The Age of Worms - Morrus' Campaign - Finished 6th August!!

[Aurora]

I particularly liked the armoured spirit wrapping its cloak about me....or giving me a hug, (for Mage Armour)!!!

That is really cool. In a similar vein, in my husband's SH, he and the co-writer write healing from a cleric as an "embrace" from the cleric's chosen god. It comes out really cool the way they do it. Sounds a lot better than "So and so cast healing" or "Morgan cast mage armor", ya know.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

It was one hell of a hectic session...

Think things would have gone much better for us if that boar had stayed locked up. Was a real horror to fight... Although in fairness, it was behind a locked and chained door, so we'd have certainly opened it at some point. Might have been a treasury or something?

Now things get interesting. Trapped in an underground temple, heavily injured and with no magic left...

And reckon Eccles (Nik) has been very accurate with the accountings he's made. It's a fine piece of work!

 

[Dpulse303]

Hehe you are all gonna love the next update ! im looking forward to Eccles write up.
i wont spoil it for ya ...but wo intense!!

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, it was an intense session. I can't wait to see it!

 

[Tamlyn]

I can't wait to see it!

Neither can I!

 

[Darmanicus]

Hehe you are all gonna love the next update ! im looking forward to Eccles write up.
i wont spoil it for ya ...but wo intense!!

Bah!

 

[Dpulse303]

Bah!

lol

 

[Eccles]

Taking a few moments in the well of the elevator, we untied Old Tom, the captive cultist Niccoli had recognised. Once slapped awake, he glared around at us, and began to tell us that we were all dead men.

“Hextor will destroy you all,” he raved. “His power is all consuming and ultimate, and you are but specks in his sight. You mean nothing, and he will crush you as easily as he might blink.”

It didn’t take long for us all to tire of this ranting, and we began to ask him questions. He announced that he had been worshipping Hextor for centuries, and was awaiting his chance to be adopted into the priesthood. This caused Torvig particular amusement, as he had been called to serve Fahrlanghn at the tender dwarven age of 28. Suggestions that Old Tom was clearly unworthy of the God of Slaughter were met with more promises of our destruction.

When we asked the old man about the temple he was in, he told us (between death threats) that he didn’t leave often. They were given amusement by combats to the death in the ‘battle temple’.

Flynn began to sharpen his knives…

 

[Eccles]

Pushing Tom ahead of us, we began to explore a series of rooms, whose occupants we had already defeated. The first was a small room with 2 beds, some part-made leather armour and an empty weapons rack. I helped Torvig look around the room, and he was lucky enough to find a large stash of gold in a bag concealed within one of the mattresses.

The next room belonged to the boar, and stank of rotting food, blood and dung. In the centre of the room was a low stalagmite which flickered with flame along its entire length, clearly enchanted by some means. Despite searching the room, Flynn and Torvig (who deemed to take great delight in the dung for some unfathomable dwarven reason) found nothing of interest.

The next door we came to was locked, but not for long when we realised that the key we had taken from the tieflings matched the lock. Flynn snuck down the short narrow corridor, listened at the door at the far end, and then put a finger to each temple to indicate a tiefling beyond the door. He then began to work his way up the wall wedging himself by the ceiling; sword in hand.

To cover the fact that Niccoli and Torvig were marching in heavy armour down the narrow corridor, I shouted “Hextor triumphs, come and help with the bodies!” in the closest approximation I could manage to the female cleric’s voice. It seemed to work, as the door flew open and a voice could be heard inside calling for others to help. He was immediately stabbed by Flynn, but stayed upright, leaving two more worried-looking tieflings standing behind him.

Arrows and blades flashed, but one of the three half-demons dashed through a door at the back of the room and bolted it behind him, shouting all the while. Niccoli and Torvig moved forwards into the room, and I moved to block the door behind them. Just to my right, there was a clattering crash as Flynn fell off the wall, trying to cling to the ceiling whilst using his bow at the same time.

Once the two tieflings in the room had been dispatched, we moved to block the door and looked at our resources.

The fight at the foot of the elevator had cost us dearly. Many of us were injured, Morgan, Torvig and I were all out of magics, and Niccoli would not be able to take a serious axe-swing from one of the tieflings. We pulled back to the cultists’ room and barred the door behind us, leaving Flynn outside in hiding to keep an eye out for movement.

 

[Eccles]

3 hours later, Flynn tapped on the other side of the door and slipped into the room. He whispered that there was a tall man approaching with 4 more of the tieflings and a man in robes. He described them coming down the corridor and checking each of the rooms as they passed them, closing inexorably on ours.

Far too soon, we heard them get to our door. There was a brief push against it, then a muttered conversation. We heard one of them say that he would not risk forcing the door – that they would wait for us to come to them. Later, there was a faint chanting, and checks confirmed that a significant spell had been cast on the door, which would cause it to explode violently if we opened it.

.oOo.

We waited through another night’s nervous and fitful rest before using most of our spells once again to recover to full health. Spells of enhancement were cast, Morgan was wreathed in spirits once more, and Torvig cast spells to make himself hit harder and Niccoli stay up and fight more accurately. I began to chant, and unrolled a scroll. Just before we opened the door, Morgan scrutinised it with magic. On the other side, he announced, was a rune of protection, which would explode (possibly killing several of us) when the door was opened.

We all stood back, and let Morgan magic the door open with a cantrip. The door’s explosion sent it hurtling into the room beyond on a wall of flame; and battle was joined. My scroll sent a wall of sound into the room, perhaps not battering the eardrums of the tieflings and mage as much as I might have wanted, but it did leave several of them looking dazed, and my friends were swift to capitalise on the situation.

As Morgan cast a spell of fear on one tiefling, the cleric of Hextor we could now clearly see cast a spell of enchantment on his own shield. His spell worked, but Morgan’s was totally unsuccessful. Arrows arced past Morgan from the tieflings, Niccoli and Torvig ran in the other direction, sword and morningstar swinging past the stunned tieflings.

My effort was no better; my spell to make the wizard’s speech garbled and mess up his spellcasting failed, whilst Flynn unlimbered his bow once more, muttering “save against this, you #%*&”, and shooting him.

More spells flew; Morgan managing to make one tiefling run for its life, whilst the enemy cleric began to summon something. The robed wizard unrolled a scroll, read from in and pointed in my direction – to my absolute horror a roiling, roasting ball of fire leaped from his outstretched finger, filling the entire room I was in with flame, seriously injuring Morgan, causing me considerable pain, and apparently having no effect whatsoever on Flynn. How he’d avoided it was anybody’s guess, but judging from Morgan’s burns then my wizardly friend had probably shielded Flynn from the blast.

A heavily enchanted Niccoli ran past the tieflings on seeing this, ducking their swings, and then missing the wizard completely himself. I fired my bow at someone in the room beyond, but then….