Neverwinter Knight
First Post
Grog said:
Not really. Guess they must have clubbed my characters too much in the last years...
The Adventures of the Knights of Spellforge Keep
- Thread starter Dr Midnight
- Start date
- Status
Not really. Guess they must have clubbed my characters too much in the last years...
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
Wee Jas said:Wheres the STORY?! Doc.. GET TO WORK!
*bump*
Dr Midnight
Explorer
It's game day, and sorry that I haven't given you guys the rest of session 43 yet. I'm a bastard.
I "promise" more tonight.
I "promise" more tonight.
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Gryph’s head rocked back as four huge claws raked across it. Stars shot in front of his eyes and he almost fell over from the blow. When he focused his vision again, he saw a dragon swimming into vision. One like him- a red dragon. Except much, much bigger. It was maybe thirty feet long, from tip to tail. A mature adult. It bashed him with a wing, then clawed him again.
Apparently it could see through their invisibility, and only bothered to disguise itself for its approach. It roared something that sounded like laughing.
Shade ran forward and tried to slash and cut at the dragon’s forelimbs. “Gryph, I can’t see you, are you alright?” he yelled.
“Barely,” the smaller dragon grunted as blood poured from his mouth. He couldn’t take many more hits like that, he knew. He lashed out and swiped a chunk out of the greater dragon's chest.
Grumbar, on the other side of the camp, saw a red dragon roughly four times as large as Gryph rearing up and roaring above the flames. “That’s not Gryph!” he shouted to himself, and started to move forward. He stopped. “Wait, it could be. He’s a shapeshifter. He could shift BIGGER.” He stood thinking. “But… Hmmm…”
After a while, he decided to go investigate simply because he’d slain all the available enemies on this side. He set his jaw and ran towards the flames. He jumped over the crisped corpses of the frost giants and disappeared into the fire.
He burst from the other side of the inferno, twenty feet away. Smoke billowed from the thatches of hair on his head. He yelped as he ran. “Ow, ow, ow, ow…” He was coming close to the dragon. He yelled upward. “Gryph, that you?”
“No!” a voice shouted from an invisible nearby source. “Kill it!”
“HRARRR!” Grumber threw himself at the dragon and began slicing into it like a drunken butcher. It roared and smashed the half-orc with a wicked backhand, then sent Shade and Jo’nas sprawling in the dirt with a whiplike stroke of its tail. It spread its wings and flew up, inhaling. It clearly meant to bathe them all in dragonfire.
It leaned forward and started to exhale, then its breath caught in its throat. Its scales rippled muddy red, then paled to a dull gray. Its eyes glazed over and turned opaque black. It fell out of the sky. A gnoll holding a spear ran by, looked up, and whined just as it was crushed by the force of the dragon, which crumbled to sharp pieces of boulder when it struck the ground.
Gryph caught his breath, looked around, and saw Kizzlorn standing fifty feet behind him, floating in the air. She smiled sheepishly and said “That’s the second time that’s worked.”
While Jo’nas healed the wounded, Kizzlorn recounted to brief but odd tale of the time she’d turned a continent-threatening titan to stone… destroying it with the first attack of combat. “It looks like big creatures just aren’t ready for a simple spell like that,” Kizz boasted.
Gryph smashed the cage around the three barrels at the north end of the camp. He picked one of the barrels up and heard liquid sloshing about inside. “The mead,” he said as he threw it down to the ground, where the barrel shattered. Water splashed up and fell all around the ground, leaving a large form among the broken barrel staves. It was a soaked, sealed burlap bag, about six feet long. Something was inside… something humanoid looking. It shuddered, twitched, and lay still.
“Oh no!” Gryph gasped. Had there been something inside the barrel, that Gryph had just now killed? “CLERIC!!” he yelled.
Jo’nas rushed over and knelt over the bag, then opened it. It was indeed a body. A human form, bound at the wrists and ankles. Male. He was very clearly dead. “It looks like he just died… but you mustn’t blame yourself, Gryph, you didn’t know.”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Gryph said. The sorrow in the dragon’s deep voice was clearly deep and genuine. He then perked up. “Kizzlorn, don’t we have that scroll of resurrection?”
“Yes,” she said. She came forward and withdrew the scroll, then handed it to Jo’nas. If anyone regretted using an item of this worth and power on someone none of them knew, no one voiced their feelings. It was cast over the body and it came to life.
It sputtered and gasped for several moments while Grumbar helped the other two prisoners to their feet. They were alive, but barely. They glared at their rescuers suspiciously and the woman, who was their apparent leader. “Thank… you,” she uttered slowly. “We… owe you our… we owe a great debt to you.” They helped their resurrected friend up and began walking slowly back, to a collapsed section of the camp’s fence. “We m… …we will be leaving now.”
