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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7992948" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 77: WASTING BRAINS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 20</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 20</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 8</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Genevar, humanoid mutant</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> MARCI, humanoid construct</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 16 May 2020</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>Two days into the desert, the thrill and excitement of new experiences was starting to wear a little thin among the hoppers. They'd become perfectly content with having the Kordovians ride on their backs; the weight was negligible and in return they were fed on a regular schedule and got to continue to hang out with their litter-mates, which was nice. And when they had first encountered the desert, when the rolling plains had given way to the sands of the vast desert Genevar explained covered a good chunk of the center part of the continent, the hoppers were excited to see a completely new environment. But after two days of hopping through the burning sands, even with frequent breaks - Finoula's <em>decanter of endless water</em> was put to quite frequent use - it was starting to get a little old.</p><p></p><p>"How much longer do you think it's going to be until we find Eradicator Base?" asked Binkadink from the saddle of his jackalope Obvious. He took the opportunity to wipe the sweat from the back of his neck with a handkerchief, already soiled from frequent use.</p><p></p><p><I have no idea,> admitted the mutant girl from her seat behind Aithanar on the hopper Digger. <All I know is we find Eradicator Base shortly after you guys fight the apidox.></p><p></p><p>"And this apidox a giant bee?" asked Gilbert from his perch on Twitchy-Tail. He was alone on the jackalope's back; being the largest of the heroes, it made more sense for little Genevar to ride behind the much-thinner elf Aithanar than be cramped behind the portly mage. Even MARCI had been reallocated to sharing Binkadink's saddle on Obvious, there being much more room sitting behind a three-foot-tall gnome than a human wizard twice Binkadink's size. And Gilbert's earth elemental familiar Mudpie was currently the size of a pebble, sitting at the bottom of one of the pockets in the wizard's robes. It was much easier on Twitchy-Tail than lugging around a 16-foot-tall creature who easily outweighed her.</p><p></p><p><Yeah - about the size of that balloon spider you fought.></p><p></p><p>"Keep an eye out," suggested Finoula, bringing her hopper Clover moving forward. "The sooner we find this apidox, the sooner we can get out of this desert heat.> She was glad they at least got to spend the evenings inside their <em>Daern's instant fortress</em>. And they felt secure enough inside their magical dwelling they didn't even bother setting out a watch other than MARCI and Mudpie, neither of whom needed any sleep.</p><p></p><p>The hoppers fell back into the single file they'd settled into while traveling through the dunes, with Obvious taking the lead. Chatter decreased once again, as talking generally caused thirst. Only Genevar continued prattling on, giving the rest of the heroes a mental rundown of whatever subject came to mind with the easily-diverted attention of a ten-year-old girl.</p><p></p><p>Genevar had been explaining about some of the cryptic alliances to be found on Gamma Terra - the Knights of Genetic Purity, who slew mutants on sight; the Radioactivists, who worshiped the Radiant Divine Glory of the Atom; the Zoopremacists, intelligent mutant animals who believe the Time of Man is long gone and it's now time for them to rule - when there was an explosion of sand immediately before Obvious. The jackalope reared, startled; Binkadink only managed to stay in the saddle by hanging onto the reins and MARCI only did likewise by gripping the gnome by the shoulders. Behind Obvious, the other jackalopes came to a halt, wondering what was going on.</p><p></p><p>Crawling up out of the desert sands was an enormous scorpion; if it had any mutations other than its enormous size they weren't immediately apparent by any visual cues. Darrien urged his hopper mount Droopy-Ear off to the left side of the formation as he pulled the laser sniper rifle from his back and took aim. He pulled the trigger, half expecting the beam of fiery energy to somehow be deflected from the creature's armored carapace. But the beam of focused energy hit true, carving a notch into the giant mutant scorpion's side, near its right front leg.</p><p></p><p>Hagan brought his own jackalope mount Quickpaws to the right and mirrored the ranger's actions, although he cast a <em>meteor swarm</em> spell instead. Four flaming rocks appeared at high velocity and slammed into the arachnid's body, each one exploding into flames as it hit.</p><p></p><p>The scorpion retaliated at once with its primary offensive power: a pulse of EMP energy that cascaded over the entire formation of hoppers and their riders. Everyone's bodies crackled with sudden electricity, stunning four of the hoppers into immediate unconsciousness - only Obvious and Digger were spared, and they had both been severely burned by the lightning coursing through their bodies. MARCI's artificially-constructed body shut down; she slid, frozen into immobility, off the side of Obvious's saddle to fall into the desert sands. Darrien's laser rifle also shut down, the little green light showing it charged and ready winking out at once.</p><p></p><p><It's an empion!> Genevar called out telepathically. <They're really dangerous!></p><p></p><p>"Then let's get you out of here!" replied Aithanar, kicking Digger with his heels and encouraging the hopper to high-tail it away from the empion at top speed. It wasn't an act of cowardice; far from it - Genevar was their only guide on this strange world and keeping her alive had to be a top priority. Aithanar well knew his fighting prowess wasn't anywhere near the ability of the other heroes' but he could certainly do his best to keep the ten-year-old mutant girl safe from harm. And Genevar had been hit hard by the EMP blast, much harder than any of the others, although nobody had escaped being singed to some degree by the mutant scorpion's blast.</p><p></p><p>And then, just to make matters worse, another of these empions crawled up out of the desert sands off to Gilbert's left. He saw it erupt out of the ground as he regained his feet, his unconscious hopper Twitchy-Tail having been dropped immediately into unconsciousness by the blast. This one seemed different, though, as its upper body seemed covered in warts - and then Gilbert realized with sudden growing horror those weren't warts, but hundreds - if not thousands - of baby empions crawling on top of what must be their mother! Each baby was the size of a normal scorpion from back home in the deserts of Oerth and they immediately started crawling forward - in such numbers it seemed they were flowing off of their mother's back, down her legs, and making their way towards him and his downed mount, an obvious source of food.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink, aware that MARCI had slid off the saddle, leaped off himself with instructions for Obvious to get their downed medical construct to safety while he charged the empion before him on foot. His <em>gnomish boot-stilts</em> increased his speed as he crossed the distance between them, his glaive swinging down at the empion's head as the creature's claws snapped at the little gnome. Obvious obediently clamped down on one of MARCI's metal feet, got a good grip on it with his rodent teeth, and started dragging her backwards in the same direction as Aithanar had taken Digger.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert cast a <em>prismatic spray</em> spell in the direction of the mother empion and her thousands of advancing spawn, thinking it the best way to whittle down their numbers in a hurry. The spell did just that, sending hundreds of the spawn hurtling off to a random plane, turning hundreds of others to stone while coating others in a wave of acid, others in burning flames, and still others in a blast of electricity the wizard couldn't help but notice had absolutely no effect. Others curled up and died, no doubt having been poisoned by the spell. But the adult empion, her carapace burning with acid, advanced rapidly in his direction, undeterred by the damage she'd taken or the loss of hundreds of her offspring.</p><p></p><p>Finoula pulled <em>Tahlmalaera</em> from her scabbard and used its magic to infuse her downed hopper Clover with a <em>heal</em> spell. Clover struggled to her feet and Finoula called for her to flee the scene, pointing in the direction Obvious and Digger had taken. Clover didn't understand the elf's words but didn't really need to; she fled at once in the direction Finoula was pointing.</p><p></p><p>Darrien pulled a <em>potion of cure serious wounds</em> and poured it down Droopy-Ear's throat; the hopper sputtered but woke up, the singed fur and burned skin beneath it healing up as she regained consciousness. Droopy-Ear needed no coaxing to flee the scene, following after Clover who was calling on her siblings to run in the universal language of burrowing mammals.</p><p></p><p>Hagan's mount Quickpaws was still unconscious but the half-orc picked himself up off the desert ground where he'd been thrown, made sure Wezhley was still okay (the canny weasel familiar had gotten a grip on his collar as they fell and remained on his master's shoulder in that manner), and then fired off another <em>meteor swarm</em> spell, this time at the female empion approaching Gilbert with pincers wide open, ready to snap him up. The fiery explosions accompanying Hagan's spell took out another several score of the swarming empion young scurrying below and alongside their mother.