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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7292433" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 24: RETURN TO VALKAR</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 13</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 13</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 13</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 3 December 2017</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The trio of heroes strode briskly through the halls of Skylanders Academy. Upon their return from the banks of Everfrost Lake, they had been instructed to meet Master Eon in the Arcane Library of the Academy building. Sapphrina flew slightly ahead of the other two, for the specific purpose of shooing away Hugo if they saw him. Otherwise, he'd likely flee in terror at the sight of the burly sheep-man wielding one of the most powerful weapons in all of Skylands - surely the little Mabu's greatest nightmare!</p><p></p><p>The fairy opened the doors to the library and saw Master Eon standing near one of the portals he used to send his operatives where they needed to be. Standing before him was Stealth Elf, garbed in her ninja gear and likely reporting in from her most recent mission. But that wasn't all: standing off to the side was a small, floating mage in brown robes, holding something heavy in his hand-claws. With a gasp of disbelief, the heroes recognized the sight of an earth spell punk, one of the lackeys working for the Devourer of Nightmares!</p><p></p><p>Sam was the first to react (or overreact, as the case might be). Grabbing an arrow from the quiver on his back, he dropped it into place on his Dynabow 3.0, pulled back the bowstring, and rushed forward as the magic bow charged up the arrow with explosive energy. "Get back, Master Eon!" he called out as he ran. "It's a spell punk!"</p><p></p><p>Master Eon and Stealth Elf looked over at the floating spell punk with mild surprise at the commotion, and the elderly portal master opened his mouth to start to speak, but the earth spell punk beat him to it. "Don't shoot!" he cried. "I surrender!"</p><p></p><p>"Staand down," said Baabby, putting his hand on the little crow's shoulder. "Let's see whaat aall of this is aabout."</p><p></p><p>"Um, that's the thing..." began Sam, the bowstring still pulled taught. "I kind of can't. Y'see, the arrow's already charged up, and there's no way to 'un-charge' it once it's ready to go...." Baabby noted with alarm that the archer's arm was starting to shudder from the strain of pulling the bowstring all the way back without actually releasing it.</p><p></p><p>"Caan't you just slowly put the bowstring baack to its normal position without firing the aarrow?" asked Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"Sure!" agreed Sam, not moving his arm in the slightest. "And then it will blow up in my face!"</p><p></p><p>Baabby started looking frantically around the library. "Is there a window aaround here?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>"Here," replied Master Eon, activating the portal with a wave of his staff. "Send your arrow here, Sam." Sam did so before the Portal Master had even finished his second sentence, breathing out a whoosh of air in relief as he did so. Then he switched the Dynabow 3.0 to his right hand, so he could rub his tired right arm with his left hand. Then he shook his head like a dog, getting all of the sweat off of his feathers. "That was close!" he said, then remembered the whole reason for his present discomfort and glared at the earth spell punk. "What's your story?" he demanded.</p><p></p><p>"He-- he's crazy!" the spell punk stammered. "I'm all for a bit of chaos and confusion here and there, but he actually wants to destroy all of Skylands! And he doesn't care for us, not really! He'll destroy all of us with everyone else!"</p><p></p><p>"I see you've worked out the disadvantages of working for the Devourer of Nightmares," remarked Sapphrina.</p><p></p><p>"He's advancing his plans!" reported the spell punk. "All of a sudden, he wants everything done at once! I think he's afraid you might actually be a threat to him! He's already taken over the Geode Caverns, to prevent you from regaining the Earth Rune! And he's sending forces to the Cloud Gardens of Valkar to shut off the Air Rune, so you can't get that one either!"</p><p></p><p>"Mystrala is in danger!" observed Sapphrina, referring to the polite cloud giant who had graciously allowed Baabby to gain the Air Rune from her castle after testing the group on their fighting prowess.</p><p></p><p>"You're not paying attention, lady!" cried the frazzled spell punk. "We're ALL in danger! But here: I brought you this, from the Geode Caverns!" He held up what he'd been holding - a small slab of stone, upon which was inscribed the Earth Rune. "You must hurry!" cried the spell punk. "Stop him before he destroys--well, <em>everything!