to suffer the most from the attack.</p><p></p><p>In response, the smaller of the two elementals started pirouetting around and around like a ballerina. "What's it think it's doing?" Sam asked, forgetting the magic elemental's ability to become a spinning vortex of energy. Worse yet: a spinning vortex of energy that spat out <em>magic missiles</em> at all within range - which, in this case, meant both Baabby and Sam. "Hey!" cried the little crow. "No fair!"</p><p></p><p>The Large elemental not in combat with Baabby approached the airship, heading towards Sam. It slashed at the archer with a set of jagged claws, causing Sam to squawk aloud in pain. He took a step backwards, primed his first arrow full of energy, and sent it blasting into the offending elemental's face. Fortunately, its blast radius also covered the spinning-vortex magic elemental, and the explosion was enough to slay the last of the smaller enemies. Sam sent a pair of two normal arrows flying at the Large magic elemental, killing it as well. "Hey, guys - did you see that?" he crowed.</p><p></p><p>As a matter of fact, Baabby had not seen Sam's awesome example of further awesomeness - but he did see a trail of magical energy come meandering from Sam's general direction and fly into his greatsword. But he couldn't afford to direct too much of his attention on this event - he had an elemental to slay! Throwing all of his immense strength behind his blows, the powerful baabarian sliced up the magic elemental into ribbons with the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> - and then the trio of combatants found themselves without any more enemies to fight.</p><p></p><p>But before Sam could query his friends if they'd seen his awesome killing blows, Sapphrina had rushed over to the closest of the tiny fairy houses. It stood maybe four feet tall, went about that far back, and was maybe twice as wide. Given that Sapphrina was about the same size as Sam, the little crow couldn't see how they lived comfortably all cramped up like that. But Sapphrina flew straight to the door, touched it - and disappeared. Baabby followed in her wake, and Sam reluctantly did likewise, all the while worried that this might be a trap of some kind.</p><p></p><p>The crow's fears were fortunately unfounded, for the others hadn't been zapped into oblivion, merely transported to the extradimensional space inside the house. They stood in an elaborate room, with a table overloaded with trays of sumptuous food before them. Sam stepped forward and found himself staring at a platter of roast turkey and gravy; he couldn't resist addressing a fearful "...Mom?" to the turkey, before ruining the effect by snickering aloud.</p><p></p><p>And then his attention was immediately diverted elsewhere, for three lovely fairies approached from the doorways to their bedrooms. Each wore clothes of a primary hue that matched their dragonfly wings and hair: one blue, one green, and one purple. "Hello," said the purple fairy hesitantly.</p><p></p><p>"Ladies," welcomed Sam in his most charming fashion, waggling his eyebrows and bending his beak into a wide grin.</p><p></p><p>"Is it safe to come out?" asked the green fairy.</p><p></p><p>"Not quite yet," replied Baabby. "We took care of the maagic elementals nearby, but there might be more of them aabout."</p><p></p><p>"What happened?" demanded Sapphrina.</p><p></p><p>"A bunch of robed individuals suddenly converged on our village," replied the blue fairy. "They started chanting, performing some sort of ritual."</p><p></p><p>"Spell punks!" snorted Baabby in irritation.</p><p></p><p>"And then suddenly, there was this awful noise, and the rift appeared right above the island. It broke the town hall into smithereens, and then the island it was on as well. And the rip kept growing, going up and up and up..."</p><p></p><p>"We all ran and hid in our houses," interjected the purple fairy.</p><p></p><p>"Especially once the elementals started popping up," added the green fairy.</p><p></p><p>"Whaat haappened to the spell punks?"</p><p></p><p>"They were consumed by the rift," explained the blue fairy. "They seemed rather surprised at that, too - I don't think they expected to be in any danger themselves."</p><p></p><p>"Serves them right," snarled Sapphrina.</p><p></p><p>"So now what?" asked the three fairy sisters in unison.</p><p></p><p>"We heal up, and we go baack outside, and we check out thaat rift," replied Baabby, beginning the words to his first healing spell. Sam spent the time trying to convince the three sisters of the documented healing effects of a fairy's kiss, to no avail. He then changed tactics, explaining that in cases where the fairies were related to each other their kisses could add a luck bonus to the attacks of any brave heroes trying to fight off their enemies, but that didn't go anywhere either. With a sigh of disappointment, Sam accepted Baabby's healing spells and got ready to exit the comfort of the fairy sisters' extradimensional house for the unknown dangers of Sparkletown.</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, new magic elementals had manifested during the heroes' absence. Standing in the pond on the next island over was the biggest magic elemental the trio had ever seen - it stood at least 15 feet high, easily. It was flanked by a pair of 10-foot-tall magic elementals, each flexing its claws as if eager to rip through the flesh of any enemies who might present themselves.</p><p></p><p>Sam gulped. "I-- I better go make sure those three fairies are still okay," he suggested.</p><p></p><p>"Not a chance," answered Sapphrina.</p><p></p><p>"We fight!" commanded Baabby, casting a <em>blindness/deafness</em> spell on the Huge elemental, hoping to deprive it of its sight. But the spell failed; the elemental shrugged off its intended effects and the sheep-man's lifetime average with that particular spell was: three attempts, zero successes. "Bummer," he swore, which was actually as close to swearing as the polite baabarian ever got.