“Wait,” Kizzlorn said. “what are your names?”
The woman cleared her throat and said “Our n… umm… we are merely three… who travel. I am Lyla, the remaining are my… they help to keep company. Thank you again, goodbye!” They moved further away. They really seemed to be quite nervous and in a hurry.
Gryph was insulted. They’d just been rescued and healed, and now they were being quite rude in just running away with a curt farewell. He yelled after them. “Hey, where are you going to go? It’s dangerous out there!”
“We’ll be fine,” they replied, and walked on.
“Let them go,” Shade said.
Gryph thought for a moment and said ”Like hell I will. There’s something rotten with those three.” He turned into a will-o’-wisp, turned invisible, and flew off after them. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Keep traveling. I’ll find you.”
He followed the people north. They paused briefly to catch their breath and speak in a strange tongue, before hurrying on. Gryph didn’t like it at all.
They reached a vast chasm overlooking a half-dried riverbed in the valley. The people descended a set of steps and wandered into a pitch-black cave. Gryph wandered inside for just a moment, and remembered a conversation he’d shared back at the castle. There’s that colony o’ Yuan-Ti up north. Live in a chasm, he heard the soldier’s voice say. Dangerous enough, but they leave us alone so Hyiadramain says we leave ‘em alone. That’s good enough for me, as long as they don’t come attackin’ too.
Yuan-Ti. As a shapeshifter, Gryph was familiar with their ways and makeup. They were snake people. Very deadly. However, their tolerance of poisons might have helped them to resist the mead’s effects… which would explain why they were contained the way they were. The Jirrock couldn’t convert them to slaves of the mead, so they beat them within an inch of their lives and tied them up in barrels. The water would dilute the acid secreted from their bodies so that they wouldn’t be able to eat through their bonds.
If the Jirrock couldn’t control them, why not simply kill them, outright? Maybe the Jirrock were waiting for a way to control them that they couldn’t resist. An entire colony of Yuan-Ti would be a powerful ally.
So THAT’S why they avoided speaking in ‘s’ sounds when they spoke, Gryph thought to himself as he flew back up into the air. The hissing, sibilant sounds would have alerted the group to something amiss, certainly. If Hyiadramain had carefully established a truce with the Yuan-Ti, and they truly weren’t involved in the goings-on of the Jirrock, then Gryph couldn’t think of a reason to continue pursuing them into the cave, or harassing them further.
He found his companions a mile north of where he’d left them. He landed by the group and reported his findings. Kizzlorn nodded and thought silently. “We camp here,” she said. “We’re not too far from the chasm, and I’d like to keep some distance between us and the Yuan-Ti for the night.” The mist was already beginning to roll in over the hills, fogging the landscape in the rose light of the setting sun.
They made camp and slept on the plain.
MORE TO COME...
Last edited:
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Grumbar was alone, again, on watch. The campfire still burned, but soon it would be only so many embers and dead charcoal. The fire cast a lucent orange light that bled outward with the mist, like looking at a torch through a pane of frosted glass. It would have felt peaceful if the fog hadn’t come with an extremely eerie silence. There was no wind, there were no aminal sounds. It was like being blind and deaf.
To amuse himself, Grumbar sang another of his songs in his head. He was on the third voice of The Poisoner and the Prophet when he heard a noise.
It wasn’t a big noise… it was the sound of some pebbles slipping down a hillside. The sound came from the north, near some large rock pillars stood at the beginning of the descent to the chasm’s floor. Of course, from where Grumbar sat, he only saw the dim blue fog in that direction. He stood up and unsheathed his sword, then nudged Gryph with his boot. “Noise,” he whispered. “to the north. I’m going to look.” Grumbar lumbered off into the fog before Gryph could argue the idea.
“Damn it,” Gryph thought as he chased sleep out of his head. “Everyone wake up. Grumbar heard a noise, and is going off on his own to investigate. I’m following. We’ll shout if there’s trouble.”
Kizzlorn lifted her head from her pillow. “Whaat?” she asked with her eyes half-closed. Her hair looked only slightly messier than it normally did, but as always, it suited her look very well. “Why would he… that great oaf. Shade, get up.” Gryph was quickest to rise, and turned into his red dragon form, then fly off through the air.
Kizz and Shade began walking north through the mist. “Stay close, love,” Shade said as he led her. He put a hand out and placed it on her shoulder. “Just so’s we stay together,” he muttered nervously.
“Are you afraid to simply hold my hand?” she teased. She couldn’t see him, but she sensed that he was turning bright red with embarrassment. It was very cute, she thought, that he was so sweet and shy. He reached out and took her hand. They walked.
Gryph flew until he found Grumbar striding forward. “Grumbar, where are you going?” the dragon whispered.
