Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9801031" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 10: BOUNTY ON THE TRANSITIVE GEARPC Roster:  Amris Goodwitch, celestial elf witch (wizard) 4                     Avoroth Bleakborn, fiendish human cleric 4                     Gonkle Bu'Onk, fiendish orc fighter 4                     Wilbur Von Schattenwalde, shadow human druid 4Game Session Date: 12 November 2025 - - -The group had been traveling along a massive, forested gear for the past three days, with another two days of travel estimated before they hit the gear's edge and would be able to cross over to another gear, perpendicular to the one on which they were traversing, on which the town of Elsewhere was currently parked - and would be, for the better part of the next year.  Fortunately, the gravity of Mechanus worked such that "down" was always in the direction of the gear one was standing upon, even if the gear stood upright on end.There had been little of note during their travels, other than the occasional slain body of a formian here and there, invariably cut down by bladed weapons built for someone of human size, not the size of the little monodrones and duodrones, each of which stood about as tall as a halfling or gnome.  But they had encountered no one alive since departing from the modron mine three days ago.That all changed when suddenly, from the forest ahead, a voice called out to them.  "Excuse me," came a male voice using the Common tongue, "but is one of you named Avoroth Bleakborn?"  He stepped forward from around a tree, a male human wearing the robes of a wizard.  Beside him stood three others: a heavy-armored woman and a pair of human twins, a man and a woman, each wearing leather armor.Avoroth frowned and pulled up on the reins of the two horses, Victor and Blackie, causing them to come to a halt and the floating, coffin-sized force effect they were pulling - and upon which the fiendish cleric and Wilbur, the human shadow druid, stood - came to a halt as well.  On either side of them, Amris and Gonkle likewise pulled their own hellish steeds to a halt.  "Who wants to know?" demanded Avoroth, automatically suspicious of the quartet - they were obviously not local denizens, as the beings of Mechanus seemed to be either modrons, constructs, or the antlike formians, which likely meant they were from Elsewhere."My name is Jim," replied the man in the hooded robes - as fiendish as Avoroth and Gonkle, by the looks of him.  "We were hired to prevent you from bringing a dangerous artifact into Elsewhere, and we'll get paid double if we destroy the artifact.""And what makes you think we might have a dangerous artifact?" asked Avoroth, not admitting to being the man they were looking for - although he did appreciate that they had singled him out as the obvious leader of the group."The fact that you and Wilbur are standing on an item that fits the artifact's description," replied Jim."It seems your argument is based upon pure speculation," began the cleric, but he was interrupted when Amris gave out a sharp cry of concern.  They all looked her way.  "Pivot just flew within range of our empathic link," she told the group, holding a hand up to her temple.  "He's showing me images...of these four talking to that haughty wizard who was adding on to the temple...and that there are six others - archers - spread out among the trees, aiming at us!"Wilbur immediately began the words to the casting of an entangle spell.  The celestial human fighter in full plate armor called out, "He's casting a spell -- spread out!" and rushed towards the group of planar scouts, her bastard sword out and ready to swing.  Unfortunately for her, she didn't get all the way out of the spell's area of effect in time, and was immediately entangled by the grasses beneath her feet, brambles and weeds that sprang up from the ground, and low-hanging branches from the trees above her.  Three of the archers were likewise within the spell's area of effect, and they were firmly bound up by the very limbs upon which they had been perched.  Jim and the twins were also within the circle of writhing vegetation but managed to avoid the spell's full effect, while the other three archers had, by luck - and the fact Wilbur was unaware of their exact location when he cast his spell - been just outside the edge of the entangle spell, and the trees upon which they were hidden remained motionless save for the wind through their leaves.Unlike his armored cohort, Jim sprinted in the direction away from Avoroth's group, but that was the spell's edge closest to him, and offered him the quickest release from possible entanglement.  But the three unaffected archers all targeted Avoroth and let fly with their arrows; two of them hit, but just barely, and none of them even broke the cleric's skin.Amris kicked her horse Flick forward toward the two nearest archers and cast a color spray spell at them.  They were fairly new at the adventuring life, apparently, and they had no defenses against such a spell; both of them dropped unconscious from their respective tree limbs, their longbows falling beside them.  