Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7630573" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 51: DUTY CALLSPC Roster:  Daleth Stormsea, elf wizard 14             Galen Thorne, human paladin 16             Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 16             Orion Nightsky, halfling rogue 15             Syngaard, human fighter 16Game Session Date: 3 July 2019 - - - It couldn't have been much past two hours past midnight when the conscripts, long since having retired to their individual rooms, were blasted awake by the sounds of war horns trumpeting.  Durnhill was at war with Ossirna, the country to the south, and the populace had been trained that the sounding of the war horns meant an imminent attack.  Not surprisingly, as the conscripts were throwing on their clothes and buckling on their armor, Skevros sent them a message through the iron rings they each wore: "Report to South Gate, tell garrison there to reinforce West Gate, fifteen minutes until enemy army arrives."Orion sent her ghost-dog Carl racing ethereally through the buildings, making as straight of a bee-line as she could to the South Gate.  She wasn't entirely surprised to find Kaspar already in place, explaining to the guards stationed there of their redeployment - the elven monk had little in the way of equipment and she'd never seen anybody move as quickly as he could.  Galen rode up behind her astride Burt, then Daleth and Todd arrived on foot, the pseudodragon perched upon the elven wizard's shoulders, alert for trouble.  "Where's Syngaard?" Orion asked, looking around the streets for him.  He lived apart from the others and would be approaching the South Gate from a different direction than the route the others had taken.This turned out to be especially true when, with a flurry of wings, Dick dropped down from the sky to a perfect four-point landing among the assembled conscripts, the bald fighter sitting upon the griffon's broad back.  "Betcha this ain't no payin' mission," Syngaard griped."We'll be paid by the continued safety of our citizens," replied Kaspar as the others began casting spells upon themselves - or, in the case of Orion, pulling out a stoneskin scroll for Daleth to cast upon her.  Syngaard just grunted in reply.  "Citizen safety" wasn't a particularly spendable coin."I won't forget this time," Orion promised Carl, bending over in the saddle and activating his collar.  A false life spell flared into being, imbuing the ghost-dog with additional staying power for the combat to come.<Checking,> thought Daleth to the others over the Rary's telepathic bond spell he'd just cast on the group.  He had also imbued himself with a magic circle against evil spell, Galen casting the same spell upon Burt.  The wizard had also given himself stoneskin protection and Galen had cast a resist fire spell on himself.  <Loud and clear,> the paladin reported over the link.<Likewise.><Same here.><I'm in, but I'm dropping off - I'm going to take Carl ahead ethereally and see what we can see.>  As Orion and Carl faded from view, she felt the mental presence of the others over the telepathic link suddenly get severed away - the spell didn't cross planar boundaries, but Orion knew she'd snap back into the link once she and Carl returned to the Material Plane.Not wanting to get too far away from the others, Orion led Carl to a small grove of trees just to the west side of the road leading up to the South Gate.  The sound of the gate opening caused her to look back and she saw the unmistakable forms of Galen and Burt heading out the door and over to the trees on the eastern side of the road.  Kaspar pushed the gate closed and others barred it securely from the inside; apparently the monk and paladin would be meeting the enemy forces outside the walls of the city.  Figures that Syngaard wouldn't, the little halfling thought to herself.  He was a lot of bluster and big talk but she doubted his commitment to anything but his own personal gain.  Sure, he could deal quite a bit of damage with the weapons he kept on hand, but Orion still wouldn't categorize him as a hero, like the others among the group.  More like a big, stupid mercenary they let hang around because he was occasionally useful.A flapping of wings alerted her to Dick landing on one of the 50-foot-tall towers flanking the South Gate.  Syngaard was still on the griffon's back, his solar energy morningstar gripped in his shield hand, providing him some limited vision in the near-darkness of the night - and a big, blazing target for any enemy forces to focus upon.  Orion just shook her head; he was an idiot, that was for sure, but sometimes his idiocy worked out well for the rest of them.Daleth took up position on the battlements above the gate, atop the 30-foot-tall wall of solid stone encircling the city.  He strained his keen elven vision to the south, seeking to spot the army said to be approaching.  There was a slight movement ahead, over a rise: yes, that was them, a small regiment of armored soldiers, footmen in full plate in front, armed with longswords and sporting heavy steel shields, while behind them came bowmen in chain shirts.  