</p><p></p><p>The male empion grabbed up Binkadink in a pincer claw and squeezed tightly, pinning the gnome in place. Binkadink made sure his hands were free and he still had a good grip on his <em>reverberating glaive</em>, trusting in his red dragonhide armor to keep him from being cut in half before he could bring this monster down. But then, in a swift stab too quick to avoid (especially under his current predicament), the empion's stinger caught the gnome in the throat, pumping venom into the little gnome's system. Almost immediately, he felt his vitality dropping; he felt as if he'd just run a mile in the desert sand and could feel his heart pumping as if fit to burst. This, he realized, was not good! But there was no sense in dwelling upon it - he put all of his waning strength into another strike at the empion holding him, feeling the sharp blade of his glaive slice into the beast's hardened carapace. It looked like it was going to be a contest of which one could bring the other down first, and Binkadink vowed he'd be the last one standing in that particular competition.</p><p></p><p>The female empion swerved suddenly, ignoring Gilbert to snap Hagan up in her claw and try to pinch the life out of the half-orc sorcerer. Gilbert took the opportunity to cast a <em>quickened fly</em> spell on himself, elevating his position by 60 feet straight up. From there, he figured, he was safe from anything these mutant scorpions could dish out...until he realized he wasn't sure how often the empions could generate those electrified pulses, and even if it was only once a day the female hadn't used that particular attack just yet....</p><p></p><p>Obvious dropped MARCI in the sand, figuring he'd dragged her far enough away she should be safe for now. He urged his fleeing siblings on, looking with worry at Twitchy-Tail and Quickpaws, both of whom were still unconscious, and at his friend Binkadink, caught in the serrated grip of the male empion's left pincer. But Finoula had by now advanced to Quickpaws's side and was pouring the contents of a potion down his throat; Obvious called to his brother and Quickpaws stumbled to his feet and hippity-hopped over his way.</p><p></p><p>Hagan was having no luck escaping from the female's grip and realized he'd never be able to overpower her in any case. But he didn't need to; Gilbert flew down in a nosedive, tapped the half-orc on the shoulder, and cast a <em>dimension door</em> spell that took the two of them 60 feet behind the empion whose claws were now both suddenly empty.</p><p></p><p>With his laser rifle suddenly useless, Darrien dropped it to his side and pulled out his trusty <em>Arachnibow</em>. Then he pulled a rapid succession of arrows from his <em>quiver of Ehlonna</em>, burying the shafts one after one into the carapace of the empion squeezing the life out of Binkadink. The gnome was still giving it his all, bringing his glaive slamming time and time again into the creature's hardened shell, but he was visibly weakening. Obvious came suddenly charging in, antlers lowered and stabbing at the side of the claw holding his gnome friend.</p><p></p><p>Hagan cast another <em>meteor swarm</em> spell at the other empion, the spell taking care of the last of the nearby swarm of empion young - none of this particular brood would be surviving to adulthood! But the female survived the half-orc's spell assault, crawling over to the unconscious Twitchy-Tail, grabbing her up in a pair of serrated claws, and taking a bite out her stomach, letting her entrails drop to the burning desert sands. Gilbert, horrified at the loss of his riding mount, cast a <em>cone of cold</em> spell that almost dropped the empion there and then; the female seemed to be hanging onto life by the merest of threads. Finoula scrambled up onto the empion's body and stabbed down at it with <em>Tahlmalaera</em>, blackish blood oozing up out of the wound when she pulled her blade free. But then Darrien finished it off with a round of arrows around her eyes; the female empion dropped the lifeless Twitchy-Tail and then followed her, falling lifelessly to the sands.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink extracted himself painfully from the claws of the male empion, the half-elf ranger's arrows having finished it off as well. The gnome fumbled in his pack, pulling out a <em>potion of neutralize poison</em> to make sure the venom injected into his neck wouldn't be doing him any further harm. Gilbert checked to see if the gnome was all right. "I got one <em>limited wish</em> spell on hand," he told Binkadink. "Could use it to get venom out of your system...but thought I'd try to bring Twitchy-Tail back."</p><p></p><p>"By all means!" agreed the gnome. "I'll make do." Gilbert nodded (he'd been pretty sure Binkadink would rather have Obvious's sister returned to life than his own vitality restored at once) and thought about what wording he'd use with his spell. <em>Wishes</em> were tricky things; the universe generally didn't like being rewritten at the behest of a spellcaster and defaulted to the easiest way to comply with the wording of the spell. Finally, he decided on the best likely approach. Casting the spell, he said, "I wish I had cast a <em>protection from energy</em> spell on Twitchy-Tail, focusing on protecting her from electricity, immediately before the mutant scorpions attacked." Binkadink couldn't help but notice the wizard had eschewed the use of his normal sing-song way of talking with its truncated phrases and skipped words; Gilbert was smart enough not to want to take any chances on the spell going awry due to poor phraseology.</p><p></p><p>Everyone looked expectantly at Twitchy-Tail, dead on the ground before the slain female empion. She was suddenly not even there; the dead mutant scorpion was alone in death save for the scores of petrified and burned bodies of her spawn. Twitchy-Tail appeared among her other siblings, all gathered around Aithanar who tended to them; her personal timeline had been rewound and replayed in a different fashion after Gilbert's spell had been cast - now she had survived the male empion's initial blast and been encouraged by Gilbert to flee with her siblings. Gilbert made a mental note of the spells he still had stored in his head, ready to be cast, and sure enough the <em>protection from energy</em> spell he'd prepared that morning was no longer there. He sighed in relief.</p><p></p><p>It was several minutes later that MARCI "rebooted," the electromagnetic pulse that had taken her out having run its course. Darrien noted the little green light was back on his laser rifle and nodded in satisfaction, although he'd done just fine with his <em>Arachnibow</em>. MARCI spend the next several minutes scanning everyone and administering her healing injections to those who needed them most. She took a sample of the empion's venom for analysis, so she'd be able to work up an antidote. That, however, would take the better part of a day; Binkadink would just have to make do in the meantime. "I'm fine," he reassured everyone, climbing back into Obvious's saddle and pulling the medical construct up behind him. "Is everyone ready?"</p><p></p><p>They were, and he led the way further into the desert, not sure which way they were going but assured by Genevar's premonitions that whichever way they went would end up being the right way.</p><p></p><p>It was several hours later they realized they were being followed. They'd taken a rest break, Finoula dismounting from Clover and passing her <em>decanter of endless water</em> around, when Darrien noted a plume of dust in the distance, back the way they'd come. Binkadink pulled out the unfamiliar "binoculars" from his pack, looking through the lenses and experimenting with the dial between them until he could get a clear image. "Two people, riding...some kind of weird horse - they have normal horse legs but another pair of spider legs, it looks like! What's with all the spider mutants around here?" he wondered aloud. Hagan's expression of distaste showed he shared the gnome's sentiments.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink continued his observations. "There are six people jogging alongside the spider...horse...things," he said. "They're carrying some kind of rifles like those we got off the sonic yuan-ti. I mean, the hissers."</p><p></p><p><Uh oh,> said Genevar.</p><p></p><p>"You know who they are?" asked Gilbert. "They some of those 'cryptic alliance' people you tell us about?"</p><p></p><p><Describe the men on the spider-horses,> Genevar asked Binkadink. <What are they wearing?></p><p></p><p>The gnome twisted the knob some more, bringing the image back into focus, for the group had gotten closer since he'd first started watching them. "The mounted guys are wearing black leather armor and some kind of round helmets. The six guys running alongside are wearing some kind of green...clothing, it looks like. No armor, just shirt and pants. Black boots and helmets, although their helmets are green. And they don't really seem like running through the desert's much of a problem for them."</p><p></p><p><It isn't,> Genevar agreed sadly.</p><p></p><p>"You know them?" Gilbert pressed on, not having gotten an answer from her yet.</p><p></p><p>Genevar sighed. <The two on the spider-horses are two of my dads,> she admitted. <They're probably tracking me down, so they can take me back with them.></p><p></p><p>"Wait, you have two dads?" Finoula asked. She mentally recalled what Genevar had said. "I mean, <em>more</em> than two dads? How many dads do you have?"</p><p></p><p><A bunch.> She looked over at the adults around her with questioning eyes. <You guys know how babies are made, right?></p><p></p><p>"Think we got the general idea down," Gilbert snickered.