Avoroth cast a bless spell upon his assembled team before they spread out too far out of range for the spell to encompass everyone.The twin rogues made their ways out of the entangle spell's area of effect, one by heading west and the other east, by the unconscious archers (and the third one still up in a tree).  But this third one didn't last very long; before he could nock another arrow in place, Gonkle had spotted him and had his fiendish horse Runtlemeat charge in his direction.  The orc's falchion cut the human down in a single, overhead blow.  Growling in anger, the celestial human fighter tried unsuccessfully to free herself, and up in the trees inside the entangle effect, the three other archers had no better luck.Seeing how the first three archers to attack had all gone for Avoroth, Wilbur cast a barkskin spell upon the cleric to help keep him up and in the fight - he was, after all, the group's primary source of healing.  Then he leaped off the floating forcecage effect upon which he and Avoroth had been traveling during their trek back from the unremembered Factory, and moved toward the unconscious archers.Jim finally exited the entangle effect, spun about, and raised a light crossbow which had already had a bolt in place.  He aimed at Wilbur and let fly - and probably would have hit had the druid not ensconced himself in shadows, making it difficult for the sorcerer to aim at where he actually stood.  The bolt went whizzing harmlessly past Wilbur's head.Amris cast a magic missile spell at the nearest rogue - the male - and heard a satisfying grunt of pain from him as it struck him unerringly in the chest, but he continued on his intended path and struck at Gonkle with his short sword.  Gonkle retaliated with a blow of his own that left the rogue staggering in place, barely able to remain standing as a gash down his side spilled blood like a red waterfall.  Avoroth, in the meantime, cast a spiritual weapon spell and sent it flying through the branches to go attack Jim, unaware the female rogue was darting from behind one tree to another, cautiously making her way directly behind him.With a roar of effort, the celestial human fighter broke her way out of the entangle effect and staggered out onto the open forest.  She locked eyes with Avoroth and headed his way, building up speed as she went.  Wilbur cast a shillelagh spell upon his runestaff and headed over to the staggered rogue Gonkle had just nearly gutted.Back on the far side of the entangle effect, Jim loaded another bolt into his crossbow and fired, this time hitting Amris in the upper arm.  She cried out in pain and pulled the bolt from her arm, tossing it defiantly on the ground beside her, and then looked directly at Jim as she cast a Melf's acid arrow spell at him.  Her bolt likewise struck true, and did a lot more damage to the sorcerer than his bolt had done to her.  But inside the entangle effect, the three archers gained no ground in trying to get free of the vegetation wrapped around them.Avoroth saw the fighter heading his way and calmly cast a divine favor spell on himself, opting to better his chances at hand-to-hand combat for the long run rather than rushing over to meet her in battle.  Plus, if she wanted melee combat so badly, let her do all the running!  But he refused to step down from the floating forcecage coffin, in part because these ambushers wanted to destroy it, but also because it gave him a height advantage - and if he needed a speedy retreat, he had but to flick the horses' reins.The male rogue likely knew he had one combat maneuver before he passed out from blood loss, and he made the best of it, but his sword stroke was pathetically slow and Gonkle contemptuously swatted it away with the flat of his own blade.  Then the rogue collapsed in front of him, landing face-down upon the forest floor, an ever-increasing pool of blood leaking all around him, staining the pine needles and fallen leaves.  Gonkle didn't give him another thought, but kicked Runtlemeat into a clockwise charge around the entangle effect, headed toward Jim.The celestial fighter swung her bastard sword at Avoroth - and missed.  But the attack did at least focus the cleric's attention upon her, allowing the female rogue to sneak up and stab him from behind with her short sword.  That elicited two reactions from Avoroth: a cry of rage and pain, and the immediate determination that whatever else happened in this fight, that little rogue wench was going to die for having the temerity to stab him - him!Wilbur watched Gonkle ride away but saw no reason not to make sure the orc's previous foe was dead; standing above the prone rogue, the druid brought the edge of his runestaff slamming down upon the base of the man's neck, snapping vertebrae and slaying him instantly.  Jim, screaming in pain as the acid burned through his chest, got off a last retaliatory shot at Amris before being slain by her Melf's acid arrow spell.  He didn't live long enough to see his bolt hit the witch or he might have died with a smile upon his face.  