The footmen were arranged in two staggered lines with another soldier following; the four archers were all in a row with a fifth taking up the rear.  If the rearmost soldiers were the leaders of their respective groups, Daleth scoffed at the level of Ossirnan bravery among their officers.Daleth couldn't make out the facial features on the front lines, decked out as they were in full plate armor, but the archers were all human and seemed to be living; the elven wizard wouldn't have put it past the Ossirnans to drive undead forces out before them to attack Durnhill.  He mentally checked his spell inventory; as much as he'd love to drop a chain lightning spell in the midst of the regiment they were still too far away for that to be a possible strategy.  He could wait for them to get closer, of course, but it might be more prudent to halt their advance as far away from the city walls as possible, in case they had any surprises up their sleeves.  With that thought in mind, Daleth cast an Evard's black tentacles spell in the middle of the footmen, engulfing four of the five in the front row, all four of the second row, and the erstwhile "leader" bringing up the rear.  The archers were all too far back to be within the spell's radius of effect, but given the size of the black tentacles that sprang up from the ground, the wizard was fairly certain the writhing appendages should block some of their shots even so.The cries of surprise and alarm from the footmen was a good indicator that these were living foes, not undead.  But as the front lines were forcibly halted in their forward movement, the archers likewise stopped their advance and looked about for targets.  There was one obvious enemy there, up at the top of the tower beside the gate, astride a griffon and holding some sort of glowing beacon in his hand.  The four archers sent arrows arcing up at Syngaard; at this range, only about a third of them hit him, and of those quite a few were deflected off his shield.  "Okay, it's on!" snarled the scarred fighter with a grin, sending Dick flying off the tower and diving into combat.Kaspar sprinted toward the group ensnared in the crushing tentacles, heading for the one soldier who had escaped the spell.  He brought his tenryutsume-powered fist into the infantryman's face before the poor fellow even had an indication that the elven monk was standing there before him.But on the Ethereal Plane, Orion wasn't paying attention to the combat unfolding before her.  Instead, her focus was centered on the two horsemen with flaming lances riding past the rest of the invaders, heading for the city's walls.  None of the other conscripts even seemed to notice them and with a start the halfling realized that, like her, the two riders were on the Ethereal Plane, hidden from view from those on the Material Plane.  She stared at the horses and her magically-enhanced vision allowed her to spot the concentrations of negative energy coursing through the ghostly figures: these were ghost-horses, no more alive than was Carl beneath her!  The Ossirnans had apparently patterned an attack strategy after her and Carl!That meant that stopping these two was up to her.  She sent Carl forward from the trees to intercept the two approaching horsemen and flung an electrified dagger at the nearest rider.  Her aim was true and, having drawn his attention, the ghost-rider diverted his course to ride straight at the mounted halfling, his flaming lance aimed directly her way.  The weapon struck Orion in the side, nearly throwing her from the saddle, but fortunately much of the fire damage was absorbed by the magical bracelet she wore.  The other cavalryman, on the other hand, continued his advance upon the city walls - which, Orion knew, were no impediment to an ethereal rider, who would pass right through them as if they weren't even there.As Dick dived down from above, the yellow-haired ranger captain sighted down her bow at the griffon's rider and sent a flurry of arrows directly at Syngaard, several of them striking true.  This earned her the satisfying sight of the bald griffon-rider's wince of pain - and the nickname "Blondie-Bitch" from Syngaard, who decided he was definitely going to take her down for that.Galen sent Burt racing forward into combat and the dire lion finished off the foot soldier Kaspar was fighting with a swipe of sharp claws and crushing jaws filled with saberlike teeth.  The paladin, in the meantime, was concentrating on the auras of their enemies and noted that while some blazed with the undeniable scourge of evil, this was not universally the case; apparently some of these warriors could possibly still be redeemed.  But no, this was war; in war there was no time for the niceties that might otherwise be applied.  Galen cast a bless weapon on the sword of Zehkar, the better to deal with those enemies of a truly evil bent.  The others, likely more neutral in temperament, would learn too late the folly of joining an army ruled by evil.At Syngaard's urging, Dick crashed down upon the second archer in the row; the bald fighter really wanted to get to Blondie-Bitch, but that would surely happen soon enough.  