</p><p></p><p><Well, when they gene-spliced me together, they took genetic strands from several different males from the group, trying for the best variant. That's what my name means: "Genevar," short for "Genetic Variance." They were trying to expand upon the mental capabilities of members of our particular offshoot of humanity - I think that's probably how come I get flashes of the future.></p><p></p><p>None of this was making much sense to the heroes of Kordovia. Finoula focused in on one aspect of what Genevar had said. "What offshoot is that, exactly?" she asked.</p><p></p><p><Serfs,> Genevar told them. <We're sometimes called "thought masters." The adults get these geometric markings all over their faces--></p><p></p><p>"Burroc!" exploded Aithanar. "That piece of crap that <em>dominated</em> Helga and me for all those weeks and made us his mental slaves while he healed up that wound in his leg!" Hagan knew very well who Aithanar was referring to - he was the first guy he'd helped the Kordovians fight after their return from wildspace.</p><p></p><p>"You one of them?" Gilbert demanded.</p><p></p><p><I was born one of them,> Genevar conceded, flinching from the anger evident on Gilbert's face and even more evident in his thoughts. <But I ran away - I don't want to be part of them! I escaped, and found your world, and I want to go back there and stay there with you! Only first we have to find the Eradicators--></p><p></p><p>Finoula hushed her with a raised hand. "If you don't want to go with them, you don't have to," she assured the little mutant. She turned to the men to make sure none of them were going to raise any objections; they didn't. "What can we expect?" she asked Genevar.</p><p></p><p><Well, they're not going to want to take "no" for an answer,> Genevar explained. <They're pretty much used to getting what they want. They'll try to <em>dominate</em> you to do what they say if you don't do so on your own.></p><p></p><p>"We know that much," Gilbert said. "They evil?"</p><p></p><p>Genevar thought it over. <I never really thought about it, but yeah - the way you guys from Oerth deal with things, they're big-time evil.></p><p></p><p>"You going to be okay with it if we have to kill them?" Gilbert pressed, casting a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell on himself.</p><p></p><p><I'd rather you didn't have to,> frowned Genevar, <but if it comes down to it...I just don't want to have to go back with them. So...yeah.></p><p></p><p>"Prep spells," ordered Gilbert, as Binkadink kept the advancing forces in sight through the binoculars. The portly mage linked everyone together with a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell while both rangers cast their standard <em>barkskin</em> spells. Hagan cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell on himself and Wezhley while Darrien enhanced his riding mount, Droopy-Ear, with both a <em>bear's endurance</em> spell and a <em>cat's grace</em> as well. Then, gathering the six jackalopes together, he cast an <em>animal growth</em> spell on them all. "Humans get small!" gasped Twitchy-Tail, and Obvious explained to his sister that the opposite had happened: they had gotten bigger. The hoppers all thought this was incredibly fun.</p><p></p><p>As a precaution in case he got separated from his mount, Darrien cast a <em>longstrider</em> spell on himself. Binkadink passed the binoculars over to the half-elf as he gulped down a <em>potion of barkskin</em> himself and pulled out his magic horn, giving it a long, steady blow. The <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell snapped in place around the gnome and he put the horn back into his pack. "How they doing?" he asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"Coming up over the next dune soon," he replied, passing back the binoculars to Binkadink. "We should be able to see them just fine."</p><p></p><p>"Are we going to attack immediately?" Hagan asked.</p><p></p><p>"We let them say their piece first," Gilbert replied. "They decide not to take 'no' for answer, then we give them what for."</p><p></p><p><Those six with them are android troopers,> Genevar offered up. <Mechanical people, like MARCI.></p><p></p><p>"More like the opposite of MARCI," argued Binkadink. "She heals - they have rifles."</p><p></p><p>The heroes spread out in a line, waiting for the approaching thought masters and their retinue to approach; Aithanar and Genevar, riding Digger, were some ways behind the line, keeping the adolescent thought master safe behind the others. Up they came, over the dune, and Hagan suppressed a shiver of revulsion at the appearance of the spider-horses: besides the four arachnid legs between the more equine ones, the beasts also each had eight shiny eyes like a spider and a bloated abdomen that looked quite capable of generating web-silk.</p><p></p><p>The thought masters slowed as they approached, allowing the androids to move on ahead and spread out in a line before them. <We have no desire to fight you!> assured one of the thought masters, broadcasting his thoughts directly into the minds of the assembled heroes. <Just hand over the girl and we'll be on our way!></p><p></p><p>"Girl don't want to go with you," Gilbert replied. "I think she stay with us."</p><p></p><p><That's not for her to decide,> the thought master answered. <She's not yet of age - her poison-claws haven't even had time to grow in!></p><p></p><p>Gilbert opened his mouth as if to reply but only arcane syllables spilled from his lips. Almost immediately, a <em>quickened Evard's black tentacles</em> spell sprang into being, the writhing appendages of the spell wrapping around the first four androids and the thought master and his mutant mount on the wizard's right. Darrien, seeing combat was now under way, raised his <em>Arachnibow</em> and fired at the ground between the other two androids, causing a <em>web</em> spell to erupt between them and cover them in thick, sticky webbing. He followed with a string of follow-on arrows, each of these focused on the thought master behind the two he'd just webbed up.</p><p></p><p>With an impassive expression on its androgynous face, the android at the edge of the circle of writhing tentacles managed to extricate himself, stumbling out onto the desert sands. The one beside him tried to do the same but failed, that one being already too far entwined by rubbery tentacles. The other two, however, managed to free themselves and brought their rifles up, scanning for and choosing their targets. Those bound up in Darrien's <em>web</em> spell tried without success to free themselves, despite their metal construction they hadn't been built with much more strength than that possessed by the average human.</p><p></p><p>Finoula raised a hand to her throat and activated her <em>amulet of lightning</em>. She fled from Clover's back as a living lightning bolt, crashing through the bodies of the thought master and his spider-horse mount, rebounding through one of the webbed androids, and reforming on the ground beside her oversize jackalope mount in the mere blink of an eye. The thought master and the spider-horse fell to the ground, dead, a strange weapon looking like the metal head of a morningstar with retractable spikes falling from the serf's hands, the telekinetic weapon not having been used even once in the battle. But as the thought master died, he called out a single telepathic word: <Grandfather!></p><p></p><p>Gilbert cast a <em>maximized chain lightning</em> spell on the thought master caught up in the <em>Evards' black tentacles</em> spell; the extra height afforded by being mounted allowed him to be seen just fine by the Korvovian wizard. Arcs of electricity went flying from him to hit his aracho-equine steed, the android bound by tentacles before him, and the three who had escaped out the sides of the mass of rubbery appendages. The thought master and the spider-horse both died at once; the androids were scorched but not slain.</p><p></p><p>And then, with a wavering in the air like a phase spider arriving on the material plane, "Grandfather" made his appearance, summoned to the physical world by one of its descendants. This was a massive, pulsing brain, easily 30 feet from front to back, held aloft at least 50 or 60 feet in the air by eight thick tentacles in a ring along its brain stem. It seemed to be raining smaller brains from its undersides, but these ended up being much smaller, separate creatures: "brain frogs," each a halfling-sized brain with four froglike legs, which hopped along beneath the walking brain.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert, momentarily shocked at the sudden appearance of this monstrosity, began the words to a <em>quickened wall of force</em>, trying to erect a barrier between the heroes and the walking brain before it could attack. In this he was only partially successful: the <em>wall of force</em> snapped in place, but even at 30 feet in height it wasn't tall enough to be a barrier between the crown of the walking brain's central cortex and the wizard, especially since his mount Twitchy-Tail had been enlarged to twice her normal size. A beam of focused mental energy came lancing from the front of the walking brain to strike Gilbert in the forehead and he was instantly stunned into immobility, as Twitchy-Tail first backed away from the odd-looking brain-on-tentacles and then spun in place and raced away. Virtually unnoticed, the brain frogs hopped forward, seeking out their victims; through their link with the walking brain, they knew the exact location of the invisible <em>wall of force</em> and moved to hop around it.