“Heard a noise from this direction, investigating, like I said.”
“Can you see anything?”
The half-orc frowned. “No.” The fog was so thick that he couldn’t see five feet in front of his face. “But you can’t either.”
“Oh no?” Gryph concentrated on his acute dragon senses and let his consciousness expand outward. He felt the rock pillars around them by the way the air moved. He heard the echoes of his own breathing off the ground and the shapes around him… and he heard the beating of a heart, roughly thirty feet to the northeast. He whispered as softly as he could. “Someone to the northeast. Roughly thirty feet. An elf, I think. Kneeling and listening to us. Stand still… We’re going to drop in on him.”
He clutched Grumbar and Kizzlorn, who had just arrived, and flew them to the pillar. He dropped them on either side of the astonished elf and circled around to grab Shade.
Kizzlorn crossed her arms in an authoritative fashion and demanded “What are you doing, skulking around in the darkness?”
The elf was crouching on a plateau halfway up a pillar’s face, wearing leather armor, a sword and a bow. He looked very sincerely shocked to find the two heroes drop on either side of him. He recovered his senses and glared indignantly. “What… what is this?! Do you mean to rob me? What are YOU doing, dropping down and threatening someone? Have I committed some crime?”
“No, but if you’re sitting atop rock spires spying on us, I think you’ve got some dark motive.”
“Spying?? I was sitting here minding my own business! YOU’RE the ones wronging ME, here!” He stood up and looked her in the eye, angrily baring his teeth as he spat his words.
Kizzlorn’s face showed the doubt she was feeling. Was it possible that he really was just an innocent wayfarer that they’d pounced on, here? “Who are you?”
“My name is Kalakain,” he said. “I’m a ranger. I patrol these areas. Or, rather, I did… because now I’m certain you’ll want to restrain me and give me whatever mind-controlling substance YOU’RE on, so I can start following the Jirrock blindly. Right? If so, you won’t take me without a fight.”
“You know about that as well?”
“Yeah, and I spend most of my time trying to avoid the big bastards… hence me perching up here on this cold piece of rock in the middle of the night. Don’t pretend you’re not a part of them. Who else travels with a big bloody red dragon? The Jirrock have the only red dragon around under their control.”
“We’re NOT a part of them,” Kizzlorn explained. Now the hunted had turned the tables on them, and Kizzlorn was defending themselves to him. “We’re trying to wipe the threat out ourselves. We meant you no harm.”
“No, other than scaring me half to death, is that it? You have no right to just drop down beside people and demand answers. A man’s allowed to spend the night in the wilderness without being harassed by the local militants.”
Kizzlorn looked hurt. “We’re sorry,” she said. “We didn’t know. Our apologies… we’ll leave you alone. Would you like to spend the rest of the night by our fire? There’s safety in numbers.”
“Bloody hell there is, with YOU lot,” he replied. “No thanks. I’ll be just as safe up here.”
The Knights left the man on his rock pillar and crawled back into their bedrolls. “If he wants to freeze out there on a slab of rock, I say let him,” Grumbar mumbled.
They slept the rest of the night away.
EPILOGUE
Kalakain waited until they were gone, and then waited for fifteen more minutes. When he was certain they weren’t coming back, he crept down the pillar’s side and cautiously moved north, to where the fire giants were hiding.
“I’m glad you didn’t attack,” he told them.
One of the giants replied. “You said to wait for your signal.”
“They have a dragon. I suspect these are the ones who destroyed the camp to the south. We can’t move on them yet. They’re too powerful, I think.”
“So what do we do?” the giant asked in its low, groaning voice.
“We call for backup,” Kalakain said with a smile. “but before we try to take them… we’ll try to take them alive.”
NEXT TIME: INTO THE FIRE FORTRESS
To amuse himself, Grumbar sang another of his songs in his head. He was on the third voice of The Poisoner and the Prophet when he heard a noise.
It wasn’t a big noise… it was the sound of some pebbles slipping down a hillside. The sound came from the north, near some large rock pillars stood at the beginning of the descent to the chasm’s floor. Of course, from where Grumbar sat, he only saw the dim blue fog in that direction. He stood up and unsheathed his sword, then nudged Gryph with his boot. “Noise,” he whispered. “to the north. I’m going to look.” Grumbar lumbered off into the fog before Gryph could argue the idea.
“Damn it,” Gryph thought as he chased sleep out of his head. “Everyone wake up. Grumbar heard a noise, and is going off on his own to investigate. I’m following. We’ll shout if there’s trouble.”
Kizzlorn lifted her head from her pillow. “Whaat?” she asked with her eyes half-closed. Her hair looked only slightly messier than it normally did, but as always, it suited her look very well. “Why would he… that great oaf. Shade, get up.” Gryph was quickest to rise, and turned into his red dragon form, then fly off through the air.