</em>"</p><p></p><p>Baabby and Sapphrina stepped up to the spell punk, the baabarian pulling the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> from his broad back as he did so. With the fairy's assistance, the Earth Rune was transferred to the greatsword's blade, where it pulsed with energy along with the others.</p><p></p><p>"That was the easiest rune EVER!" enthused Sam. "Why can't they all be so easy?"</p><p></p><p>"It would seem as if time is of the essence," observed Master Eon. "Sapphrina, if you would assist me, we should recalibrate the portal to the Cloud Gardens of Valkar."</p><p></p><p>"I'll do you one better," replied the fairy. "I'll bet we can open a portal directly into Mystrala's castle itself!"</p><p></p><p>"And while we're gone," said Sam to the floating enemy mage, "I want you to write 'I WILL BE A GOOD SPELL PUNK FROM NOW ON' 100 times. We're in a library; I'm sure you can scrounge up some paper and a pen."</p><p></p><p>The fairy's boast turned out not to have just been pure optimism. Stepping through the portal she helped Master Eon open, the three heroes found themselves standing upon the massive wooden dining table in the middle of Castle Valkar. And standing there before them was Mystrala herself - all 15 feet of her, although she looked very much the worse for wear than the last time they'd seen her.</p><p></p><p>"Thank goodness you're here!" she cried upon seeing them. "The castle is under attack!"</p><p></p><p>As if to underscore her statement, there was a loud <em>THROOM!</em> at the door. Looking over in that direction, the heroes could see it was barred with a wooden plank the size of a tree trunk - but also that it was starting to crack under the pounding at the heavy wooden door.</p><p></p><p>"Hey, didn't you have a couple of them big ol' wolves...?" asked Sam, frantically looking around, hoping to increase the size of their modest little army.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," answered Mystrala. "But the enemies absorbed the essences of both Thundergrowl and Rumblegut; they are no more."</p><p></p><p>"So we're..." began Sam.</p><p></p><p>"All that's left, yes," replied Mystrala, swooning a bit and grabbing onto the edge of a giant-sized chair for support.</p><p></p><p>"You're hurt!" cried Sapphrina, just now noticing at the giantess's wounds from her fight outside the castle.</p><p></p><p>"I will live," remarked the giant. "But I must rest before fighting again, for I have used almost all of my power. I destroyed much of the enemy forces, but there is still one iron golem left, as well as two creepy guys with eyeballs on their fingers."</p><p></p><p>"And tentacles on their faces?" prompted Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Yes," replied Mystrala, repressing a shudder. "Those guys creep me out."</p><p></p><p>"They're Donnie-Boy's kids," said Sam. "We've fought them before. Don't you worry, we'll take care of whatever forces think they can--" That was all the little archer got out before the doors exploded inwards, falling to pieces on the floor before the giant's table. Standing in the doorway was an iron juggernaut, taller even than the cloud giant and wielding a massive iron sword in one hand. "Targets detected," it intoned.</p><p></p><p>"Same here!" cried Baabby, racing across the table and leaping into the air at the iron golem. He got in a good hit, although the golem managed to strike the baabarian in mid-flight as he did so. But the golem got the worst of that deal, for while his sword was bigger and no doubt dealt more basic damage, Baabby's <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> had eight runes powering it, allowing it to overcome the creature's damage reduction and score critical hits that normally wouldn't be possible against a mechanical being. Although its face was sculpted of iron, it still managed to project an expression of surprise at how much damage the (relatively) little sheep-man had dealt him with one blow of his greatsword.</p><p></p><p>It focused its next attack on the baabarian, slamming Baabby in the side with its massive iron sword, causing a grunt of pain to escape from the sheep-man's lips. Then, from somewhere behind the automaton, the first of the mind flayers sent off a wave of fiery energy, some of which was absorbed by the iron golem and the rest of which engulfed the three heroes before it. Sam saw the iron golem's brand new scar - just put there by the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> - start to heal up immediately.</p><p></p><p>With that knowledge, Sam opted not to charge up one of his arrows with explosive energy, knowing that the fire-based half would merely cancel out the tech-based half of the explosive damage. Instead, he sent a flurry of four normal arrows winging their way at the iron juggernaut. Two missed, and the other two plinked off its ironclad body without even leaving a scratch. "No fair!" squawked Sam.