</p><p></p><p>Hagan looked up at the walking brain and saw nothing but a nice, soft mass of brain tissue just itching to be hit with a <em>meteor swarm</em> spell. The half-orc sorcerer did just that, sending four flaming meteors swarming up to the elevated brain to explode upon impact. In the meantime, Aithanar urged Digger to race off to the side, away from the walking brain towering above them. Genevar clung to his sides with terror in her eyes; "Grandfather," she knew, was an advanced mutant lifeform and the repository of the accumulated knowledge of generations of thought masters who had been brought before it just before their deaths - as well as the knowledge ripped from the minds of the victims the walking brain had grasped in its tentacles and drained of all intellect - but the massive thing just creeped her out; she didn't want to ever have her thoughts and memories trapped inside that monstrosity!</p><p></p><p>Binkadink pointed his glaive at one of the freed androids and had Obvious charge forward, allowing him to bring his blade slicing into its metal body with a ringing sound. Obvious followed his charge with a bite of his enormous rodent's teeth, clamping down on the android's shoulder and raising him up off the ground. Darrien continued pumping arrow after arrow into one of the androids still caught up in his <em>web</em> spell; the thing was barely discernibly humanoid any more, its upper half covered in thick webs and bristling with arrow shafts.</p><p></p><p>A blast from another android's rifle came flashing at Obvious; Binkadink, anticipating the shot, managed to tug his mount's reins enough to get the jackalope to dodge his massive head in time to avoid the shot. But the android Obvious had been chewing on escaped from his teeth, dropping back down to the ground and backing up to line up a good shot. Binkadink sent his glaive swinging down at the android's arms to prevent the shot from being taken. But another android fired its weapon, hitting Obvious straight in the middle of his furry chest.</p><p></p><p>It had no effect. Not wanting Genevar to come to any harm, the thought masters had armed their android troopers with stun ray rifles and while the blast had hit Obvious full-on it wasn't yet enough to drop the massive jackalope. Meanwhile, the three androids still caught up in the webs or the writhing tentacles failed to make any further progress on their attempts to escape.</p><p></p><p>Finoula, by now, had noticed the brain frogs hopping beneath the massive walking brain and cast a <em>stone spikes</em> spell directly before them, aimed in a wide arc. They impaled themselves on the sharp, projecting spikes rising up from the desert sands, being slain by gravity and their hopping gait, which made avoiding the stone spikes impossible. Only two of the dozen or so survived, and those only because they had randomly wandered off to try to follow Aithanar, Genevar, and Digger, who had been the physically closest to them when they had popped into this plane.</p><p></p><p>Despite the fact Gilbert had been taken out of the fight - his mind was still completely stunned, his body motionless, the wizard staying in place on Twitchy-Tail's back only because the hopper was taking particular care not to bounce him off - his spells continued and the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> finally finished crushing the android it had caught within its ebony appendages.</p><p></p><p>The walking brain ambled forward, the tips of its thick tentacles expertly avoiding the stone spikes Finoula had scattered before it - so expertly, in fact, the elven ranger suspected it had some weird mental abilities that took the place of sight, for she could see no eyes present anywhere on the thing's physical form. One tentacle dashed out with surprising speed, wrapping around Finoula's waist and dragging her back over to it, crushing her with a surprising level of strength. She struggled to free one arm, trying to get her hand up to touch her <em>amulet of lightning</em> which, she knew, would be the easiest way for her to escape its crushing grasp.</p><p></p><p>Hagan saw Finoula being crushed in a tentacle of the walking brain and urged his mount Quickpaws forward. The jackalope seemed hesitant to approach the massive aberration, but apparently trusted the sorcerer with the funny name that didn't actually mean anything enough to do as he was asked. He leaped up, gaining enough height in mid-leap that Hagan was able to reach over and tap the tentacle with his hand, channeling a spell through it as he did so.</p><p></p><p>By the time Quickpaws landed and started veering away from the walking brain, the <em>Otto's irresistible dance</em> spell had taken effect and the massive brain was no longer walking so much as hopping about on the tips of its tentacles in a complicated pattern that was no doubt its closest approximation of "dancing."</p><p></p><p>As the dancing brain capered behind him, Binkadink brought his <em>reverberating glaive</em> down into an android's head, dropping it instantly, then swinging his weapon cross-ways to carve deep into the chest of another one beside it. The first construct made no further attempts at movement, its internal systems having been rendered incapable of such an action. At about the same time, Darrien's arrows finally took out the first of the webbed androids and he automatically, without missing a beat, switched targets over to the other one. It tried feebly to free itself from the <em>web</em> and now it too started springing arrow shafts all over its body.</p><p></p><p>There were now only two androids capable of free movement and they both tried shooting Obvious with their stun rifles. The jackalope dodged one shot but was hit by the second; still, it failed to knock him out - no doubt to the increased vitality he had thanks to his increased size from Darrien's <em>enlarge animal</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>Finoula finally freed her arm, activated her amulet, and went blasting up into the underside of the massive brain above her before angling off back to the ground, avoiding the area of stone spikes. The walking brain continued its tentacle-tip capering, looking rather foolish but more importantly focusing all of its attention, such that it couldn't target anyone else with the mind blast beam that had taken out Gilbert Fung so easily. That made the walking brain an even easier target for another <em>meteor swarm</em> spell from Hagan. Binkadink destroyed another of the androids with his glaive, while Darrien finished off the second of the webbed androids with his arrows. Then he spun in place and started firing up at the massive brain towering above him. A concentrated effort between Darrien and Hagan finally brought the thing tumbling down to the ground in a thrashing of rubbery tentacles; Finoula just barely leaped out of the way before it would have landed directly on top of her.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink sent Obvious to round up the rest of his siblings, most of whom had by this time fled out of range, while he gathered up the six stun rifles the androids had carried. (He had to wait until Gilbert snapped out of it and deactivated his <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell before he could get them all.) "Six of us, six of them," he said, passing a stun rifle to each of the heroes.</p><p></p><p>"Are you okay?" Finoula asked Genevar, looking down at the bodies in the sands before them.</p><p></p><p><Yeah, I'm fine,> replied the little mutant. <Can we go?> She was studiously avoiding looking at the bodies of either of her dads or the massive walking brain lying in the sand.</p><p></p><p>"We certainly can," agreed Binkadink, climbing back up onto Obvious's saddle. Then he led the group away from the scene of carnage, to wander aimlessly in the desert until they found the apidox they were destined to fight before rescuing the Eradicators and bringing them back to a desolate, shattered world.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>I saw an image of a brain frog once using Google Images and decided right then and there I had to use it in a D&D adventure some day. When I later saw an image of a walking brain (apparently from an old black-and-white science fiction movie of the same name) I made the same decision. Eventually, I decided these would make good adversaries for the Gamma World portion of this campaign and statted them up. (The brain frogs didn't get to do much, but if they had managed to leap onto a PC's head they could attempt to <em>dominate</em> the PC and steer him or her over to the walking brain to be drained of Intelligence.)</p><p></p><p>The brain frogs were easy enough to make as flat tokens but the walking brain gave me a much harder time. I had decided I needed a stand-up, 3D miniature rather than just a flat token; fortunately I had a package of construction paper which had been depleted of just about every color but pink. So I started out with the crafting of the brain, gluing strips of pink construction paper together to get the basic "brain" shape and then filling in the gaps as best I could with more strips. Then I had to figure out a way to support it on eight tentacles, and this proved to be a much bigger challenge. Eventually, I hit upon an easy solution: Harry likes "bendy" straws for his milk and we had picked up a bag of 300 or so for a couple of bucks. I grabbed up eight pink ones and eight peach ones and discovered they could easily be stuck one end into the other. So I stuck the non-bendy ends of eight pink straws into the non-bendy ends of eight peach straws, then stuck the bendy-ends of four pairs of the pink straws together. I built a base out of heavy cardboard, making eight sets of cuts along the outer edges such that the eight sections (each the width of a straw) could be folded upwards and slid into the bendy end of a peach straw. That done, I ended up with four sets of "tentacle legs" - I taped the tops of the front two together and did likewise with the back set, then cut a long strip of pink construction paper just slightly smaller in width than the gap between the bendy tops of the straw pairs. With my straw-tentacle platform base thus created and rather sturdy, it was easy enough to affix the brain in place above it with clear tape. It won't win any miniature awards, but it was a cool prop to plop down on the table when it shifted into the Material Plane at the behest of the thought masters. It's just a bit of a bummer when I realize I spent a <em>lot</em> more time crafting the silly thing than it ever got to see use in the game.