Kizz and Shade began walking north through the mist. “Stay close, love,” Shade said as he led her. He put a hand out and placed it on her shoulder. “Just so’s we stay together,” he muttered nervously.
“Are you afraid to simply hold my hand?” she teased. She couldn’t see him, but she sensed that he was turning bright red with embarrassment. It was very cute, she thought, that he was so sweet and shy. He reached out and took her hand. They walked.
Gryph flew until he found Grumbar striding forward. “Grumbar, where are you going?” the dragon whispered.
“Heard a noise from this direction, investigating, like I said.”
“Can you see anything?”
The half-orc frowned. “No.” The fog was so thick that he couldn’t see five feet in front of his face. “But you can’t either.”
“Oh no?” Gryph concentrated on his acute dragon senses and let his consciousness expand outward. He felt the rock pillars around them by the way the air moved. He heard the echoes of his own breathing off the ground and the shapes around him… and he heard the beating of a heart, roughly thirty feet to the northeast. He whispered as softly as he could. “Someone to the northeast. Roughly thirty feet. An elf, I think. Kneeling and listening to us. Stand still… We’re going to drop in on him.”
He clutched Grumbar and Kizzlorn, who had just arrived, and flew them to the pillar. He dropped them on either side of the astonished elf and circled around to grab Shade.
Kizzlorn crossed her arms in an authoritative fashion and demanded “What are you doing, skulking around in the darkness?”
The elf was crouching on a plateau halfway up a pillar’s face, wearing leather armor, a sword and a bow. He looked very sincerely shocked to find the two heroes drop on either side of him. He recovered his senses and glared indignantly. “What… what is this?! Do you mean to rob me? What are YOU doing, dropping down and threatening someone? Have I committed some crime?”
“No, but if you’re sitting atop rock spires spying on us, I think you’ve got some dark motive.”
“Spying?? I was sitting here minding my own business! YOU’RE the ones wronging ME, here!” He stood up and looked her in the eye, angrily baring his teeth as he spat his words.
Kizzlorn’s face showed the doubt she was feeling. Was it possible that he really was just an innocent wayfarer that they’d pounced on, here? “Who are you?”
“My name is Kalakain,” he said. “I’m a ranger. I patrol these areas. Or, rather, I did… because now I’m certain you’ll want to restrain me and give me whatever mind-controlling substance YOU’RE on, so I can start following the Jirrock blindly. Right? If so, you won’t take me without a fight.”
“You know about that as well?”
“Yeah, and I spend most of my time trying to avoid the big bastards… hence me perching up here on this cold piece of rock in the middle of the night. Don’t pretend you’re not a part of them. Who else travels with a big bloody red dragon? The Jirrock have the only red dragon around under their control.”
“We’re NOT a part of them,” Kizzlorn explained. Now the hunted had turned the tables on them, and Kizzlorn was defending themselves to him. “We’re trying to wipe the threat out ourselves. We meant you no harm.”
“No, other than scaring me half to death, is that it? You have no right to just drop down beside people and demand answers. A man’s allowed to spend the night in the wilderness without being harassed by the local militants.”
Kizzlorn looked hurt. “We’re sorry,” she said. “We didn’t know. Our apologies… we’ll leave you alone. Would you like to spend the rest of the night by our fire? There’s safety in numbers.”
“Bloody hell there is, with YOU lot,” he replied. “No thanks. I’ll be just as safe up here.”
The Knights left the man on his rock pillar and crawled back into their bedrolls. “If he wants to freeze out there on a slab of rock, I say let him,” Grumbar mumbled.
They slept the rest of the night away.
EPILOGUE
Kalakain waited until they were gone, and then waited for fifteen more minutes. When he was certain they weren’t coming back, he crept down the pillar’s side and cautiously moved north, to where the fire giants were hiding.
“I’m glad you didn’t attack,” he told them.
One of the giants replied. “You said to wait for your signal.”
“They have a dragon. I suspect these are the ones who destroyed the camp to the south. We can’t move on them yet. They’re too powerful, I think.”
“So what do we do?” the giant asked in its low, groaning voice.
“We call for backup,” Kalakain said with a smile. “but before we try to take them… we’ll try to take them alive.”
NEXT TIME: INTO THE FIRE FORTRESS
Breakstone
First Post
So eeeevil, Doc...
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
Where do all these evil elves come from anyway? That was the question that accompanied me throughout Monte Cook's RttToEE...
As to this Bastard elf, well that is the advantage of good over evil...
As to this Bastard elf, well that is the advantage of good over evil...
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
bump
Hey, what's up Doc ?
Hey, what's up Doc ?
- Status
Similar Threads
- Locked