</p><p></p><p>"Go, go, we've got this!" encouraged Sapphrina, and Mystrala reluctantly disengaged, slinking off through a doorway to her bedroom. "I'll be in there in a moment!" promised Sam, once again overestimating his desirability to the opposite sex - and not even taking into consideration the extreme size disparity between the two.</p><p></p><p>Another blast from behind the juggernaut's feet revealed the presence of the second mind flayer. The mental energy caused both Sam and Sapphrina to become shaken and unsure of their ability to fight back against this overwhelming force; Baabby, through sheer willpower rather than any special training, shrugged the effect off without effort.</p><p></p><p>But now he was already in range of his primary target. The <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> swung out - once, twice, and again! - and each hit scored a deep groove into the iron juggernaut's armor, peeling away the layers of defense and exposing the inner workings held within. Gears flew from the creature's torso and various fluids began leaking from the rents in its armor, as it lost all basic functioning and fell forwards onto the floor with a massive crash. Baabby, through the power of his magic greatsword and the strength of his own muscles, had destroyed an iron juggernaut in less time than it takes to tell of it.</p><p></p><p>But that didn't mean the fight was over - far from it! The second mind flayer stepped forward, directing a fiery bolt of energy at the heroes with the power of his mind. The psion caught both Baabby and Sapphrina in the blast; Sam allowed instinct to take over and dodged away from the blast, preventing himself from taking any damage at all. At the same time, he sent arrows flying at the other mind flayer - but this one had been trained as a monk, and he casually slapped the first arrow away.</p><p></p><p>However, as the second one got past his defenses and struck him in the shoulder, the first one did something he hadn't anticipated: explode in his four-tentacled face! He, like Sam just earlier, managed to avoid the damage, but the explosion caught up his mind flayer brother in its area of effect, so Sam wasn't entirely displeased with the results. (The best indicator of that was he didn't squawk "No fair!" in outrage.)</p><p></p><p>Sapphrina flew up a few feet to get a good view of both targets, then sent a <em>chain lightning</em> spell directly at the mind flayer psion, with an arc of lightning striking the mind flayer monk immediately afterward. Both cried out mentally in the heads of their enemies, causing the heroes to grin in satisfaction.</p><p></p><p>Then the monk suddenly leaped forward, striking out at Baabby with the side of its hand - which, Baabby could see up close, actually <em>did</em> have eyeballs on the tip of each finger - and the opposite elbow. Baabby reeled at this unaccustomed attack, for the baabarian was used to fighting enemies who wielded weapons, not their own bare limbs. Seeing how wounded Baabby was, Sapphrina flew close and cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell on him to keep him in the fight that much longer - because she had no doubts about which of the three heroes was the <em>real</em> powerhouse of the team.</p><p></p><p>Baabby returned the attacks of the mind flayer monk, but he used his <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>. He hit the foe three times in as many seconds, scoring deep gashes in its rubbery flesh, but - perhaps due to the determination living organisms have that unliving mechanoids do not - despite having taken as much damage as the iron juggernaut had, the monk refused to fall over.</p><p></p><p>The tentacled psion sent a strictly mental attack at Sam's mind, but it glanced off without leaving much of a mark. "Ha!" scoffed Sam to his foe. "That hardly even hurt!"</p><p></p><p><Not surprisingly, since you barely have a mind to attack!> thought the psion angrily to the archer.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, that's--Hey!" cried Sam once he caught the implicit insult. But the psion had no further telepathic retort, for Sapphrina had cast another <em>chain lightning</em> spell at him, having a second arc go seeking the mind flayer monk. Once again, the nimble monk did a mid-air flip and avoided all damage whatsoever.</p><p></p><p>"I hate it when he does that!" grumbled the fairy.</p><p></p><p>But she hated what he did next even more. Leaping up to her level (possibly with a <em>levitation</em> assist - it was hard to tell, with all of his jumping around!), he struck out with his facial tentacles. Sapphrina was glad these particular tentacles didn't have eyeballs at their tips, but then she realized that was because these were the ones mind flayers used to pry out a victim's brains. "Ew! Get off!" she cried out in disgust.