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: My red "Iron Man" T-shirt, to represent the android troopers. And as I wasn't sure how long it would take to play through this adventure, this was also potentially a good representation of the Eradicators, if we finished the adventure early and decided to get a start on the next one, in which the Eradicators will finally make their appearance. (Good thing I have a second Iron Man T-shirt to wear for the next time we play!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7992948, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 77: WASTING BRAINS[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Darrien, half-elf ranger 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Gilbert Fung, human wizard 20[/INDENT] [INDENT] Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 20[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 8[/INDENT] [INDENT] Genevar, humanoid mutant[/INDENT] [INDENT] MARCI, humanoid construct[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 16 May 2020 - - - Two days into the desert, the thrill and excitement of new experiences was starting to wear a little thin among the hoppers. They'd become perfectly content with having the Kordovians ride on their backs; the weight was negligible and in return they were fed on a regular schedule and got to continue to hang out with their litter-mates, which was nice. And when they had first encountered the desert, when the rolling plains had given way to the sands of the vast desert Genevar explained covered a good chunk of the center part of the continent, the hoppers were excited to see a completely new environment. But after two days of hopping through the burning sands, even with frequent breaks - Finoula's [I]decanter of endless water[/I] was put to quite frequent use - it was starting to get a little old. "How much longer do you think it's going to be until we find Eradicator Base?" asked Binkadink from the saddle of his jackalope Obvious. He took the opportunity to wipe the sweat from the back of his neck with a handkerchief, already soiled from frequent use. <I have no idea,> admitted the mutant girl from her seat behind Aithanar on the hopper Digger. <All I know is we find Eradicator Base shortly after you guys fight the apidox.> "And this apidox a giant bee?" asked Gilbert from his perch on Twitchy-Tail. He was alone on the jackalope's back; being the largest of the heroes, it made more sense for little Genevar to ride behind the much-thinner elf Aithanar than be cramped behind the portly mage. Even MARCI had been reallocated to sharing Binkadink's saddle on Obvious, there being much more room sitting behind a three-foot-tall gnome than a human wizard twice Binkadink's size. And Gilbert's earth elemental familiar Mudpie was currently the size of a pebble, sitting at the bottom of one of the pockets in the wizard's robes. It was much easier on Twitchy-Tail than lugging around a 16-foot-tall creature who easily outweighed her. <Yeah - about the size of that balloon spider you fought.> "Keep an eye out," suggested Finoula, bringing her hopper Clover moving forward. "The sooner we find this apidox, the sooner we can get out of this desert heat.> She was glad they at least got to spend the evenings inside their [I]Daern's instant fortress[/I]. And they felt secure enough inside their magical dwelling they didn't even bother setting out a watch other than MARCI and Mudpie, neither of whom needed any sleep. The hoppers fell back into the single file they'd settled into while traveling through the dunes, with Obvious taking the lead. Chatter decreased once again, as talking generally caused thirst. Only Genevar continued prattling on, giving the rest of the heroes a mental rundown of whatever subject came to mind with the easily-diverted attention of a ten-year-old girl. Genevar had been explaining about some of the cryptic alliances to be found on Gamma Terra - the Knights of Genetic Purity, who slew mutants on sight; the Radioactivists, who worshiped the Radiant Divine Glory of the Atom; the Zoopremacists, intelligent mutant animals who believe the Time of Man is long gone and it's now time for them to rule - when there was an explosion of sand immediately before Obvious. The jackalope reared, startled; Binkadink only managed to stay in the saddle by hanging onto the reins and MARCI only did likewise by gripping the gnome by the shoulders. Behind Obvious, the other jackalopes came to a halt, wondering what was going on. Crawling up out of the desert sands was an enormous scorpion; if it had any mutations other than its enormous size they weren't immediately apparent by any visual cues. Darrien urged his hopper mount Droopy-Ear off to the left side of the formation as he pulled the laser sniper rifle from his back and took aim. He pulled the trigger, half expecting the beam of fiery energy to somehow be deflected from the creature's armored carapace. But the beam of focused energy hit true, carving a notch into the giant mutant scorpion's side, near its right front leg. Hagan brought his own jackalope mount Quickpaws to the right and mirrored the ranger's actions, although he cast a [I]meteor swarm[/I] spell instead. Four flaming rocks appeared at high velocity and slammed into the arachnid's body, each one exploding into flames as it hit. The scorpion retaliated at once with its primary offensive power: a pulse of EMP energy that cascaded over the entire formation of hoppers and their riders. Everyone's bodies crackled with sudden electricity, stunning four of the hoppers into immediate unconsciousness - only Obvious and Digger were spared, and they had both been severely burned by the lightning coursing through their bodies. MARCI's artificially-constructed body shut down; she slid, frozen into immobility, off the side of Obvious's saddle to fall into the desert sands. Darrien's laser rifle also shut down, the little green light showing it charged and ready winking out at once. <It's an empion!> Genevar called out telepathically. <They're really dangerous!> "Then let's get you out of here!" replied Aithanar, kicking Digger with his heels and encouraging the hopper to high-tail it away from the empion at top speed. It wasn't an act of cowardice; far from it - Genevar was their only guide on this strange world and keeping her alive had to be a top priority. Aithanar well knew his fighting prowess wasn't anywhere near the ability of the other heroes' but he could certainly do his best to keep the ten-year-old mutant girl safe from harm. And Genevar had been hit hard by the EMP blast, much harder than any of the others, although nobody had escaped being singed to some degree by the mutant scorpion's blast. And then, just to make matters worse, another of these empions crawled up out of the desert sands off to Gilbert's left. He saw it erupt out of the ground as he regained his feet, his unconscious hopper Twitchy-Tail having been dropped immediately into unconsciousness by the blast. This one seemed different, though, as its upper body seemed covered in warts - and then Gilbert realized with sudden growing horror those weren't warts, but hundreds - if not thousands - of baby empions crawling on top of what must be their mother! Each baby was the size of a normal scorpion from back home in the deserts of Oerth and they immediately started crawling forward - in such numbers it seemed they were flowing off of their mother's back, down her legs, and making their way towards him and his downed mount, an obvious source of food. Binkadink, aware that MARCI had slid off the saddle, leaped off himself with instructions for Obvious to get their downed medical construct to safety while he charged the empion before him on foot. His [I]gnomish boot-stilts[/I] increased his speed as he crossed the distance between them, his glaive swinging down at the empion's head as the creature's claws snapped at the little gnome. Obvious obediently clamped down on one of MARCI's metal feet, got a good grip on it with his rodent teeth, and started dragging her backwards in the same direction as Aithanar had taken Digger. Gilbert cast a [I]prismatic spray[/I] spell in the direction of the mother empion and her thousands of advancing spawn, thinking it the best way to whittle down their numbers in a hurry. The spell did just that, sending hundreds of the spawn hurtling off to a random plane, turning hundreds of others to stone while coating others in a wave of acid, others in burning flames, and still others in a blast of electricity the wizard couldn't help but notice had absolutely no effect. Others curled up and died, no doubt having been poisoned by the spell. But the adult empion, her carapace burning with acid, advanced rapidly in his direction, undeterred by the damage she'd taken or the loss of hundreds of her offspring. Finoula pulled [I]Tahlmalaera[/I] from her scabbard and used its magic to infuse her downed hopper Clover with a [I]heal[/I] spell. Clover struggled to her feet and Finoula called for her to flee the scene, pointing in the direction Obvious and Digger had taken. Clover didn't understand the elf's words but didn't really need to; she fled at once in the direction Finoula was pointing. Darrien pulled a [I]potion of cure serious wounds[/I] and poured it down Droopy-Ear's throat; the hopper sputtered but woke up, the singed fur and burned skin beneath it healing up as she regained consciousness. Droopy-Ear needed no coaxing to flee the scene, following after Clover who was calling on her siblings to run in the universal language of burrowing mammals. Hagan's mount Quickpaws was still unconscious but the