Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Echolocation" data-source="post: 8168920" data-attributes="member: 7011911">Session 37Courtesy of Ella's playerWe all have moments in life when we pause to reflect on what exactly we're doing, and how the hell we wound up here. For Ella, the most recent of these was while running toward a giant screaming hydra with nothing but her claws and a bunch of prepared spells that could just as easily spellblight her as do anything useful. That didn’t stop her doing it, she just knew how intensely stupid it was. As evidenced by immediately being bitten almost to death and punted through a train window.Ella’s antics did succeed at getting the monster's attention though: drawing it away from the other passengers while Ella climbed out a window and hid on the far side of the train. Fortunately Angharad and Lisandra came dashing to the rescue: leaping across the tops of train carriages like the heroes in every action movie involving a train ever. And they were just in time too! As wriggling swarms of mini tentacle monsters descended on Ella. Because of course we weren't just fighting one monster. No, we were fighting the swarms of mini monsters that it could create by detaching its own heads and exploding them into masses of tentacled monstrosities.You know, just your average screaming swamp hydra tactics. [ATTACH=full]131146[/ATTACH] The Screaming Malice attempts to derail the train and crush the party. Fortunately, the players realised what it was up to and repositioned.Meanwhile John and the train guards were still on their way, and something suss was happening at the front of the train - but we didn't have time to worry about that. Angharad was busy mowing down mini tentacles with a cavalry saber, Lisandra was taking pot shots with a borrowed rifle and Ella was trying to bait the hydra away from the train. Not entirely successfully, as the giant monster turned its attention to Lisandra and almost bit her to death, and then snatched Harper the rapier-wielding half-elf off the roof and actually bit her to death.The mysterious half-elf’s sacrifice was not in vain though, as a combination of rifle shots from John, the train guards, and the other passengers - and some saber stabbing fun-times from Angharad - managed to drive the monster away. As we watched it retreat we realised the fight was still far from over though: there were still distant humanoid figures milling around at the front of the train, riding some kind of odd-looking mounts.Angharad ran right into the fray, coming across the closest two and managed to dismount one and scare the other off. As Lisandra detained the grounded bandit, Angharad chased and Ella chased the other. Unfortunately this accomplished little other than getting Angharad shot with a critical hit from a pistol. The rest of the bandits fled, mounts loaded with cargo, and we were left with only one bandit to interrogate.Or rather, for the train guards to interrogate, since we are - after all - not meant to be constables. The dead were collected - including Harper - and the traumatised passengers ushered back to their carriages as the train got underway. We were asked to stay in our room during the staff’s investigation into the attack, and were politely questioned. Ella shared what she knew of the Screaming Malice - that it’s summoned by sacrificial rituals, so its presence was likely planned for the attack - and Lisandra skillfully persuaded Xorin to keep us informed about the results of the investigation once it was over.Fortunately we had a more immediate source of information in Writha (a cleaner contact on the train): who slipped us some details of the interrogation of the captured bandit. Apparently the bandits had a contact on the train who tipped them off on where to stage the attack, but no one knew who it was. The stolen cargo had been of an industrial nature, and the bandit leader was called Ronin. Writha also revealed that about 20 passengers and a dozen guards had died during the attack...It was a sobering number, and prompted a brief heart-to-heart between Lisandra and Ella about not dwelling on the past and events we could no longer change. Meanwhile Angharad was being distracted by a Sending from Delft. The Inspector warned him that Ella was under the effects of Distant Madness and likely highly unstable - and that if she’d already gotten everyone killed then Delft had probably paid for this Sending for nothing. Good to see his priorities are still in order…Fortunately, Angharad was still alive and able to respond: reporting that the Distant Madness was old news and the mission was going fine. Although with... admittedly more tentacles than expected. This prompted a brief lecture about laying off the drugs from Delft before the Sending ended.That wasn’t the end of the day’s excitement though! Confined to our carriage and unable to do much, Lisandra decided to continue our investigations using more magical means. The oracle cast Clairaudience-Clairvoyance on 4 of the train carriages. The first to be spied on was Giles, and his mysterious black case: which - as it turned out - contained nothing more than a trumpet.The second spellcast went to Leroy: sitting alone in a second class cabin and eating chips. So. Many. Chips. And so very slowly. Watching him was… possibly the most unsettling six minutes of Lisandra’s life, but she did notice a dark grey ring on one of his fingers.The third Clairaudience-Clairvoyance went to the first class dining carriage, where some off-duty guards were talking. Apparently they’d found blood in the carriage the industrial cargo had been taken from, but no bodies to explain the blood… hopefully it didn’t belong to Mr Mapple...Finally, Lisandra’s last magical spying session went to Dan: the older gentleman with nice glasses. Who apparently helps Professor Kipana with odd experiments involving strange eyewear? Perhaps he was just fitting the Professor for a pair of glasses? Or maybe they were testing a set of x-ray goggles! Who knows! Lisandra did note that both Dan and the Professor were wearing pale grey metal rings though…Our speculation was cut short by the arrival in Trekhom: capital of Drakr and the most polluted city we’ve been in. The train’s 20 minute late arrival had already stirred up rumours at the station ahead of us, and the arrival of the damaged train and the shrouded bodies that were wheeled off of it only stirred up more concern. Soon train tickets were being refunded left and right as people decided that the Malice Lands wasn’t quite safe enough to travel through. Not until the giant tentacled monster problem could be dealt with at least.In all this commotion Damata approached Angharad and asked if he’d like to attend a philosophical lecture with the half-orc? Sensing that there was more to this request than mere politeness - that, for some reason, Damata needed company - Angharad accepted, and Lisandra and Ella decided to tag along too.Traveling through Trekhom was… eye-opening. Apparently the guards here aren’t afraid to throw around 5th level spells like Dominate Person - or Necromancy spells like Boneshatter - while doing their jobs. We also saw some of Drakr’s famed philosophical debates: with several dwarves yelling various ideologies at each other in a kind of “marketplace of ideas”.Fascinating, but not as fascinating as the lecture we were about to see: being given by Vlendam Heid, the founder of the Eschatologist school of thought and the idea of finding a proper ending to things.The dwarf proved to be a compelling speaker - especially to Damata - but it wasn’t long before Heid interrupted his speech to take special note of us: singling us out as survivors of the attack on the train. He sat companionably on the edge of the stage and spoke to us directly, asking about our experience with our own narrowly avoided ends.Damata was first to respond, stating rather disconsolately that such a near-death experience had made him reflect on his own past mistakes. That he’d hurt his family and he didn’t know how to fix it without getting himself killed.As the half-orc spoke the other audience members began to take furious notes, apparently enthralled with this insight. But not perhaps, so enthralled as the members of Team BAD. What has our half-orc friend gotten himself into? What did he mean by hurting his family? Why did he think trying to make amends would get him killed?Find out the answers to hopefully some of these questions this week: on Zeitgeist.</blockquote>

Verification