But Gonkle was frowning; he'd ridden Runtlemeat all this way to go slay the sorcerer and the impudent fool had the audacity to die before he'd even gotten there!  Rude!  With a heavy sigh, the orc sped Runtlemeat along the path he'd already been going; maybe they could catch up to the rogue and the fighter double-teaming Avoroth before they were slain.  (Privately, the fiendish orc thought his chances were pretty good; the cleric wasn't much of a combatant, if truth be told.)However, Gonkle hadn't counted on the others.  Amris, seeing Avoroth's predicament, cast a scorching ray at the celestial human fighter, engulfing her momentarily in flames.  And while Avoroth brought his spiritual quarterstaff back to him with a simple gesture and set it upon the woman in plate mail, he spun about on the floating coffin and used his own masterwork quarterstaff to take out the stab-happy rogue.  She fell to the forest floor, unconscious but still breathing, although Avoroth wasn't about to let that status to hold true for very long....Gonkle and Runtlemeat finally caught up to the others, just in time to be too late.  Wilbur had called for the other group's surrender, and the celestial woman, seeing her 10-person squad now consisted of just her and the three greenhorn archers still entangled in their tree limbs, stabbed the point of her bastard sword in the ground by her side and raised her hands.  "Very well," she said, "we surrender.""Yup - us too!" called the bound archers.The planar scouts tied up their captives and interrogated them, learning they were all washouts from the same training program Avoroth and the others had gone through.  The celestial fighter, appointing herself the new leader of the group, admitted they'd been paid 1,000 pieces of gold apiece to stop Avoroth Bleakborn and his team - and the fiendish cleric had to admit to himself privately that he rather liked the sound of that: "his team" - from bringing the dangerous artifact back into Elsewhere.  But she didn't have anything much else she could tell them, other than confirming the person who had hired them had been the same pompous ass of a wizard they'd encountered back in Avernus, after taking down his summoned astral constructs."I say we kill them all," offered up Avoroth."Probably for the best," Wilbur acknowledged, and even Amris agreed.  Surprisingly, it was Gonkle who didn't see the necessity.  "But they surrendered," he argued."So what?" scoffed Avoroth.  "First of all, that one" - and here he pointed to the still-unconscious female rogue - "stabbed me, so she dies, regardless of anything else!  But they were each paid 1,000 pieces of gold, and they were - surprise, surprise - foolish enough to bring it here with them.  They tried to kill us and they failed, so that money is ours by right of combat.  If we let them live, do you think that's going to sit well with them?  Or are they going to try to find ways to kill us and get their money back?""But they surrendered..." repeated Gonkle.Avoroth mentally chided himself for trying to use logic on an orc, and immediately changed tactics.  "Besides," he told Gonkle, "the girl in the heavy armor told me, as I was tying her up, that she thought you were a big sissy-pants who probably wet his bed every night, and said there was no way you could kill each of them with just a single blow....""Oh yeah?" roared Gonkle.  "I'll show them!"  Avoroth smiled and watched as the fiendish orc did the cleric's dirty work for him, and his smile only grew wider as Gonkel slew the rogue who'd stabbed Avoroth.  After all, it was important to him she be slain, not necessarily that he be the one to extract vengeance."Well," remarked Avoroth after the last of their ambushers had been put to death and their payments had been dumped inside his Hewards' even handier haversack, "we are now 10,000 gold pieces richer and have gained a magical crossbow to boot."  He passed Jim's weapon over to Amris, recognizing that she had a better eye for ranged combat than he did.  "I would say this has been a productive side excursion, but we should get back to the trail, so we can catch up to Elsewhere before the gears swing it that much farther away from us."  He climbed back aboard the floating coffin, Wilbur did likewise, and Gonkle and Amris got back up onto their own saddles.  Then, with a flick of the two horses' reins, Avoroth sent the team moving forward again, the bodies of their slain enemies laying scattered where they'd been felled. - - - Logan has said we'll get to Elsewhere without further incident, and we'll start the next session with a question-and-answer session with Obsidian Omega Chi, the kolyrut who sent us on this quest (which involved getting our memories erased), so we'll get the full story about that at long last.  And we're close enough to 5th level that we should all be upgrading at the end of the next adventure, so the three spellcasters will all be getting access to 3rd-level spells.  (I've already picked out the two "standard" monsters I'll have Avoroth summon most often with his new summon monster III spell: a fiendish dire bat and a Huge fiendish monstrous centipede.)</blockquote>

Verification