They came in search of Paradise (A Story of Erth) - Updated 23rd April
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
No, Shockwave, you've got it wrong... the USEFUL die young 
BTW, I'm certain that Robberbaron is making up a certain lasciviousness for Li Kung... the monk certainly didn't cop a feel of Helga while checking out her body as suggested!
Cheers
BTW, I'm certain that Robberbaron is making up a certain lasciviousness for Li Kung... the monk certainly didn't cop a feel of Helga while checking out her body as suggested!
Cheers
robberbaron
First Post
Heh, heh.
Actually, you did say that you wanted to "be thorough with the examination" and had previously 'admired' her form so I don't think literary liberties were taken. Not far anyway
Actually, you did say that you wanted to "be thorough with the examination" and had previously 'admired' her form so I don't think literary liberties were taken. Not far anyway
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Gamed last night. Great fun. Shockwaves wizard took out more bandits with his quarterstaff than the raging half-orc barbarian. Li Kung did a great job with his combat reflexes and then took out two foes during a flurry of blows a single amazing roundhouse kick killed a wounded guy, cleaved onto an critically hit a second and dropped him instantly and then a shuriken was hurled into a third opponent. A far cry from his early days!
robberbaron
First Post
Unfortunately, due to a shocking absence of preparedness (I managed to forget both the power lead for my laptop AND the microphone for my minidisc recorder) the notes from Sunday's game will be a little less detailed than you have become accustomed to.
Normal service will be resumed.
Normal service will be resumed.
robberbaron
First Post
Oh, Mummy!
As Cord’s Fullblade passed through the mummy’s torso it slumped to the ground in a huge could of vile-smelling dust. Cord was so close that he could not help taking a great lungful of the mummy-dust and Helga couldn’t keep her nose out of trouble. They were both badly affected and had to have a sit down to catch their breath.
Meanwhile, with the dust still settling gently, Gaelle, Li Kung and Keldor continued down the stairs from whence the Mummy had come.
The found a room with a large stone slab, engraved all round with a frieze depicting a warrior, and with a dusty vaguely humanoid outline on the top - obviously where the mummy had lain.
Shining the lantern around, Gaelle noticed a crack of darkness at the near end of the slab – it was covering a hole!
As Gaelle kept watch, Li Kung went to examine the floor around the slab and had his head behind it when two wights appeared from the entrance behind him and attacked.
The fight was brief; barely enough to work up a sweat, but Keldor felt the undeads’ icy-cold touch before the creatures were slain.
Looking down the stair into darkness, Keldor could hear a faint banging – maybe just the blood in his temples, but maybe something else.
Leaving the slab for later, they continued further into the hill, coming to a large room with three heavy wooden doors. To one side was a huge mural, showing a lone warrior wielding an axe fighting off a horde of misshapen, demonic creatures. All around him were the bodies of his foes, as well as countless human dead. He looked similar to the man depicted on the slab.
To his left was a gleaming city and to his right a swirling vortex of darkness. Nice.
Keldor could still hear the faint banging, seeming to come from behind one of the doors, but so quiet that he could not decide which one.
The left door opened easily into a room the floor of which was covered in bones, all of them cracked and broken. They would appear to have found the lair of the wights.
The second door led down a corridor, empty except for the remains of a small wooden plinth in the wreckage of which Keldor found a 3” diameter glass ball, internally streaked with red. The door at the end opened easily into an empty room. Empty except for an alcove with a small metal figurine. It looked like a man wearing a deeply hooded cloak and leaning on a greatsword, only with no body – just cloak and sword. It was also surprisingly heavy and un-tarnished. Keldor added it to the large marble in his bag.
Through the third door and they could now hear the banging more clearly, though it stopped as they approached the door at the end of the short corridor.
This was the only door that hadn’t opened with the lightest touch, though the others had also closed by themselves, prompting Li Kung to stand in the doorways holding them open.
Both Gaelle and Keldor pushed at the door for a minute or more until Li Kung stepped up and unleashed a mighty kick, breaking the lock and swinging the door wide, revealing a small room with a Zombie Minotaur about to charge them.
Li Kung, followed by the others, stepped in and struck at the creature, doing no more than scratching it before its axe took a chunk out of Li Kung. Slowly backing out of the room, they did a little more damage to the zombie but, as it squeezed itself through the doorway, Li Kung took a large slice out of its right shoulder with his glaive. Unfortunately for them it came through the door and, placing its enormous hand on the monk’s face, pushed him back 15’ and into open space. It didn’t help its cause much, however, as they quickly finished it off.
Inside the room was the body of a second (or was that fourth?) Zombie Minotaur, obviously killed by its “brother” before it tried to batter the inward-opening door out – the banging they had been hearing.
Returning to the mural room, Gaelle checked it for secret doors, thinking that if she pressed the warrior’s eyes it would open. No matter how hard she pressed, no door opened.
Getting annoyed, Gaelle went back to the minotaurs and, dragging one of their axes with her, went on to attack the mural, hackling great chunks of plaster off what appeared to be a solid wall.
She must have made a mistake. Not like her.
They decided to return to the slab room to rest for a few hours to recuperate from the fight with the Minotaur, after which they again investigated the slab.
They exerted their strength for some time to no avail, only succeeding in moving the slab an inch to the sound of creaking and squealing mechanical devices. Admitting temporary defeat, they stood back only to hear a faint voice from under the slab.
“Good day to you, brave adventurers,” the voice said in quavering, accented Graecae. “If you wish to speak to the Master, you are welcome to come down.”