</p><p></p><p>Sapphrina had the baabarian's back, though: casting a <em>hold monster</em> spell at the hulking elemental, she grinned in satisfaction as it worked! One of the Large elementals moved up right next to its immobilized companion and let fly with a magical blast at the crow archer. Sam didn't even get to finish his squawk of protest before the other Large magic elemental did likewise, sending little wisps of smoke rising up from the former Son of Archery member's scorched feathers.</p><p></p><p>"So that's how you want it, huh?" Sam asked, lining up his shot at the Huge elemental. Then, realizing the Huge guy was no threat for awhile, he sighted just a bit to the left and let fly. The explosive arrow blew up in the face of the first Large magic elemental to blast Sam, and the explosion caught the immobilized elemental in its blast radius as an added bonus. Then Sam let fly with two more arrows targeted at the same Large elemental, causing it to roar in pain - music to the little crow's ears.</p><p></p><p>Baabby tried another spell, this time one he absolutely knew would work as intended. Then, he took a pair giant strides towards the magic elemental Sam had just shot, and the magic beast was surprised to see the baabarian was now every bit as tall as it was! Sapphrina followed up with a <em>haste</em> spell that covered all three of the heroes. Feeling the energy flowing over him, Sam called out an enthusiastic "<em>Now</em> we're talkin'!"</p><p></p><p>And then, in the midst of combat, another attack came from an unexpected source: the rift itself! An arc of energy came striking at Baabby, but the blast veered at the last moment and struck the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> instead. Baabby glanced down and saw the Magic Rune hole in his blade beginning to glow, and he figured a bunch more similar strikes and he'd have his Magic Rune all powered up!</p><p></p><p>The Large magic elemental farther away from the pond started spinning, becoming a tornado-like vortex that spun into place between Baabby and Sam, spitting <em>magic missiles</em> this way and that. Sapphrina was fortunately out of range for them to strike her, and she decided the boys likely had combat with those capable of fighting back well in hand - she might do best shooting the giant fish-in-a-barrel standing before her. She sent a <em>cone of cold</em> into the Huge magic elemental, who was still immobilized by her previous spell.</p><p></p><p>Sam sent a quartet of arrows striking at the first Large elemental, and since the first of the arrows had been charged with explosive energy by the Dynabow 3.0. that was too much for the elemental to survive. Slain, it reverted to pure energy, which drifted across the battle space to be absorbed into the Magic Rune of the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>.</p><p></p><p>Reaching out with an enlarged arm, Baabby sent his greatsword's blade cutting deep into the vortex elemental - once, twice, thrice, and then it too was dead. And then that left only the Huge magic elemental, still frozen in place by the <em>hold monster</em> spell it had been unable to overcome. With all of the spells, arrows, and sword-thrusts sent its way, it was difficult to say whose blow was the killing one, but when it died it also helped to fuel the Magic Rune.</p><p></p><p>Seeing no other opponents in sight, Baabby started casting healing spells on his friends with one hand while the other hand held the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> facing the rift, using it as a lightning rod to intercept the occasional arcs of energy fired their way. Sam and Sapphrina, seeing the effectiveness of the greatsword as a defense, made sure to keep it between them and the rift.</p><p></p><p>Once everyone had been healed back to full strength, the trio walked confidently toward the rift. The closer they got, the more blasts of energy it spat at them; eventually, the sword had absorbed enough energy and the Magic Rune manifested in the correct hole in the blade. "Thaat's my cue," said Baabby, sending the blade to swing deep into the rift. While it was buried to the hilt into the rift, the baabarian activated its power to open and close rifts, and the tear in reality began healing up. The top of the rift, which had been so far away it was out of visual range, came speeding down to meet the lower end, and with a final sound of tearing being played backwards, the rift - and the weakness in the Skylands where it had started - was gone without a trace.</p><p></p><p>In its place, however, was one last remnant of elemental energy, manifesting in the form of a 20-foot-tall magic elemental. "Oh come on!" cried Sam getting a look at the thing, which towered twice as tall as the enlarged Baabby, who in turn stood twice as tall (more, actually) as the little crow. "Talk about making me feel small!"</p><p></p><p>But appearing small was a blessing in disguise. As Baabby was the closest foe, the largest, and the one which the towering elder magic elemental could see the best, he bore the brunt of the creature's attacks. Wicked claws slashed out at the baabarian, drawing both blood and a cry of pain.</p><p></p><p>But in Baabby's case, pain was merely a precursor to rage. Fueled by this rage, which the baabarian welcomed as an old friend, the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> went slashing into the enormous elemental's body. With the <em>haste</em> spell still in effect, Sam sent four arrows piercing the monster's form, the first of them exploding in a blast of energy. Sapphrina sent another <em>cone of cold</em> spell blasting into the elder elemental, and it retaliated by spinning itself into a vortex, blasting all three of the heroes with <em>magic missiles</em>. Staggered by the onslaught of elemental energy, Sapphrina did her best to steady herself on unsteady wings. She knew she couldn't survive another such blast, so she cast another <em>cone of cold</em> spell at it and then raced to hide behind a nearby house, out of sight and out of range.