For now, he leaped down from the griffon's back while Dick savaged the hapless archer and Syngaard hoped that by standing between the bowmen here on the ground he'd be less susceptible to being shot at.  That turned out to be not that effective a tactic, as the archers moved quickly into position to shoot at the bald fighter from all angles, but perhaps due to shattered nerves from the sudden arrival of the griffon in their midst, most of the arrows missed their marks, even at this close distance.  Syngaard merely smiled evilly at their failure to bring him down and brought his human bane scimitar up for the attack - for Daleth had warned the others over the shared mental link, before Dick landed among them, that these were humans they'd be dealing with among the archers.Up on the city wall, Daleth couldn't see the ethereal cavalryman fast approaching him - but he could see the troops on the ground below and sent an empowered fireball spell exploding among the easternmost archers and several of the infantry forces being squeezed by the ebon tentacles of his earlier-cast spell.  None of the victims of this second attack spell dropped but the elf's keen hearing heard their cries of pain and even in the wan moonlight he could see the burn scars blistering on the faces of the archers who had been encompassed in the spell's blast.Kaspar ran past the falling infantryman slain by Burt and before the corpse hit the ground the monk was already in place directly in front of the nearest archer.  He feinted an attack with his hand but didn't even touch the enemy; it was just an attempt - a quite successful one at that - to direct the bowman's attention away from the fact that a giant stag beetle had just manifested behind him, summoned into existence by the monk's mental will.  John's crushing mandibles soon let the archer in on the secret, though, as the beetle bit the bowman around the waist from behind.On the Ethereal Plane, Orion backed away from the charging lancer and returned to the Material Plane with Carl, passing on what she'd seen to the others over the telepathic bond she was now once again a part of.  She also partook of the other advantage a Rary's telepathic bond spell provided over talking aloud: she was able to communicate the danger to the others while simultaneously chugging down a potion of cure serious wounds.  She felt the gash in her side, where she'd been struck by the magic lance, seal up and was confident there would be no scar.But the lancer and his ghost-mount followed Orion and Carl to the Material Plane, where he immediately set his sights on Galen.  Manifesting as he did in mid-charge, the paladin had no time to prepare a defense and was almost unseated himself, especially as Burt wore no saddle.  But despite being unable to defend himself from the charge, Galen was more than able to counterattack and the sword of Zehkar channeled a smite evil attack into the Ossirnan cavalryman.  Burt finished the man off, pulling him from the saddle with his claws and biting his throat out.  The ghost-horse, now riderless, responded by shunting back to the relative safety of the Ethereal Plane, where he watched disinterestedly at the events playing out all around him."Blondie-Bitch" shot at Syngaard several times as he advanced upon her but each arrow merely bounced harmlessly off his shield.  "You're gonna pay for that!" Syngaard promised, continuing his advance.  Behind him, Dick finished off the archer he'd initially attacked upon landing.  Syngaard brought his scimitar in on a sideways approach, cutting deep into Blondie-Bitch's side as she fruitlessly tried backing away.  The look of pain crossing her face acted as a balm to the scarred fighter, soothing away the pain of the hits he'd taken thus far from her and her archer goons.And then an as-yet-unseen player entered the battle arena: from 30 feet in the air, a wavering form took shape as Ludwig Von Sanguise dropped out of the invisibility spell that had thus far been shielding him from sight.  He cast a banishment spell at Burt, who snarled in anger as he suddenly began to discorporate, the atoms making up his leonine body departing the Material Plane and reassembling back on the Beastlands.  Galen dropped to the ground, landing lightly on his feet with his longsword ready for action despite this sudden setback.Orion had gotten a good look at the sudden spellcaster and relayed a description to the others over the link.  <He's undead - probably a vampire!> she reported.  <Wearing a black cloak with blue trim, too: an Azure Glade necromancer, surely!>  Galen squinted in disdain at the undead thing; bad enough to be a vampire, but to dabble in the necromantic arts as well?  He didn't deserve the semblance of life his undead form gave him.Realizing he was out of range for most of the spells he could cast to be effective, Daleth's next action was to cast a fly spell on himself and head out into the air towards the undead necromancer.  Todd flapped his wings and tailed his master, flying under his own power.  But down on the ground, the frantic cries of the bowman being eaten alive by John caused his fellow archers to pivot and attack the giant stag beetle.  