half-orc picked himself up off the desert ground where he'd been thrown, made sure Wezhley was still okay (the canny weasel familiar had gotten a grip on his collar as they fell and remained on his master's shoulder in that manner), and then fired off another [I]meteor swarm[/I] spell, this time at the female empion approaching Gilbert with pincers wide open, ready to snap him up. The fiery explosions accompanying Hagan's spell took out another several score of the swarming empion young scurrying below and alongside their mother. The male empion grabbed up Binkadink in a pincer claw and squeezed tightly, pinning the gnome in place. Binkadink made sure his hands were free and he still had a good grip on his [I]reverberating glaive[/I], trusting in his red dragonhide armor to keep him from being cut in half before he could bring this monster down. But then, in a swift stab too quick to avoid (especially under his current predicament), the empion's stinger caught the gnome in the throat, pumping venom into the little gnome's system. Almost immediately, he felt his vitality dropping; he felt as if he'd just run a mile in the desert sand and could feel his heart pumping as if fit to burst. This, he realized, was not good! But there was no sense in dwelling upon it - he put all of his waning strength into another strike at the empion holding him, feeling the sharp blade of his glaive slice into the beast's hardened carapace. It looked like it was going to be a contest of which one could bring the other down first, and Binkadink vowed he'd be the last one standing in that particular competition. The female empion swerved suddenly, ignoring Gilbert to snap Hagan up in her claw and try to pinch the life out of the half-orc sorcerer. Gilbert took the opportunity to cast a [I]quickened fly[/I] spell on himself, elevating his position by 60 feet straight up. From there, he figured, he was safe from anything these mutant scorpions could dish out...until he realized he wasn't sure how often the empions could generate those electrified pulses, and even if it was only once a day the female hadn't used that particular attack just yet.... Obvious dropped MARCI in the sand, figuring he'd dragged her far enough away she should be safe for now. He urged his fleeing siblings on, looking with worry at Twitchy-Tail and Quickpaws, both of whom were still unconscious, and at his friend Binkadink, caught in the serrated grip of the male empion's left pincer. But Finoula had by now advanced to Quickpaws's side and was pouring the contents of a potion down his throat; Obvious called to his brother and Quickpaws stumbled to his feet and hippity-hopped over his way. Hagan was having no luck escaping from the female's grip and realized he'd never be able to overpower her in any case. But he didn't need to; Gilbert flew down in a nosedive, tapped the half-orc on the shoulder, and cast a [I]dimension door[/I] spell that took the two of them 60 feet behind the empion whose claws were now both suddenly empty. With his laser rifle suddenly useless, Darrien dropped it to his side and pulled out his trusty [I]Arachnibow[/I]. Then he pulled a rapid succession of arrows from his [I]quiver of Ehlonna[/I], burying the shafts one after one into the carapace of the empion squeezing the life out of Binkadink. The gnome was still giving it his all, bringing his glaive slamming time and time again into the creature's hardened shell, but he was visibly weakening. Obvious came suddenly charging in, antlers lowered and stabbing at the side of the claw holding his gnome friend. Hagan cast another [I]meteor swarm[/I] spell at the other empion, the spell taking care of the last of the nearby swarm of empion young - none of this particular brood would be surviving to adulthood! But the female survived the half-orc's spell assault, crawling over to the unconscious Twitchy-Tail, grabbing her up in a pair of serrated claws, and taking a bite out her stomach, letting her entrails drop to the burning desert sands. Gilbert, horrified at the loss of his riding mount, cast a [I]cone of cold[/I] spell that almost dropped the empion there and then; the female seemed to be hanging onto life by the merest of threads. Finoula scrambled up onto the empion's body and stabbed down at it with [I]Tahlmalaera[/I], blackish blood oozing up out of the wound when she pulled her blade free. But then Darrien finished it off with a round of arrows around her eyes; the female empion dropped the lifeless Twitchy-Tail and then followed her, falling lifelessly to the sands. Binkadink extracted himself painfully from the claws of the male empion, the half-elf ranger's arrows having finished it off as well. The gnome fumbled in his pack, pulling out a [I]potion of neutralize poison[/I] to make sure the venom injected into his neck wouldn't be doing him any further harm. Gilbert checked to see if the gnome was all right. "I got one [I]limited wish[/I] spell on hand," he told Binkadink. "Could use it to get venom out of your system...but thought I'd try to bring Twitchy-Tail back." "By all means!" agreed the gnome. "I'll make do." Gilbert nodded (he'd been pretty sure Binkadink would rather have Obvious's sister returned to life than his own vitality restored at once) and thought about what wording he'd use with his spell. [I]Wishes[/I] were tricky things; the universe generally didn't like being rewritten at the behest of a spellcaster and defaulted to the easiest way to comply with the wording of the spell. Finally, he decided on the best likely approach. Casting the spell, he said, "I wish I had cast a [I]protection from energy[/I] spell on Twitchy-Tail, focusing on protecting her from electricity, immediately before the mutant scorpions attacked." Binkadink couldn't help but notice the wizard had eschewed the use of his normal sing-song way of talking with its truncated phrases and skipped words; Gilbert was smart enough not to want to take any chances on the spell going awry due to poor phraseology. Everyone looked expectantly at Twitchy-Tail, dead on the ground before the slain female empion. She was suddenly not even there; the dead mutant scorpion was alone in death save for the scores of petrified and burned bodies of her spawn. Twitchy-Tail appeared among her other siblings, all gathered around Aithanar who tended to them; her personal timeline had been rewound and replayed in a different fashion after Gilbert's spell had been cast - now she had survived the male empion's initial blast and been encouraged by Gilbert to flee with her siblings. Gilbert made a mental note of the spells he still had stored in his head, ready to be cast, and sure enough the [I]protection from energy[/I] spell he'd prepared that morning was no longer there. He sighed in relief. It was several minutes later that MARCI "rebooted," the electromagnetic pulse that had taken her out having run its course. Darrien noted the little green light was back on his laser rifle and nodded in satisfaction, although he'd done just fine with his [I]Arachnibow[/I]. MARCI spend the next several minutes scanning everyone and administering her healing injections to those who needed them most. She took a sample of the empion's venom for analysis, so she'd be able to work up an antidote. That, however, would take the better part of a day; Binkadink would just have to make do in the meantime. "I'm fine," he reassured everyone, climbing back into Obvious's saddle and pulling the medical construct up behind him. "Is everyone ready?" They were, and he led the way further into the desert, not sure which way they were going but assured by Genevar's premonitions that whichever way they went would end up being the right way. It was several hours later they realized they were being followed. They'd taken a rest break, Finoula dismounting from Clover and passing her [I]decanter of endless water[/I] around, when Darrien noted a plume of dust in the distance, back the way they'd come. Binkadink pulled out the unfamiliar "binoculars" from his pack, looking through the lenses and experimenting with the dial between them until he could get a clear image. "Two people, riding...some kind of weird horse - they have normal horse legs but another pair of spider legs, it looks like! What's with all the spider mutants around here?" he wondered aloud. Hagan's expression of distaste showed he shared the gnome's sentiments. Binkadink continued his observations. "There are six people jogging alongside the spider...horse...things," he said. "They're carrying some kind of rifles like those we got off the sonic yuan-ti. I mean, the hissers." <Uh oh,> said Genevar. "You know who they are?" asked Gilbert. "They some of those 'cryptic alliance' people you tell us about?" <Describe the men on the spider-horses,> Genevar asked Binkadink. <What are they wearing?> The gnome twisted the knob some more, bringing the image back into focus, for the group had gotten closer since he'd first started watching them. "The mounted guys are wearing black leather armor and some kind of round helmets. The six guys running alongside are wearing some kind of green...clothing, it looks like. No armor, just shirt and pants. Black boots and helmets, although their helmets are green. And they don't really seem like running through the desert's much of a problem for them." <It isn't,> Genevar agreed sadly. "You know them?" Gilbert pressed on, not having gotten an answer from her yet. Genevar sighed. <The two on the spider-horses are two of my dads,> she admitted. <They're probably tracking me down, so they can take me back with them.> "Wait, you have two dads?" Finoula asked. She mentally recalled what Genevar had said. "I mean, [I]more[/I] than two dads? How many dads do you have?" <A bunch.> She looked over at the adults around her with questioning eyes. <You guys know how babies are made, right?