</p><p></p><p>Sam kept backing up, step by step, hoping to eventually find himself out of range of the <em>magic missile</em> attacks, while he kept arrow after arrow flying into the elder elemental's body, every fourth one of them suffused with explosive energy. (Fortunately, being 20 feet tall, Sam could target its head so the blast radius wouldn't encompass Baabby, despite him being right there next to the foe.)</p><p></p><p>Baabby kept putting all of his strength into his swings, before noticing he was missing a lot more than he was hitting. Sometimes, he realized, power attacks aren't the way to go - it can be more important to hit a foe and do some damage than try for maximum damage and miss altogether. With this new philosophy in mind, the baabarian found himself hitting more often than not, and while he wasn't doing as much damage as he might have, it was starting to add up, and the elder magic elemental began swaying in place, as if having difficulty remaining upright.</p><p></p><p>Sensing the elemental was very nearly dead, Baabby took a chance and gave a final swing of the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> with the full power of his considerable strength behind it. The power attack gamble paid off, for the elder magic elemental was finished off by that blow, its body dissipating as it fell to the ground. The magical greatsword, its Magic Rune already fully powered, disdained absorbing this magical energy.</p><p></p><p>A quick check through the other houses in the area found a bunch of them abandoned, their owners nowhere to be found - or, more likely, slain by the rift energy, converted to glitter (as Skylanders fairies do when they die), and scattered to the four winds by the spinning vortexes of the magic elementals. (Sapphrina shivered as she remembered her dream from that morning.) Some houses had exploring magic elementals in them, which were easily slain. The heroes did find one other survivor, an old male fairy who had been late to a meeting at the town hall - a tardiness which inadvertently saved his life. He allowed the heroes to take anything that would help them fight off the Devourer of Nightmares and his evil followers. Sam ended up taking a vial of <em>shock arrows</em> and a funny crystal that spun around his head when he released it. (Sapphrina said it was a <em>dusty rose ioun stone</em>, whatever <em>that</em> was!) Baabby ended up with a <em>ring of force shield</em>, sure to come in handy since his two-handed greatsword prevented him from using a shield of any kind. Sapphrina took a vial of <em>stone salve</em>. And, while nobody else was looking, Sam grabbed up a old issue of <em>Feyboy Magazine</em>, whose centerfold was none other than a before-she-joined-the-ranks-of-evil Garnett. Sam had to admit, she looked much better without the extra two sets of arms - or the clothes she'd been wearing when he'd killed her!</p><p></p><p>"I feel kind of guilty taking this stuff," admitted Sapphrina, putting the <em>stone salve</em> in her leather hip pouch.</p><p></p><p>"The village elder said we could haave it," Baabby reminded.</p><p></p><p>"And we don't miiiiind at aaaaall if you taaaaake it," said a voice from behind the trio. Spinning around, the heroes found themselves confronted by a large gaggle of fairies, of a multitude of colors. But the colors were all washed out - and, upon closer examination, each of the fairies was translucent.</p><p></p><p>"Ghosts!" cried Sam.</p><p></p><p>One of the fairy ghosts flew closer, his hand raised in supplication. "We meeeeean you no haaaaarm," he said. "In fact, quiiiiite the opposite. Despite our deaths from the haaaaands of the spell punks' ritual, we wish to see some gooooood come from all of this. And so, we have decided to graaaaant Sapphrina a boooooon." The ghost-fairies all joined hands and started humming, becoming even more translucent as they did so, as if they were traveling farther away although they remained in one spot. Then there was a flash of light, after which the ghosts were all gone.</p><p></p><p>"Whaat haappened?" asked Baabby. "Is everyone okay?"</p><p></p><p>"I'm fine," replied Sam. And, looking down at his left shoulder, he added, "And Shelldon's okay."</p><p></p><p>"I'm okay," replied Sapphrina, as her eyes flashed momentarily all white before returning to normal. She blinked a few times, then added, "In fact, I'm better than okay! The ghosts - they've opened up a channel in my mind. They've given me access to healing spells! Baabby, I can cast <em>cure minor wounds</em>, <em>cure serious wounds</em>, and everything in between! I'll be able to help you keep us all in the fight!"</p><p></p><p>"And that means you can devote more of your spells to attacks," pointed out Sam. "And that means maybe - just maybe - someday you'll actually be able to blind someone with that silly spell of yours!"</p><p></p><p>"One day, I'll maanage to aactually do thaat," Baabby promised.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe you should try deafening somebody instead," suggested Sam. "You might have better luck with that."</p><p></p><p>"You think so?" asked the baabarian.</p><p></p><p>"Huh?" asked Sam, feigning sudden deafness. "Did you say something?" Sapphrina, as was her habit, just shook her head at the little crow's joke. Shelldon followed suit, having his independent eyestalks stare at each other as if in astonishment, then waggle back and forth as if each one was a head shaking slowly in disbelief.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Logan used a sheet of poster board with a clouds-in-the-sky picture as the background for this adventure's map; in an earlier campaign, I had marked it off with a grid of 1" squares so it could represent a portion of the Elemental Plane of Air. (He'd used it in this fashion before for "The Cloud Gardens of Valkar.") Then, on top of these he placed green islands, red rectangles for houses, and silver rectangles for doors, each of these cut from thick sheets of glittery paper he purchased from a hobby store. The magic rift was represented by a full sheet of color-banded paper (looking remarkably like the bands of Jupiter) taped in an expanding cone around an empty plastic water bottle. For the three fairy sisters, he used three appropriately colored game piece tokens from my collection of "generic" game pieces. Finally, he used two of the completed maps from Paizo's "Extra-Dimensional Spaces" Map Pack for the fairies' houses, a two-tile map for the smaller houses and a four-tile map for the larger ones.