</p><p></p><p>He did - but only because Baabby practically chopped him in half with his greatsword as he reached the top of his arc and began his descent. His descent turned out to go much faster than he had no doubt anticipated - and he landed on the floor in one more distinct piece than he probably would have desired.</p><p></p><p>That left only the psion, who caught both Baabby and Sapphrina in a bolt of cold energy fired directly from his mind. They both cried out in pain and began shivering, but the fairy overcame her susceptibility to energy long enough to cast a <em>mass cure moderate wounds</em> on the pair of them, partially healing up the damage they'd just sustained.</p><p></p><p>Sam sent another flurry of arrows at the psion, and this one was unable to bat them away as the monk had done. All four hit, one of them exploding upon impact. The psion staggered back from the damage - and then Baabby finished him off with a final swing of his greatsword, after charging at him from across the doorway.</p><p></p><p>"Is everybody okay?' asked Sapphrina.</p><p></p><p>"I'll be fine," reassured Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"I'm perfectly fine," remarked Sam. "In fact, I'll just go check on Mystrala." And he ambled on over to the giantess's bedroom, running a hand through the sleek, black feathers on his head as he did so.</p><p></p><p>"Do you seriously think she's the <em>slightest</em> bit interested in you?" asked Saphrina incredulously.</p><p></p><p>"Sure," Sam replied. "Why wouldn't she be? After all..." and here he favored the fairy with a sly wink, "...I'm part lovebird on my mother's side."</p><p></p><p>Once he got there, though, the reality of the situation suddenly struck him: the top of his head barely reached over her knees! Alas, it would never work between them; the size differential was too great. "Oh well," sighed Sam. "Her loss."</p><p></p><p>"You were successful?" asked Mystrala.</p><p></p><p>"You bet we were!" replied Sam. "And now, if you don't mind, my friend would like to stick it in."</p><p></p><p>"What?" gasped Mystrala.</p><p></p><p>"Stick it in," repeated Sam. "His sword, into your air portal! You know, to recover the Air Rune for his blade!"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, yes, of course," stammered the cloud giantess. "I believe you know the way." But she led the heroes over to the air portal hidden in her storage area. With Sapphrina's help, the Air Rune once again blazed brightly on the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>.</p><p></p><p>"Aall thaat's left now is the Fire Rune," observed Baabby. "Aand then we'll be able to take on the Devourer of Nightmares directly, aand put a stop to him once aand for aall!"</p><p></p><p>"Old Donnie-Boy won't know what hit him," agreed Sam. "But c'mon--let's get back to Skylanders Academy. This fight didn't last nearly as long as I thought it would..."</p><p></p><p>"Thanks to Baabby killing off all of the opposition," interjected Sapphrina, smiling in admiration at her hard-fighting friend.</p><p></p><p>"...so I'll bet we can get back before that spell punk finishes writing up his hundred lines of homework!" finished Sam.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Logan's warned me that he's bringing this campaign to a high-speed close. In fact, we'll be getting the Fire Rune in our next adventure, and then fighting off Don in the one after that, which will conclude the campaign. After all, the whole point of even starting this campaign was to introduce 10-year-old Harry to the fun to be had with D&D, and that goal has already been admirably achieved. He now runs a half-orc sorcerer in our Kordovian campaign and an elven monk in the Durnhill Conscripts campaign, and Logan has enough prep work to do each week keeping our Wednesday nights filled with short combat scenarios.</p><p></p><p>So the first thing that happened was XP is being tossed out the window. We leveled up to 13th level immediately before running this adventure, and we'll be at 14th for the next adventure and have our final fight with Don at 15th level, finishing up the campaign.</p><p></p><p>Logan picked up Paizo's "Arcane Library" Flip-Map for the Skylanders Academy library at the start of the adventure, and we used the same "Giant Lairs" Flip-Mat that we had used previously for the interior of Castle Valkar.