> "Think we got the general idea down," Gilbert snickered. <Well, when they gene-spliced me together, they took genetic strands from several different males from the group, trying for the best variant. That's what my name means: "Genevar," short for "Genetic Variance." They were trying to expand upon the mental capabilities of members of our particular offshoot of humanity - I think that's probably how come I get flashes of the future.> None of this was making much sense to the heroes of Kordovia. Finoula focused in on one aspect of what Genevar had said. "What offshoot is that, exactly?" she asked. <Serfs,> Genevar told them. <We're sometimes called "thought masters." The adults get these geometric markings all over their faces--> "Burroc!" exploded Aithanar. "That piece of crap that [I]dominated[/I] Helga and me for all those weeks and made us his mental slaves while he healed up that wound in his leg!" Hagan knew very well who Aithanar was referring to - he was the first guy he'd helped the Kordovians fight after their return from wildspace. "You one of them?" Gilbert demanded. <I was born one of them,> Genevar conceded, flinching from the anger evident on Gilbert's face and even more evident in his thoughts. <But I ran away - I don't want to be part of them! I escaped, and found your world, and I want to go back there and stay there with you! Only first we have to find the Eradicators--> Finoula hushed her with a raised hand. "If you don't want to go with them, you don't have to," she assured the little mutant. She turned to the men to make sure none of them were going to raise any objections; they didn't. "What can we expect?" she asked Genevar. <Well, they're not going to want to take "no" for an answer,> Genevar explained. <They're pretty much used to getting what they want. They'll try to [I]dominate[/I] you to do what they say if you don't do so on your own.> "We know that much," Gilbert said. "They evil?" Genevar thought it over. <I never really thought about it, but yeah - the way you guys from Oerth deal with things, they're big-time evil.> "You going to be okay with it if we have to kill them?" Gilbert pressed, casting a [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell on himself. <I'd rather you didn't have to,> frowned Genevar, <but if it comes down to it...I just don't want to have to go back with them. So...yeah.> "Prep spells," ordered Gilbert, as Binkadink kept the advancing forces in sight through the binoculars. The portly mage linked everyone together with a [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell while both rangers cast their standard [I]barkskin[/I] spells. Hagan cast a [I]stoneskin[/I] spell on himself and Wezhley while Darrien enhanced his riding mount, Droopy-Ear, with both a [I]bear's endurance[/I] spell and a [I]cat's grace[/I] as well. Then, gathering the six jackalopes together, he cast an [I]animal growth[/I] spell on them all. "Humans get small!" gasped Twitchy-Tail, and Obvious explained to his sister that the opposite had happened: they had gotten bigger. The hoppers all thought this was incredibly fun. As a precaution in case he got separated from his mount, Darrien cast a [I]longstrider[/I] spell on himself. Binkadink passed the binoculars over to the half-elf as he gulped down a [I]potion of barkskin[/I] himself and pulled out his magic horn, giving it a long, steady blow. The [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell snapped in place around the gnome and he put the horn back into his pack. "How they doing?" he asked Darrien. "Coming up over the next dune soon," he replied, passing back the binoculars to Binkadink. "We should be able to see them just fine." "Are we going to attack immediately?" Hagan asked. "We let them say their piece first," Gilbert replied. "They decide not to take 'no' for answer, then we give them what for." <Those six with them are android troopers,> Genevar offered up. <Mechanical people, like MARCI.> "More like the opposite of MARCI," argued Binkadink. "She heals - they have rifles." The heroes spread out in a line, waiting for the approaching thought masters and their retinue to approach; Aithanar and Genevar, riding Digger, were some ways behind the line, keeping the adolescent thought master safe behind the others. Up they came, over the dune, and Hagan suppressed a shiver of revulsion at the appearance of the spider-horses: besides the four arachnid legs between the more equine ones, the beasts also each had eight shiny eyes like a spider and a bloated abdomen that looked quite capable of generating web-silk. The thought masters slowed as they approached, allowing the androids to move on ahead and spread out in a line before them. <We have no desire to fight you!> assured one of the thought masters, broadcasting his thoughts directly into the minds of the assembled heroes. <Just hand over the girl and we'll be on our way!> "Girl don't want to go with you," Gilbert replied. "I think she stay with us." <That's not for her to decide,> the thought master answered. <She's not yet of age - her poison-claws haven't even had time to grow in!> Gilbert opened his mouth as if to reply but only arcane syllables spilled from his lips. Almost immediately, a [I]quickened Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell sprang into being, the writhing appendages of the spell wrapping around the first four androids and the thought master and his mutant mount on the wizard's right. Darrien, seeing combat was now under way, raised his [I]Arachnibow[/I] and fired at the ground between the other two androids, causing a [I]web[/I] spell to erupt between them and cover them in thick, sticky webbing. He followed with a string of follow-on arrows, each of these focused on the thought master behind the two he'd just webbed up. With an impassive expression on its androgynous face, the android at the edge of the circle of writhing tentacles managed to extricate himself, stumbling out onto the desert sands. The one beside him tried to do the same but failed, that one being already too far entwined by rubbery tentacles. The other two, however, managed to free themselves and brought their rifles up, scanning for and choosing their targets. Those bound up in Darrien's [I]web[/I] spell tried without success to free themselves, despite their metal construction they hadn't been built with much more strength than that possessed by the average human. Finoula raised a hand to her throat and activated her [I]amulet of lightning[/I]. She fled from Clover's back as a living lightning bolt, crashing through the bodies of the thought master and his spider-horse mount, rebounding through one of the webbed androids, and reforming on the ground beside her oversize jackalope mount in the mere blink of an eye. The thought master and the spider-horse fell to the ground, dead, a strange weapon looking like the metal head of a morningstar with retractable spikes falling from the serf's hands, the telekinetic weapon not having been used even once in the battle. But as the thought master died, he called out a single telepathic word: <Grandfather!> Gilbert cast a [I]maximized chain lightning[/I] spell on the thought master caught up in the [I]Evards' black tentacles[/I] spell; the extra height afforded by being mounted allowed him to be seen just fine by the Korvovian wizard. Arcs of electricity went flying from him to hit his aracho-equine steed, the android bound by tentacles before him, and the three who had escaped out the sides of the mass of rubbery appendages. The thought master and the spider-horse both died at once; the androids were scorched but not slain. And then, with a wavering in the air like a phase spider arriving on the material plane, "Grandfather" made his appearance, summoned to the physical world by one of its descendants. This was a massive, pulsing brain, easily 30 feet from front to back, held aloft at least 50 or 60 feet in the air by eight thick tentacles in a ring along its brain stem. It seemed to be raining smaller brains from its undersides, but these ended up being much smaller, separate creatures: "brain frogs," each a halfling-sized brain with four froglike legs, which hopped along beneath the walking brain. Gilbert, momentarily shocked at the sudden appearance of this monstrosity, began the words to a [I]quickened wall of force[/I], trying to erect a barrier between the heroes and the walking brain before it could attack. In this he was only partially successful: the [I]wall of force[/I] snapped in place, but even at 30 feet in height it wasn't tall enough to be a barrier between the crown of the walking brain's central cortex and the wizard, especially since his mount Twitchy-Tail had been enlarged to twice her normal size. A beam of focused mental energy came lancing from the front of the walking brain to strike Gilbert in the forehead and he was instantly stunned into immobility, as Twitchy-Tail first backed away from the odd-looking brain-on-tentacles and then spun in place and raced away. Virtually unnoticed, the brain frogs hopped forward, seeking out their victims; through their link with the walking brain, they knew the exact location of the invisible [I]wall of force[/I] and moved to hop around it. Hagan looked up at the walking brain and saw nothing but a nice, soft mass of brain tissue just itching to be hit with a [I]meteor swarm[/I] spell. The half-orc sorcerer did just that, sending four flaming meteors swarming up to the elevated brain to explode upon impact. In the meantime, Aithanar urged Digger to race off to the side, away from the walking brain towering above them. Genevar clung to his sides with terror in her eyes; "Grandfather," she knew, was an advanced mutant lifeform and the repository of the accumulated knowledge of generations of thought masters who had been brought before it just before their deaths - as well as the knowledge ripped from the minds of the victims the walking brain had grasped in its tentacles and drained of all intellect - but the massive thing just creeped her out; she didn't want to ever have