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7227880, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 20: MOURNING IN SPARKLETOWN[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 11[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 11[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 16 September 2017 - - - "I'm bushed," admitted Sam Crow, crawling into his hammock strung across two beams in the lower deck of the troll airship. "Me too," agreed Baabby, already swinging slightly in his own hammock from the airship's motion. The movement was like nothing so much as being rocked back and forth in a place of safety and generally made it remarkably easy to fall asleep. Add in tired muscles from a day of fighting demons and the undead in the depths of the underworld, and it got even easier - which likely explained the quiet snores already coming from Sapphrina's hammock. It wasn't long at all before two more sets of snores joined those of the tired fairy, to intermingle into an unintended melody performed by three unconscious practitioners of the snoring arts. One deck above, the animated statue of Xacho's son kept his unsleeping vigil at the helm of the troll airship, expertly piloting the craft back to Skylanders Academy, where the trio would decide their next course of action. It was nice not having to set up a guard shift for the night, leaving that in the unliving hands of their unnamed statue construct. A sudden lurch caused the airship to shudder and founder to starboard for a moment, before regaining its normal heading. The turbulence sent the three hammocks swinging off to the side, but neither of the exhausted heroes awoke from the jostling. Instead, each was caught up in a particular dream of lifelike intensity.... Sam raced through a maze of alleyways, the clicking of claws behind him letting him know the glabrezu was still right behind him, eager to cut him in half. Off to both sides, flitting past the buildings Sam ran between, the archer could see the wispy forms of wraiths keeping pace with him. They were no doubt trying to cut him off, which would force him to deal with them or turn and face the crab-demon behind him. And Sam wasn't sure when he had dropped his Dynabow 3.0 and his other weapons, but they weren't with him now. Glabrezu or wraiths, it didn't matter - he had no real chance of beating either without his weapons.... Baabby, meanwhile, was trapped in a tight-fitting box that didn't allow him the slightest bit of movement. In the manner of dreams, he simultaneously felt that he'd been there for a long, long time and yet was just now noticing that the box was painted in various-colored stripes. Only the purple stripes were fading away to nothingness. It didn't allow him any further movement, but Baabby realized that his minions had somehow weakened the imprisoning box, and that if they could continue to make the other colors go away he'd finally be free. Baabby cracked his knuckles in anticipation of the havoc he'd wreak if he ever got out of this accursed box, causing the eyeballs on the ends of his tentacle-fingers to writhe in eagerness.... Sapphrina stood in her hometown, surrounded by piles and piles of colored dust. Everywhere she looked, the buildings were covered in glitter, which formed little swirls with each stray breeze. But she knew she was the only one of her kind still alive, and that she could search each and every building and find nothing but glitter where her people should be.... Another round of turbulence hit the ship, and the statue pilot wrestled to keep the vehicle aloft. Fortunately, the disturbance slammed Sam into the side of the wooden hull, forcing him awake from his nightmare. He half crawled, half fell from his hammock and was glad to see his quiver of arrows and his Dynabow 3.0 right where he had left them. Grabbing them up - along with his other gear - he shook Baabby awake. "Whaat's going on?" the baabarian asked, looking around groggily in the weak light - for outside, the sun was just starting to rise. "Dunno," Sam admitted. "I'm gonna go upstairs and find out." As the little crow fought his way to the stairwell in the bobbling airship, Baabby crawled out his hammock and shook Sapphrina awake, noticing her eyes were wet with tears. Up above, Sam could see what was causing the problem: a vertical tear in the fabric of reality, rising as high as the eye could see and extending at least as far down. The tear was covered in vertical stripes of various colors, rather like the bands of clouds in a gas giant planet. "What in the world is [I]THAT[/I]?" Sam asked. "It appears to be a rip in the fabric of space," replied the statue. "At our present heading, we will likely fly into it within an hour." "Hey, here's a crazy idea: let's not do that!" cried Sam. Then he decided to ask the one person he thought might have an idea about what was going on and how best to proceed. Preparing a [I]speak with animals[/I] spell and casting it as soon as it was ready, he turned to the snail pacing in slow motion on his left shoulder, with his eyestalks swinging around crazily - easily, the most panic-stricken the crow had ever seen his little snail pal since they'd met - and asked Shelldon what was going on. "It's a rip in the fabric of space!" cried Xacho. "We got that part figured out," replied Sam. "How did it happen, and how do we fix it?" "Long ago, I determined there were eight 'weak spots,' for lack of a better term, in the fabric of space, one aligned with each of the eight elements we recognized at the time. I used the power of the sword to create gates around six of them, but I was never able to find the Tech or Magic leaks before I was turned into my present form. Apparently, someone's