</p><p></p><p>We also had a bit of a panic immediately before the adventure started: Logan couldn't find the initiative card he knew I had made for the female cloud giant he had painted with my friend Dan at one of their Wednesday evening painting sessions. We knew I had made the card previously, because we had used it in the "Cloud Gardens of Valkar" adventure. But it wasn't in my index card holders where I keep all of the initiative cards I've made over the years: not filed under "Cloud Giant" or "Frost Giant" or "Giant" or "Female Giant." I helped him look, and then in a flash of sudden insight I knew exactly where it was: in the pile of initiative cards I had already gathered together for our next Kordovian campaign adventure, which - spoiler! - includes a battle with a female cloud giant.</p><p></p><p>I think we've just discovered another drawback to having two active DMs living in the same household and sharing gaming materials.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7292433, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 24: RETURN TO VALKAR[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 13 Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 13[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 13[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 3 December 2017 - - - The trio of heroes strode briskly through the halls of Skylanders Academy. Upon their return from the banks of Everfrost Lake, they had been instructed to meet Master Eon in the Arcane Library of the Academy building. Sapphrina flew slightly ahead of the other two, for the specific purpose of shooing away Hugo if they saw him. Otherwise, he'd likely flee in terror at the sight of the burly sheep-man wielding one of the most powerful weapons in all of Skylands - surely the little Mabu's greatest nightmare! The fairy opened the doors to the library and saw Master Eon standing near one of the portals he used to send his operatives where they needed to be. Standing before him was Stealth Elf, garbed in her ninja gear and likely reporting in from her most recent mission. But that wasn't all: standing off to the side was a small, floating mage in brown robes, holding something heavy in his hand-claws. With a gasp of disbelief, the heroes recognized the sight of an earth spell punk, one of the lackeys working for the Devourer of Nightmares! Sam was the first to react (or overreact, as the case might be). Grabbing an arrow from the quiver on his back, he dropped it into place on his Dynabow 3.0, pulled back the bowstring, and rushed forward as the magic bow charged up the arrow with explosive energy. "Get back, Master Eon!" he called out as he ran. "It's a spell punk!" Master Eon and Stealth Elf looked over at the floating spell punk with mild surprise at the commotion, and the elderly portal master opened his mouth to start to speak, but the earth spell punk beat him to it. "Don't shoot!" he cried. "I surrender!" "Staand down," said Baabby, putting his hand on the little crow's shoulder. "Let's see whaat aall of this is aabout." "Um, that's the thing..." began Sam, the bowstring still pulled taught. "I kind of can't. Y'see, the arrow's already charged up, and there's no way to 'un-charge' it once it's ready to go...." Baabby noted with alarm that the archer's arm was starting to shudder from the strain of pulling the bowstring all the way back without actually releasing it. "Caan't you just slowly put the bowstring baack to its normal position without firing the aarrow?" asked Baabby. "Sure!" agreed Sam, not moving his arm in the slightest. "And then it will blow up in my face!" Baabby started looking frantically around the library. "Is there a window aaround here?" he asked. "Here," replied Master Eon, activating the portal with a wave of his staff. "Send your arrow here, Sam." Sam did so before the Portal Master had even finished his second sentence, breathing out a whoosh of air in relief as he did so. Then he switched the Dynabow 3.0 to his right hand, so he could rub his tired right arm with his left hand. Then he shook his head like a dog, getting all of the sweat off of his feathers. "That was close!" he said, then remembered the whole reason for his present discomfort and glared at the earth spell punk. "What's your story?" he demanded. "He-- he's crazy!" the spell punk stammered. "I'm all for a bit of chaos and confusion here and there, but he actually wants to destroy all of Skylands! And he doesn't care for us, not really! He'll destroy all of us with everyone else!" "I see you've worked out the disadvantages of working for the Devourer of Nightmares," remarked Sapphrina. "He's advancing his plans!" reported the spell punk. "All of a sudden, he wants everything done at once! I think he's afraid you might actually be a threat to him! He's already taken over the Geode Caverns, to prevent you from regaining the Earth Rune! And he's sending forces to the Cloud Gardens of Valkar to shut off the Air Rune, so you can't get that one either!" "Mystrala is in danger!" observed Sapphrina, referring to the polite cloud giant who had graciously allowed Baabby to gain the Air Rune from her castle after testing the group on their fighting prowess. "You're not paying