However, their marksmanship in the face of these large monsters in their midst was less than they would have liked and John survived the ranged assault.  He continued biting his current target, confident in his carapace's ability to keep him relatively safe.Kaspar sent a final blow to John's prey, snapping his neck, and stepped forward to the next archer in line, sending several punches and lightning-fast kicks his way.  Before he had a chance to even try to defend himself, this second bowman was also dropping to the ground, dead.It looked like the boys had things well in hand on this front, so Orion sent Carl phasing back to the Ethereal Plane so she could try to go stop that second rider.  Assuming he'd already breached the city wall, she sent Carl forward through the wall at top speed and was able to see the ghost-horse about to run through the wall of a nearby building.  Realizing the horse would likely be easier to kill than its rider, she sent an electrified dagger flying at a nexus of negative energy centered in the ghost's chest.  The sudden sneak attack worked; the horse dissipated to nothingness, leaving the rider to fall face-first to the ground.  I know what that feels like, Orion thought to herself, watching the now-horseless rider pick himself up and look around in vain for his mount.  With a look of panic on his face at the realization he now had no way off the Ethereal Plane - something else with which the little halfling could relate - he raced back the way he'd come, running through the outer city wall hoping to find his cavalry partner.Blondie-Bitch was having no luck attacking Syngaard at close range, although his shield was gaining a nice collection of her arrows.  With a sudden burst of speed, the bald fighter raced forward, bringing his human bane scimitar through the archer's torso and out her back.  "Picked the wrong side, lady!" he sneered, putting his boot to her stomach to help wrest his blade from her body.  She pitched backwards, dead, her fancy longbow falling at her side.But then Syngaard took a moment to look around him and saw the vampire spellcaster in the air and Galen, the conscript best suited to fighting undead creatures, stranded on the ground.  "Dick!" called the fighter.  "Go to Galen!"  The griffon screeched his understanding, flapped his mighty wings, and landed beside the armored paladin, tucking in the wing closest to Galen, the better to allow him to leap onto Dick's broad back.  Galen mounted the griffon, casting a death ward spell upon himself as he did so, seeing as he was about to face a vampire necromancer in combat.But before Dick could take flight, the vampire cast a fireball spell down at the group much more powerful than any Daleth had ever cast.  (This, Daleth would later explain, was because it was a delayed blast fireball cast without any actual delay - a more powerful version of the spell.)  Galen winced under the blast but was partially shielded by his resist fire spell; John and Dick were not so protected and both disappeared at once, the beetle being restored in Kaspar's magic amulet while the griffon reverted back to figurine form and dropped to the ground at Galen's feet.  Kaspar landed on his own feet at the same time, having leaped into the air as the spell was cast and spinning in place in such a way to completely avoid any fire damage whatsoever.Daleth cast a prismatic spray spell such that it caught the vampire in the air as well as a group of the infantrymen still entwined in the Evard's black tentacles spell.  Several of the ground forces were instantly put out of their misery: one by lightning, another by acid, a third by a combination of both energy types.  Yet another soldier's mind snapped by the spell's effects, slipping into insanity rather than face this poor reality any more.  Unfortunately, of all possible effects that could have hit the floating vampire, the one that struck him was completely ineffectual, given the undead body's complete immunity to any form of poison.The last remaining archer tried once again to take down Syngaard, but was slain by Kaspar instead for his efforts, having focused so much on the scarred fighter that he lost track of the quick-moving monk in the vicinity - a mistake he'd never make again.Popping ethereally through the city wall, Orion saw the unhorsed cavalryman running over to the slain rider's ghost-horse, hoping for a way back to the Material Plane.  Orion decided at once to deprive him of his last remaining way back by slaying the ghost-horse in the same way she'd killed the first one.  Seeing this, the armored rider dropped to his knees, threw his flaming lance to the ground at his side, and put his hands on his head.  "I surrender!" he called to Orion.  "Don't leave me trapped here!  Please: take me back with you!"  The halfling accepted his surrender but insisted he remove his armor and clothing before she'd approach.  She wasn't about to be taken unawares of any hidden shenanigans.  With a look of distaste, the rider slowly got to his feet and started removing his armor, tossing each piece to the ground while Orion watched, an electrified dagger out and ready to throw if he tried anything.Galen dove to the ground in case the vampire tried sending any other spells flying his way.  