found the Magic weak spot and taken advantage of it, to cause this tear!" "What'll it do?" Sam asked, steeling himself for an answer he was almost 100% positive he wasn't going to like - after all, if the answer was "Nothing much, it'll just repair itself on its own," Shelldon wouldn't be in a panic. "Left alone, it will eventually swallow all of the Skylands!" moaned Shelldon. "[I]That's[/I] no good!" agreed Sam. "I [I]live[/I] in the Skylands, and intend to continue doing so for a [I]lot[/I] more years! So how do we fix this?" "The sword can be used to implode it, just like Baabby did with the undead gate. Imploding it will cause the energy spill to go away, taking the inherent weakness with it." "Well then, that's easy!" replied Sam. "Not so!" argued Xacho. "The closer you get to the rip, the more susceptible you are to its unbound energies!" Sam squinted at the rip and thought he could see multicolored arcs of energy flashing out from the tear. "Plus, without the Magic Rune activated in the sword, he won't be able to close the tear!" "So we need to find the Magic Rune first," pondered Sam. "No, just enough energy to form the Magic Rune," corrected Xacho. Sapphrina and Baabby had come up from the lower deck by this time and heard the last bit of the conversation - or at least the crow's half of it, for the [I]speak with animals[/I] spell didn't allow those nearby to be able to understand Xacho's snail-speech, only Sam. "Do you think we can somehow siphon off the energy spilling out of the rift to power the Magic Rune?" Sapphrina asked. "It's technically possible," agreed Xacho. "Shelldon says yes," translated Sam. "Then let's go!" called Baabby, turning to the statue of Xacho's son. "Head for the rift!" "The bottom of the rift," specified Xacho. "That's where you'll be able to close it, if it's even possible." "The bottom of the rift," Sam echoed. Then, looking at the animated pilot, he said offhand to the others, "Did we ever learn Statue Boy's name?" "I don't think so," admitted Baabby. "I should know his name," admitted Sapphrina. "I adventured with Xacho and his son all those years ago. But...I can't remember." Sam opted to go to the source. "Hey, Statue Boy!" he called. "What the name of the person you're carved in the image of?" The animated statue looked off to the side, mentally gazing inward. Finally, he responded, "...Information not found." "Oh, fer criminey's sake," muttered Sam Crow. Since his spell was still active, he turned to Shelldon and asked "Hey, what's your son's name?" "I...do not know," admitted Shelldon, his eyestalks hanging low. "When the Rift-Weavers didn't believe me about the threat caused by the Devourer of Nightmares and banished me from their ranks, and my son tried usurping the group for his own ends, I was so upset I cursed his name to be erased from history." "Wow," Sam said, mentally warning himself to never tick his pet snail off if he wielded [I]that[/I] kind of power. Then, to change the subject, he turned to the animated pilot and said, "It's official, then: your name is [B]Statue Boy[/B]." "Acknowledged," replied Statue Boy. "We will arrive at the bottom of the magic rift within 30 minutes." Baabby spent the time preparing his day's ration of spells, while Sam did likewise for the other two spells he could handle each day; as a sorcerer, Sapphrina didn't have to worry about such things. But as they approached the bottom of the rift - when they could actually see where the rift ended - the fairy gave a gasp of fear. "That's Sparkletown!" she cried. "What about it?" asked Sam, confused - he'd never heard of Sparkletown (not entirely surprising; the Skylands were, after all, practically infinite). "That's my hometown!" she said, the color draining from her face as she recalled the dream she'd been wakened from in her hammock. "Fairyland?" gasped Sam, his eyebrows rising in excitement. He didn't mind playing the hero and rescuing a town from imminent disaster, but if the inhabitants happened to be good-looking fairies - good-looking, [I]grateful[/I] fairies, at that - well, that made it all the better! Fortunately for Sam, the [I]speak with animals[/I] spell had run its course by that point so Shelldon couldn't chide him for his attitude. As Statue Boy brought the airship to the landing dock on a small island among the clump that made up Sparkletown, the group could see the bottom of the rift attached to what was once the largest of the islands, and what was now a mass of much smaller chunks of floating rock, twisting slowly in its wake. "That's where the town hall used to be!" cried Sapphrina, already imagining the death toll this rift could cause - if it hadn't done so already. There were several small, red buildings scattered along the islands, all intact, but no visible inhabitants; presumably the fairies were all hiding in their tiny, tiny houses. Of course, that didn't mean Sparkletown was uninhabited. Far from it: standing on an island adjacent to the one the airship had parked alongside stood four magic elementals, two of them as big as Baabby and another pair twice that tall. They looked just as Sam remembered: vaguely humanoid in build, with bodies trailing off into nothingness below the waist (rather like fairies, the crow thought bemusedly), but with wicked teeth and hands full of lengthy claws built for eviscerating. Sam decided to begin combat like he almost always did: with an explosive arrow. After having it charged up by his Dynabow 3.0, he sent it flying at the nearest of the magic elementals. This was one of the smaller ones, so after it wandered dazedly from the blast of his first arrow, he peppered it with two more normal arrows in quick succession. That was enough to take it out, and Sam congratulated himself for diminishing their opponents by one-quarter, all by himself. (Not quietly, mind you - he was quick to ask the others if they'd seen his awesome display of awesomeness.) With a roar, Baabby catapulted himself over the railing and ran to the Large magic elemental sharing the same island. He got in a swing with