attention, lady!" cried the frazzled spell punk. "We're ALL in danger! But here: I brought you this, from the Geode Caverns!" He held up what he'd been holding - a small slab of stone, upon which was inscribed the Earth Rune. "You must hurry!" cried the spell punk. "Stop him before he destroys--well, [i]everything![/i]" Baabby and Sapphrina stepped up to the spell punk, the baabarian pulling the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] from his broad back as he did so. With the fairy's assistance, the Earth Rune was transferred to the greatsword's blade, where it pulsed with energy along with the others. "That was the easiest rune EVER!" enthused Sam. "Why can't they all be so easy?" "It would seem as if time is of the essence," observed Master Eon. "Sapphrina, if you would assist me, we should recalibrate the portal to the Cloud Gardens of Valkar." "I'll do you one better," replied the fairy. "I'll bet we can open a portal directly into Mystrala's castle itself!" "And while we're gone," said Sam to the floating enemy mage, "I want you to write 'I WILL BE A GOOD SPELL PUNK FROM NOW ON' 100 times. We're in a library; I'm sure you can scrounge up some paper and a pen." The fairy's boast turned out not to have just been pure optimism. Stepping through the portal she helped Master Eon open, the three heroes found themselves standing upon the massive wooden dining table in the middle of Castle Valkar. And standing there before them was Mystrala herself - all 15 feet of her, although she looked very much the worse for wear than the last time they'd seen her. "Thank goodness you're here!" she cried upon seeing them. "The castle is under attack!" As if to underscore her statement, there was a loud [i]THROOM![/i] at the door. Looking over in that direction, the heroes could see it was barred with a wooden plank the size of a tree trunk - but also that it was starting to crack under the pounding at the heavy wooden door. "Hey, didn't you have a couple of them big ol' wolves...?" asked Sam, frantically looking around, hoping to increase the size of their modest little army. "Yes," answered Mystrala. "But the enemies absorbed the essences of both Thundergrowl and Rumblegut; they are no more." "So we're..." began Sam. "All that's left, yes," replied Mystrala, swooning a bit and grabbing onto the edge of a giant-sized chair for support. "You're hurt!" cried Sapphrina, just now noticing at the giantess's wounds from her fight outside the castle. "I will live," remarked the giant. "But I must rest before fighting again, for I have used almost all of my power. I destroyed much of the enemy forces, but there is still one iron golem left, as well as two creepy guys with eyeballs on their fingers." "And tentacles on their faces?" prompted Sam. "Yes," replied Mystrala, repressing a shudder. "Those guys creep me out." "They're Donnie-Boy's kids," said Sam. "We've fought them before. Don't you worry, we'll take care of whatever forces think they can--" That was all the little archer got out before the doors exploded inwards, falling to pieces on the floor before the giant's table. Standing in the doorway was an iron juggernaut, taller even than the cloud giant and wielding a massive iron sword in one hand. "Targets detected," it intoned. "Same here!" cried Baabby, racing across the table and leaping into the air at the iron golem. He got in a good hit, although the golem managed to strike the baabarian in mid-flight as he did so. But the golem got the worst of that deal, for while his sword was bigger and no doubt dealt more basic damage, Baabby's [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] had eight runes powering it, allowing it to overcome the creature's damage reduction and score critical hits that normally wouldn't be possible against a mechanical being. Although its face was sculpted of iron, it still managed to project an expression of surprise at how much damage the (relatively) little sheep-man had dealt him with one blow of his greatsword. It focused its next attack on the baabarian, slamming Baabby in the side with its massive iron sword, causing a grunt of pain to escape from the sheep-man's lips. Then, from somewhere behind the automaton, the first of the mind flayers sent off a wave of fiery energy, some of which was absorbed by the iron golem and the rest of which engulfed the three heroes before it. Sam saw the iron golem's brand new scar - just put there by the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] - start to heal up immediately. With that knowledge, Sam opted not to charge up one of his arrows with explosive energy, knowing that the fire-based half would merely cancel out the tech-based half of the explosive damage. Instead, he sent a flurry of four normal arrows winging their way at the iron juggernaut. Two missed, and the other two plinked off its ironclad body without