He regained his feet with a triumphant grin - and Syngaard's Dick in his hand.  Rubbing the figuring of wondrous power briskly, the griffon once again resumed its animal form and the paladin leaped upon its back.  With the flapping of his powerful wings, the beast was airborne, flying up at the hovering vampire.  Dick snapped his beak at Ludwig, who scooted back enough in midair to avoid the indignity of being bitten by a griffon.  Then he took advantage of the proximity of a potential mind-slave and focused his mental will upon Galen, trying to dominate him.  "Attack your friends," the vampire commanded - but Galen was having none of it; his mind was his own!  And then a gray beam of arcane energy came blasting into the vampire's side: a disintegrate spell cast by Daleth.  The spell was quite effective - and had Ludwig not fortified himself with a false life spell of his own before making his initial attack on Durnhill's defenders he would have been slain outright.One of the infantrymen who had been caught up in the Evard's black tentacles spell finally managed to extricate himself from the crushing appendages and staggered away from the spell's area of effect.  But Syngaard was there in a flash, bringing his human bane scimitar crashing down on the hapless warrior.  He staggered, bouncing off Syngaard's shield and attempting to run away back to the south, back to the sheltering confines of Ossirna - only to feel a sudden, sharp, piercing pain in his neck, and then nothing but blissful slumber.  He didn't feel the ground coming up to smash him in the face as he collapsed bonelessly to the ground, nor did he see the pseudodragon land by his side, smirking in silent satisfaction with his tail-strike attack; he didn't even feel a thing when Syngaard's human bane scimitar deftly removed his head and neck from his shoulders with a well-placed blow.  Of all the invaders, his was the most pleasant death, occurring as it was within the comforting effects of Todd's sleep venom.Seeing the aerial battle between Galen, Dick, and the vampire spellcaster some 30 feet above him, Kaspar reached absently into his robes and removed a handful of pointed shuriken.  Infusing each with fire and electricity from his tenryutsume, he let them fly up at the undead spellcaster, whose body - so recently attacked by a disintegrate spell - collapsed into mist upon the small swarm of shuriken the elven monk sent flying into the vampire's body.  Surprised at the sudden loss of his sparring partner, Galen brought Dick back down for a landing; while riding a griffon wasn't fundamentally that different from riding a dire lion into battle, the paladin was much more experienced with ground combat and wasn't prepared to take a fall from any measurable height.The only remaining members of the Ossirnan strike force were still being slowly crushed to death by the Evard's black tentacles spell; killing them off was a simple matter, made all the more attractive when Orion and Carl suddenly reappeared on the Material Plane with a nearly-naked prisoner (who held onto Carl's saddle so he could be taken back through the border between the planes) willing to spill his guts about everything he knew.  Unfortunately, he didn't know much save for this group's orders: attack the South Gate, spill into the city, and loot what could be found.However, as the conscripts started removing the armor from their slain foes and gathering up their weapons, Daleth gave a whistle of surprise.  "For such a small strike team, they were spectacularly equipped: just about all of their weapons and armor is magical!" he exclaimed."Valuable?" asked Syngaard."Quite.""Well okay then!" Syngaard whooped.  "Turns out this was a paying mission after all!""And quite lucrative at that," offered up Orion, giving the laid-out armor and weapons an appraising eye.  "We'll fetch a small fortune - each - from all of this loot!""Hell, maybe we oughtta send word back to Ossirna and ask 'em to come attack us like this every week!" enthused Syngaard. - - -No kidding, this was our greatest single-adventure payout in the history of the entire campaign thus far, with each of the five PCs walking away with 34,263 gp when all was said and done.  (And that was on top of keeping some of the stuff for the PCs: Carl got some ethereal barding, Galen kept one of the +1 flaming lances, and Orion got a +2 amulet of natural armor out of the deal.)  But besides that, there were other aspects of this adventure that I really enjoyed:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">  The fact that the attackers came to us in waves, so that we weren't able to take them all down at once.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">  The fact that Orion got some time in the spotlight on the Ethereal Plane, taking down enemies none of the rest of us could touch (or were even aware of at first).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">  That Logan got to "share my pain" about that damned Evard's black tentacles spell.  (In the campaign that I run, Dan plays a wizard who habitually uses that spell to take down great quantities of the enemies I throw at the party.)</li> </ol></blockquote>

Verification