the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I] which was enough to wound it but not enough to bring it down. Sapphrina fluttered her fairy wings to bring her into position, then fired off a [I]lightning bolt[/I] spell that caught the other two elementals in its path. Of the two, the larger one seemed to suffer the most from the attack. In response, the smaller of the two elementals started pirouetting around and around like a ballerina. "What's it think it's doing?" Sam asked, forgetting the magic elemental's ability to become a spinning vortex of energy. Worse yet: a spinning vortex of energy that spat out [I]magic missiles[/I] at all within range - which, in this case, meant both Baabby and Sam. "Hey!" cried the little crow. "No fair!" The Large elemental not in combat with Baabby approached the airship, heading towards Sam. It slashed at the archer with a set of jagged claws, causing Sam to squawk aloud in pain. He took a step backwards, primed his first arrow full of energy, and sent it blasting into the offending elemental's face. Fortunately, its blast radius also covered the spinning-vortex magic elemental, and the explosion was enough to slay the last of the smaller enemies. Sam sent a pair of two normal arrows flying at the Large magic elemental, killing it as well. "Hey, guys - did you see that?" he crowed. As a matter of fact, Baabby had not seen Sam's awesome example of further awesomeness - but he did see a trail of magical energy come meandering from Sam's general direction and fly into his greatsword. But he couldn't afford to direct too much of his attention on this event - he had an elemental to slay! Throwing all of his immense strength behind his blows, the powerful baabarian sliced up the magic elemental into ribbons with the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I] - and then the trio of combatants found themselves without any more enemies to fight. But before Sam could query his friends if they'd seen his awesome killing blows, Sapphrina had rushed over to the closest of the tiny fairy houses. It stood maybe four feet tall, went about that far back, and was maybe twice as wide. Given that Sapphrina was about the same size as Sam, the little crow couldn't see how they lived comfortably all cramped up like that. But Sapphrina flew straight to the door, touched it - and disappeared. Baabby followed in her wake, and Sam reluctantly did likewise, all the while worried that this might be a trap of some kind. The crow's fears were fortunately unfounded, for the others hadn't been zapped into oblivion, merely transported to the extradimensional space inside the house. They stood in an elaborate room, with a table overloaded with trays of sumptuous food before them. Sam stepped forward and found himself staring at a platter of roast turkey and gravy; he couldn't resist addressing a fearful "...Mom?" to the turkey, before ruining the effect by snickering aloud. And then his attention was immediately diverted elsewhere, for three lovely fairies approached from the doorways to their bedrooms. Each wore clothes of a primary hue that matched their dragonfly wings and hair: one blue, one green, and one purple. "Hello," said the purple fairy hesitantly. "Ladies," welcomed Sam in his most charming fashion, waggling his eyebrows and bending his beak into a wide grin. "Is it safe to come out?" asked the green fairy. "Not quite yet," replied Baabby. "We took care of the maagic elementals nearby, but there might be more of them aabout." "What happened?" demanded Sapphrina. "A bunch of robed individuals suddenly converged on our village," replied the blue fairy. "They started chanting, performing some sort of ritual." "Spell punks!" snorted Baabby in irritation. "And then suddenly, there was this awful noise, and the rift appeared right above the island. It broke the town hall into smithereens, and then the island it was on as well. And the rip kept growing, going up and up and up..." "We all ran and hid in our houses," interjected the purple fairy. "Especially once the elementals started popping up," added the green fairy. "Whaat haappened to the spell punks?" "They were consumed by the rift," explained the blue fairy. "They seemed rather surprised at that, too - I don't think they expected to be in any danger themselves." "Serves them right," snarled Sapphrina. "So now what?" asked the three fairy sisters in unison. "We heal up, and we go baack outside, and we check out thaat rift," replied Baabby, beginning the words to his first healing spell. Sam spent the time trying to convince the three sisters of the documented healing effects of a fairy's kiss, to no avail. He then changed tactics, explaining that in cases where the fairies were related to each other their kisses could add a luck bonus to the attacks of any brave heroes trying to fight off their enemies, but that didn't go anywhere either. With a sigh of disappointment, Sam accepted Baabby's healing spells and got ready to exit the comfort of the fairy sisters' extradimensional house for the unknown dangers of Sparkletown. Sure enough, new magic elementals had manifested during the heroes' absence. Standing in the pond on the next island over was the biggest magic elemental the trio had ever seen - it stood at least 15 feet high, easily. It was flanked by a pair of 10-foot-tall magic elementals, each flexing its claws as if eager to rip through the flesh of any enemies who might present themselves. Sam gulped. "I-- I better go make sure those three fairies are still okay," he suggested. "Not a chance," answered Sapphrina. "We fight!" commanded Baabby, casting a [I]blindness/deafness[/I] spell on the Huge elemental, hoping to deprive it of its sight. But the spell failed; the elemental shrugged off its intended effects and the sheep-man's lifetime average with that particular spell was: three attempts, zero successes. "Bummer," he swore, which was actually as close to swearing as the polite baabarian ever got. Sapphrina had the baabarian's back, though: casting a [I]hold monster[/I] spell at the hulking elemental, she grinned in