even leaving a scratch. "No fair!" squawked Sam. "Go, go, we've got this!" encouraged Sapphrina, and Mystrala reluctantly disengaged, slinking off through a doorway to her bedroom. "I'll be in there in a moment!" promised Sam, once again overestimating his desirability to the opposite sex - and not even taking into consideration the extreme size disparity between the two. Another blast from behind the juggernaut's feet revealed the presence of the second mind flayer. The mental energy caused both Sam and Sapphrina to become shaken and unsure of their ability to fight back against this overwhelming force; Baabby, through sheer willpower rather than any special training, shrugged the effect off without effort. But now he was already in range of his primary target. The [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] swung out - once, twice, and again! - and each hit scored a deep groove into the iron juggernaut's armor, peeling away the layers of defense and exposing the inner workings held within. Gears flew from the creature's torso and various fluids began leaking from the rents in its armor, as it lost all basic functioning and fell forwards onto the floor with a massive crash. Baabby, through the power of his magic greatsword and the strength of his own muscles, had destroyed an iron juggernaut in less time than it takes to tell of it. But that didn't mean the fight was over - far from it! The second mind flayer stepped forward, directing a fiery bolt of energy at the heroes with the power of his mind. The psion caught both Baabby and Sapphrina in the blast; Sam allowed instinct to take over and dodged away from the blast, preventing himself from taking any damage at all. At the same time, he sent arrows flying at the other mind flayer - but this one had been trained as a monk, and he casually slapped the first arrow away. However, as the second one got past his defenses and struck him in the shoulder, the first one did something he hadn't anticipated: explode in his four-tentacled face! He, like Sam just earlier, managed to avoid the damage, but the explosion caught up his mind flayer brother in its area of effect, so Sam wasn't entirely displeased with the results. (The best indicator of that was he didn't squawk "No fair!" in outrage.) Sapphrina flew up a few feet to get a good view of both targets, then sent a [i]chain lightning[/i] spell directly at the mind flayer psion, with an arc of lightning striking the mind flayer monk immediately afterward. Both cried out mentally in the heads of their enemies, causing the heroes to grin in satisfaction. Then the monk suddenly leaped forward, striking out at Baabby with the side of its hand - which, Baabby could see up close, actually [i]did[/i] have eyeballs on the tip of each finger - and the opposite elbow. Baabby reeled at this unaccustomed attack, for the baabarian was used to fighting enemies who wielded weapons, not their own bare limbs. Seeing how wounded Baabby was, Sapphrina flew close and cast a [i]stoneskin[/i] spell on him to keep him in the fight that much longer - because she had no doubts about which of the three heroes was the [i]real[/i] powerhouse of the team. Baabby returned the attacks of the mind flayer monk, but he used his [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i]. He hit the foe three times in as many seconds, scoring deep gashes in its rubbery flesh, but - perhaps due to the determination living organisms have that unliving mechanoids do not - despite having taken as much damage as the iron juggernaut had, the monk refused to fall over. The tentacled psion sent a strictly mental attack at Sam's mind, but it glanced off without leaving much of a mark. "Ha!" scoffed Sam to his foe. "That hardly even hurt!" <Not surprisingly, since you barely have a mind to attack!> thought the psion angrily to the archer. "Yeah, that's--Hey!" cried Sam once he caught the implicit insult. But the psion had no further telepathic retort, for Sapphrina had cast another [i]chain lightning[/i] spell at him, having a second arc go seeking the mind flayer monk. Once again, the nimble monk did a mid-air flip and avoided all damage whatsoever. "I hate it when he does that!" grumbled the fairy. But she hated what he did next even more. Leaping up to her level (possibly with a [i]levitation[/i] assist - it was hard to tell, with all of his jumping around!), he struck out with his facial tentacles. Sapphrina was glad these particular tentacles didn't have eyeballs at their tips, but then she realized that was because these were the ones mind flayers used to pry out a victim's brains. "Ew! Get off!" she cried out in disgust. He did - but only because Baabby practically chopped him in half with his greatsword as he reached the top of his arc and began his descent. His descent turned out to go much faster than he had no doubt anticipated - and he landed on the floor in one more distinct piece than he probably would have desired. That left only the psion, who caught both Baabby and Sapphrina in a bolt of cold energy fired directly from his mind. They both cried out in pain and began shivering, but the fairy overcame her susceptibility to energy long enough to cast a [i]mass cure moderate wounds[/i] on the pair of them, partially healing up the damage they'd just sustained. Sam sent another flurry of arrows at the psion, and this one was unable to bat them away as the monk had done. All four hit, one of them exploding upon impact. The psion staggered back from the damage - and then Baabby finished him off with a final swing of his greatsword, after charging at him from across the doorway. "Is everybody okay?' asked Sapphrina. "I'll be fine," reassured Baabby. "I'm perfectly fine," remarked Sam. "In fact, I'll just go check on Mystrala." And he ambled on over to the giantess's bedroom, running a hand through the sleek, black feathers on his head as he did so. "Do you seriously think she's the [i]slightest[/i] bit interested in you?" asked Saphrina incredulously. "Sure," Sam replied. "Why wouldn't she be? After all..." and here he favored the fairy with a sly wink, "...I'm part lovebird on my mother's side." Once he got there, though, the reality of the situation suddenly struck him: the top of his head barely reached over her knees! Alas, it would never work between them; the size differential was too great. "Oh well," sighed Sam. "Her loss." "You were successful?" asked Mystrala. "You bet we were!" replied Sam. "And now, if you don't mind, my friend would like to stick it in." "What?" gasped Mystrala. "Stick it in," repeated Sam. "His sword, into your air portal! You know, to recover the Air Rune for his blade!" "Yes, yes, of course," stammered the cloud giantess. "I believe you know the way." But she led the heroes over to the air portal hidden in her storage area. With Sapphrina's help, the Air Rune once again blazed brightly on the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i]. "Aall thaat's left now is the Fire Rune," observed Baabby. "Aand then we'll be able to take on the Devourer of Nightmares directly, aand put a stop to him once aand for aall!" "Old Donnie-Boy won't know what hit him," agreed Sam. "But c'mon--let's get back to Skylanders Academy. This fight didn't last nearly as long as I thought it would..." "Thanks to Baabby killing off all of the opposition," interjected Sapphrina, smiling in admiration at her hard-fighting friend. "...so I'll bet we can get back before that spell punk finishes writing up his hundred lines of homework!" finished Sam. - - - Logan's warned me that he's bringing this campaign to a high-speed close. In fact, we'll be getting the Fire Rune in our next adventure, and then fighting off Don in the one after that, which will conclude the campaign. After all, the whole point of even starting this campaign was to introduce 10-year-old Harry to the fun to be had with D&D, and that goal has already been admirably achieved. He now runs a half-orc sorcerer in our Kordovian campaign and an elven monk in the Durnhill Conscripts campaign, and Logan has enough prep work to do each week keeping our Wednesday nights filled with short combat scenarios. So the first thing that happened was XP is being tossed out the window. We leveled up to 13th level immediately before running this adventure, and we'll be at 14th for the next adventure and have our final fight with Don at 15th level, finishing up the campaign. Logan picked up Paizo's "Arcane Library" Flip-Map for the Skylanders Academy library at the start of the adventure, and we used the same "Giant Lairs" Flip-Mat that we had used previously for the interior of Castle Valkar. We also had a bit of a panic immediately before the adventure started: Logan couldn't find the initiative card he knew I had made for the female cloud giant he had painted with my friend Dan at one of their Wednesday evening painting sessions. We knew I had made the card previously, because we had used it in the "Cloud Gardens of Valkar" adventure. But it wasn't in my index card holders where I keep all of the initiative cards I've made over the years: not filed under "Cloud Giant" or "Frost Giant" or "Giant" or "Female Giant." I helped him look, and then in a flash of sudden insight I knew exactly where it was: in the pile of initiative cards I had already gathered together for our next Kordovian campaign adventure, which - spoiler! - includes a battle with a female cloud giant. I think we've just discovered another drawback to having two active DMs living in the same household and sharing gaming materials. [/QUOTE]
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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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