her thoughts and memories trapped inside that monstrosity! Binkadink pointed his glaive at one of the freed androids and had Obvious charge forward, allowing him to bring his blade slicing into its metal body with a ringing sound. Obvious followed his charge with a bite of his enormous rodent's teeth, clamping down on the android's shoulder and raising him up off the ground. Darrien continued pumping arrow after arrow into one of the androids still caught up in his [I]web[/I] spell; the thing was barely discernibly humanoid any more, its upper half covered in thick webs and bristling with arrow shafts. A blast from another android's rifle came flashing at Obvious; Binkadink, anticipating the shot, managed to tug his mount's reins enough to get the jackalope to dodge his massive head in time to avoid the shot. But the android Obvious had been chewing on escaped from his teeth, dropping back down to the ground and backing up to line up a good shot. Binkadink sent his glaive swinging down at the android's arms to prevent the shot from being taken. But another android fired its weapon, hitting Obvious straight in the middle of his furry chest. It had no effect. Not wanting Genevar to come to any harm, the thought masters had armed their android troopers with stun ray rifles and while the blast had hit Obvious full-on it wasn't yet enough to drop the massive jackalope. Meanwhile, the three androids still caught up in the webs or the writhing tentacles failed to make any further progress on their attempts to escape. Finoula, by now, had noticed the brain frogs hopping beneath the massive walking brain and cast a [I]stone spikes[/I] spell directly before them, aimed in a wide arc. They impaled themselves on the sharp, projecting spikes rising up from the desert sands, being slain by gravity and their hopping gait, which made avoiding the stone spikes impossible. Only two of the dozen or so survived, and those only because they had randomly wandered off to try to follow Aithanar, Genevar, and Digger, who had been the physically closest to them when they had popped into this plane. Despite the fact Gilbert had been taken out of the fight - his mind was still completely stunned, his body motionless, the wizard staying in place on Twitchy-Tail's back only because the hopper was taking particular care not to bounce him off - his spells continued and the [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] finally finished crushing the android it had caught within its ebony appendages. The walking brain ambled forward, the tips of its thick tentacles expertly avoiding the stone spikes Finoula had scattered before it - so expertly, in fact, the elven ranger suspected it had some weird mental abilities that took the place of sight, for she could see no eyes present anywhere on the thing's physical form. One tentacle dashed out with surprising speed, wrapping around Finoula's waist and dragging her back over to it, crushing her with a surprising level of strength. She struggled to free one arm, trying to get her hand up to touch her [I]amulet of lightning[/I] which, she knew, would be the easiest way for her to escape its crushing grasp. Hagan saw Finoula being crushed in a tentacle of the walking brain and urged his mount Quickpaws forward. The jackalope seemed hesitant to approach the massive aberration, but apparently trusted the sorcerer with the funny name that didn't actually mean anything enough to do as he was asked. He leaped up, gaining enough height in mid-leap that Hagan was able to reach over and tap the tentacle with his hand, channeling a spell through it as he did so. By the time Quickpaws landed and started veering away from the walking brain, the [I]Otto's irresistible dance[/I] spell had taken effect and the massive brain was no longer walking so much as hopping about on the tips of its tentacles in a complicated pattern that was no doubt its closest approximation of "dancing." As the dancing brain capered behind him, Binkadink brought his [I]reverberating glaive[/I] down into an android's head, dropping it instantly, then swinging his weapon cross-ways to carve deep into the chest of another one beside it. The first construct made no further attempts at movement, its internal systems having been rendered incapable of such an action. At about the same time, Darrien's arrows finally took out the first of the webbed androids and he automatically, without missing a beat, switched targets over to the other one. It tried feebly to free itself from the [I]web[/I] and now it too started springing arrow shafts all over its body. There were now only two androids capable of free movement and they both tried shooting Obvious with their stun rifles. The jackalope dodged one shot but was hit by the second; still, it failed to knock him out - no doubt to the increased vitality he had thanks to his increased size from Darrien's [I]enlarge animal[/I] spell. Finoula finally freed her arm, activated her amulet, and went blasting up into the underside of the massive brain above her before angling off back to the ground, avoiding the area of stone spikes. The walking brain continued its tentacle-tip capering, looking rather foolish but more importantly focusing all of its attention, such that it couldn't target anyone else with the mind blast beam that had taken out Gilbert Fung so easily. That made the walking brain an even easier target for another [I]meteor swarm[/I] spell from Hagan. Binkadink destroyed another of the androids with his glaive, while Darrien finished off the second of the webbed androids with his arrows. Then he spun in place and started firing up at the massive brain towering above him. A concentrated effort between Darrien and Hagan finally brought the thing tumbling down to the ground in a thrashing of rubbery tentacles; Finoula just barely leaped out of the way before it would have landed directly on top of her. Binkadink sent Obvious to round up the rest of his siblings, most of whom had by this time fled out of range, while he gathered up the six stun rifles the androids had carried. (He had to wait until Gilbert snapped out of it and deactivated his [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell before he could get them all.) "Six of us, six of them," he said, passing a stun rifle to each of the heroes. "Are you okay?" Finoula asked Genevar, looking down at the bodies in the sands before them. <Yeah, I'm fine,> replied the little mutant. <Can we go?> She was studiously avoiding looking at the bodies of either of her dads or the massive walking brain lying in the sand. "We certainly can," agreed Binkadink, climbing back up onto Obvious's saddle. Then he led the group away from the scene of carnage, to wander aimlessly in the desert until they found the apidox they were destined to fight before rescuing the Eradicators and bringing them back to a desolate, shattered world. - - - I saw an image of a brain frog once using Google Images and decided right then and there I had to use it in a D&D adventure some day. When I later saw an image of a walking brain (apparently from an old black-and-white science fiction movie of the same name) I made the same decision. Eventually, I decided these would make good adversaries for the Gamma World portion of this campaign and statted them up. (The brain frogs didn't get to do much, but if they had managed to leap onto a PC's head they could attempt to [I]dominate[/I] the PC and steer him or her over to the walking brain to be drained of Intelligence.) The brain frogs were easy enough to make as flat tokens but the walking brain gave me a much harder time. I had decided I needed a stand-up, 3D miniature rather than just a flat token; fortunately I had a package of construction paper which had been depleted of just about every color but pink. So I started out with the crafting of the brain, gluing strips of pink construction paper together to get the basic "brain" shape and then filling in the gaps as best I could with more strips. Then I had to figure out a way to support it on eight tentacles, and this proved to be a much bigger challenge. Eventually, I hit upon an easy solution: Harry likes "bendy" straws for his milk and we had picked up a bag of 300 or so for a couple of bucks. I grabbed up eight pink ones and eight peach ones and discovered they could easily be stuck one end into the other. So I stuck the non-bendy ends of eight pink straws into the non-bendy ends of eight peach straws, then stuck the bendy-ends of four pairs of the pink straws together. I built a base out of heavy cardboard, making eight sets of cuts along the outer edges such that the eight sections (each the width of a straw) could be folded upwards and slid into the bendy end of a peach straw. That done, I ended up with four sets of "tentacle legs" - I taped the tops of the front two together and did likewise with the back set, then cut a long strip of pink construction paper just slightly smaller in width than the gap between the bendy tops of the straw pairs. With my straw-tentacle platform base thus created and rather sturdy, it was easy enough to affix the brain in place above it with clear tape. It won't win any miniature awards, but it was a cool prop to plop down on the table when it shifted into the Material Plane at the behest of the thought masters. It's just a bit of a bummer when I realize I spent a [I]lot[/I] more time crafting the silly thing than it ever got to see use in the game. - - - T-Shirt Worn: My red "Iron Man" T-shirt, to represent the android troopers. And as I wasn't sure how long it would take to play through this adventure, this was also potentially a good representation of the Eradicators, if we finished the adventure early and decided to get a start on the next one, in which the Eradicators will finally make their appearance. (Good thing I have a second Iron Man T-shirt to wear for the next time we play!) [/QUOTE]
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