satisfaction as it worked! One of the Large elementals moved up right next to its immobilized companion and let fly with a magical blast at the crow archer. Sam didn't even get to finish his squawk of protest before the other Large magic elemental did likewise, sending little wisps of smoke rising up from the former Son of Archery member's scorched feathers. "So that's how you want it, huh?" Sam asked, lining up his shot at the Huge elemental. Then, realizing the Huge guy was no threat for awhile, he sighted just a bit to the left and let fly. The explosive arrow blew up in the face of the first Large magic elemental to blast Sam, and the explosion caught the immobilized elemental in its blast radius as an added bonus. Then Sam let fly with two more arrows targeted at the same Large elemental, causing it to roar in pain - music to the little crow's ears. Baabby tried another spell, this time one he absolutely knew would work as intended. Then, he took a pair giant strides towards the magic elemental Sam had just shot, and the magic beast was surprised to see the baabarian was now every bit as tall as it was! Sapphrina followed up with a [I]haste[/I] spell that covered all three of the heroes. Feeling the energy flowing over him, Sam called out an enthusiastic "[I]Now[/I] we're talkin'!" And then, in the midst of combat, another attack came from an unexpected source: the rift itself! An arc of energy came striking at Baabby, but the blast veered at the last moment and struck the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I] instead. Baabby glanced down and saw the Magic Rune hole in his blade beginning to glow, and he figured a bunch more similar strikes and he'd have his Magic Rune all powered up! The Large magic elemental farther away from the pond started spinning, becoming a tornado-like vortex that spun into place between Baabby and Sam, spitting [I]magic missiles[/I] this way and that. Sapphrina was fortunately out of range for them to strike her, and she decided the boys likely had combat with those capable of fighting back well in hand - she might do best shooting the giant fish-in-a-barrel standing before her. She sent a [I]cone of cold[/I] into the Huge magic elemental, who was still immobilized by her previous spell. Sam sent a quartet of arrows striking at the first Large elemental, and since the first of the arrows had been charged with explosive energy by the Dynabow 3.0. that was too much for the elemental to survive. Slain, it reverted to pure energy, which drifted across the battle space to be absorbed into the Magic Rune of the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I]. Reaching out with an enlarged arm, Baabby sent his greatsword's blade cutting deep into the vortex elemental - once, twice, thrice, and then it too was dead. And then that left only the Huge magic elemental, still frozen in place by the [I]hold monster[/I] spell it had been unable to overcome. With all of the spells, arrows, and sword-thrusts sent its way, it was difficult to say whose blow was the killing one, but when it died it also helped to fuel the Magic Rune. Seeing no other opponents in sight, Baabby started casting healing spells on his friends with one hand while the other hand held the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I] facing the rift, using it as a lightning rod to intercept the occasional arcs of energy fired their way. Sam and Sapphrina, seeing the effectiveness of the greatsword as a defense, made sure to keep it between them and the rift. Once everyone had been healed back to full strength, the trio walked confidently toward the rift. The closer they got, the more blasts of energy it spat at them; eventually, the sword had absorbed enough energy and the Magic Rune manifested in the correct hole in the blade. "Thaat's my cue," said Baabby, sending the blade to swing deep into the rift. While it was buried to the hilt into the rift, the baabarian activated its power to open and close rifts, and the tear in reality began healing up. The top of the rift, which had been so far away it was out of visual range, came speeding down to meet the lower end, and with a final sound of tearing being played backwards, the rift - and the weakness in the Skylands where it had started - was gone without a trace. In its place, however, was one last remnant of elemental energy, manifesting in the form of a 20-foot-tall magic elemental. "Oh come on!" cried Sam getting a look at the thing, which towered twice as tall as the enlarged Baabby, who in turn stood twice as tall (more, actually) as the little crow. "Talk about making me feel small!" But appearing small was a blessing in disguise. As Baabby was the closest foe, the largest, and the one which the towering elder magic elemental could see the best, he bore the brunt of the creature's attacks. Wicked claws slashed out at the baabarian, drawing both blood and a cry of pain. But in Baabby's case, pain was merely a precursor to rage. Fueled by this rage, which the baabarian welcomed as an old friend, the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I] went slashing into the enormous elemental's body. With the [I]haste[/I] spell still in effect, Sam sent four arrows piercing the monster's form, the first of them exploding in a blast of energy. Sapphrina sent another [I]cone of cold[/I] spell blasting into the elder elemental, and it retaliated by spinning itself into a vortex, blasting all three of the heroes with [I]magic missiles[/I]. Staggered by the onslaught of elemental energy, Sapphrina did her best to steady herself on unsteady wings. She knew she couldn't survive another such blast, so she cast another [I]cone of cold[/I] spell at it and then raced to hide behind a nearby house, out of sight and out of range. Sam kept backing up, step by step, hoping to eventually find himself out of range of the [I]magic missile[/I] attacks, while he kept arrow after arrow flying into the elder elemental's body, every fourth one of them suffused with explosive energy. (Fortunately, being 20 feet tall, Sam could target its head so the blast radius wouldn't encompass Baabby, despite him being right there next to the foe.) Baabby kept putting all of his strength into his swings, before noticing he was missing a lot more than he was hitting. Sometimes, he realized, power attacks aren't the way to go - it can be more important to hit a foe and do some damage than try for maximum damage and miss altogether. With this new philosophy in mind, the baabarian found himself hitting more often than not, and while he wasn't doing as much damage as he might have, it was starting to add up, and the elder magic elemental began swaying in place, as if having difficulty remaining upright. Sensing the elemental was very nearly dead, Baabby took a chance and gave a final swing of the [I]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/I] with the full power of his considerable strength behind it. The power attack gamble paid off, for the elder magic elemental was finished off by that blow, its body dissipating as it fell to the ground. The magical greatsword, its Magic Rune already fully powered, disdained absorbing this magical energy. A quick check through the other houses in the area found a bunch of them abandoned, their owners nowhere to be found - or, more likely, slain by the rift energy, converted to glitter (as Skylanders fairies do when they die), and scattered to the four winds by the spinning vortexes of the magic elementals. (Sapphrina shivered as she remembered her dream from that morning.) Some houses had exploring magic elementals in them, which were easily slain. The heroes did find one other survivor, an old male fairy who had been late to a meeting at the town hall - a tardiness which inadvertently saved his life. He allowed the heroes to take anything that would help them fight off the Devourer of Nightmares and his evil followers. Sam ended up taking a vial of [I]shock arrows[/I] and a funny crystal that spun around his head when he released it. (Sapphrina said it was a [I]dusty rose ioun stone[/I], whatever [I]that[/I] was!) Baabby ended up with a [I]ring of force shield[/I], sure to come in handy since his two-handed greatsword prevented him from using a shield of any kind. Sapphrina took a vial of [I]stone salve[/I]. And, while nobody else was looking, Sam grabbed up a old issue of [I]Feyboy Magazine[/I], whose centerfold was none other than a before-she-joined-the-ranks-of-evil Garnett. Sam had to admit, she looked much better without the extra two sets of arms - or the clothes she'd been wearing when he'd killed her! "I feel kind of guilty taking this stuff," admitted Sapphrina, putting the [I]stone salve[/I] in her leather hip pouch. "The village elder said we could haave it," Baabby reminded. "And we don't miiiiind at aaaaall if you taaaaake it," said a voice from behind the trio. Spinning around, the heroes found themselves confronted by a large gaggle of fairies, of a multitude of colors. But the colors were all washed out - and, upon closer examination, each of the fairies was translucent. "Ghosts!" cried Sam. One of the fairy ghosts flew closer, his hand raised in supplication. "We meeeeean you no haaaaarm," he said. "In fact, quiiiiite the opposite. Despite our deaths from the haaaaands of the spell punks' ritual, we wish to see some gooooood come from all of this. And so, we have decided to graaaaant Sapphrina a boooooon." The ghost-fairies all joined hands and started humming, becoming even more translucent as they did so, as if they were traveling farther away although they remained in one spot. Then there was a flash of light, after which the ghosts were all gone. "Whaat haappened?" asked Baabby. "Is everyone okay?" "I'm fine," replied Sam. And, looking down at his left shoulder, he added, "And Shelldon's okay." "I'm okay," replied Sapphrina, as her eyes flashed momentarily all white before returning to normal. She blinked a few times, then added, "In fact, I'm better than okay! The ghosts - they've opened up a channel in my mind. They've given me access to healing spells! Baabby, I can cast [I]cure minor wounds[/I], [I]cure serious wounds[/I], and everything in between! I'll be able to help you keep us all in the fight!" "And that means you can devote more of your spells to attacks," pointed out Sam. "And that means maybe - just maybe - someday you'll actually be able to blind someone with that silly spell of yours!" "One day, I'll maanage to aactually do thaat," Baabby promised. "Maybe you should try deafening somebody instead," suggested Sam. "You might have better luck with that." "You think so?" asked the baabarian. "Huh?" asked Sam, feigning sudden deafness. "Did you say something?" Sapphrina, as was her habit, just shook her head at the little crow's joke. Shelldon followed suit, having his independent eyestalks stare at each other as if in astonishment, then waggle back and forth as if each one was a head shaking slowly in disbelief. - - - Logan used a sheet of poster board with a clouds-in-the-sky picture as the background for this adventure's map; in an earlier campaign, I had marked it off with a grid of 1" squares so it could represent a portion of the Elemental Plane of Air. (He'd used it in this fashion before for "The Cloud Gardens of Valkar.") Then, on top of these he placed green islands, red rectangles for houses, and silver rectangles for doors, each of these cut from thick sheets of glittery paper he purchased from a hobby store. The magic rift was represented by a full sheet of color-banded paper (looking remarkably like the bands of Jupiter) taped in an expanding cone around an empty plastic water bottle. For the three fairy sisters, he used three appropriately colored game piece tokens from my collection of "generic" game pieces. Finally, he used two of the completed maps from Paizo's "Extra-Dimensional Spaces" Map Pack for the fairies' houses, a two-tile map for the smaller houses and a four-tile map for the larger ones. [/QUOTE]
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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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