“Fair enough,” answered Li Kung.
“Then please stand away from the slab”
They took a step back as the slab quivered and, with a painful sound of tortured gears, slowly moved back away from the dark hole in the floor.
They could see nothing down the stairway revealed but, as Gaelle put her foot on the top step, tiny flames appeared all the way down the passage with a soft “whoomph”. She flinched minutely, remembering the last time flame had “whoomphed “in front of her. Her eyebrows had not yet started to grow back.
They entered a small chamber with a large marble sarcophagus, carved in the shape of an armoured warrior, and could see a small wizened figure to one side.
“If you wish to worship my Master, it is customary to do so on your knees”, the little man advised.
Standing, almost insolently, Gaelle replied “Did your master create all the undead around here?”
“Yes, my Master is most adept at creating unlife. Most adept. You may worship him now.”
“We were thinking of bringing more people down here, to meet your master. Maybe he could use them for his experiments?” suggested Gaelle, still firmly upright.
As the small man was about to restate the offer to drop to their knees, a pocket of shadow around the sarcophagus became somewhat deeper and a dark, shimmering shape rose from the stone effigy.
Whispering to his minion in some eerie language the darkness gave his instructions. “My Master says you may now worship him, if that is your choice.”
“I don’t think so,” stated Li Kung.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to..” the minion began as the darkness, whispering menacingly, swept forward and thrust a portion of itself deep into Li Kung’s chest. The monk, open mouthed and shocked to feel half of his strength sucked out of his body, staggered back a pace as the Great Shadow removed its appendage.
Gaelle attacked, receiving a lesser draining for her trouble while Keldor circled around it, firing a ray of fire harmlessly through it. Li Kung swept his staff through its insubstantial form and Keldor again sent a bar of fire through the dark being. Gaelle was having little luck until, after taking another minor draining of strength (if any draining could be called “minor”) managed to contact it with her greatsword. If she had only known the command word she could have scorched the undead thing as well.
Li Kung again hit nothing with his staff and Keldor fired a splash of acid at the wall the other side of the shadow, again passing harmlessly through it.
At last, they succeeded in dissipating the Great Shadow into the lesser darkness, much to the chagrin of its minion. The little man cowered behind the sarcophagus until they assured him they meant him no real harm. And he believed them!
He explained that he had been captured by the Shadow’s undead some time ago and had been employed writing its memoirs all this time. He asked what year it was and was horrified by the answer. He had been down here, only seeing the daylight a dozen times, for thirty years!
He had been initiated in the “religion” of the Shadow and had some very minor spells he could cast. Nothing that would be particularly useful in adventuring, though more useful than him – he was 5’5” tall and weighed approximately 100 pounds. The shadow didn’t seem to understand about food and he had had to eat whatever he could lay his hands on. Keldor suppressed a shudder as he realise that probably meant cannibalism, at the very least.
“Did your master have any treasure?” asked Gaelle, getting back to the point.
The scribe admitted that he did and went over to a blank wall, pressed a very well concealed catch and revealed a small room containing 4 chests, “they are full of coins”, a potion, a scroll and a small pouch of gems, along with a greataxe that had not suffered the ravages of time.
Taking all the items, they made the scribe open the chests (just in case) and carry everything out of the room. He couldn’t actually carry the chests and only just managed to drag one out before collapsing in a panting heap. Deciding to do it themselves, they quickly discovered 1000 coins each of platinum, gold, silver and copper, which they split between themselves.
Keldor cast a magical detection and confirmed that the scroll, potion and axe were magical, though the axe held a strange additional feature that he could make out. It was as if the axe’s power was avoiding his arcane gaze. Weird.
After a further rest, they moved their booty up into the outer chamber, where Cord and Helga were still sitting propped against a wall, wheezing. There they were met by Boldo Chanunga and his new friend, Fragh the Uruk Barbarian. Fragh had been in a mixed Uruk/Orc group that had been taken over by Kron, the murderous fugitive Uruk. Kron had killed the chief and his bodyguard and declared himself chief, turning the generally roughly law-abiding tribe into a marauding band. Fragh didn’t mind that but hated the idea of an outsider just taking over like that, but knew that he was not powerful enough to take on Kron and his new cronies. He decided to leave and get help, training and experience before returning to claim what would become his birthright.
Boldo had come upon the Uruk as he rested and, after removing all Fragh’s wealth from his pockets realised that he was very unlikely to get away with them so put them back before sneaking away and approaching the dangerous-looking Uruk from the front. Fragh took a liking to the tiny rogue, little more than quarter his height, and they had been together for some months. Neither particularly liked Byzantium: Boldo was never taken seriously and Fragh was run out of town for being a “bad sort” whenever he was seen by the Watch, so they kept to themselves in the wilds. A day ago they had come across the ruined wagon and chose to follow the trail back to the hill and the tomb, arriving after dark and in time to join the others for further adventures.
6th October 1699
Thinking that enough time must have passed that they would not look so suspicious returning to Byzantium, they helped Cord and Helga to their horses and headed back.
After a quiet four days in the saddle, taking it easy for the sake of their unwell members, the finally arrived back at their villa. Leaving the wounded there, the others first made their way to the Temple of Set to return Gracientus’ holy symbol.
Gaelle explained to Boldo that the Set Temple took rather unkindly to anyone who harmed one of theirs so they were going to go out of their way to ensure they were seen the best light possible.
They were warmly greeted and thanked for their consideration to their dead companion and were assured of Maxis’ (the High Priest’s) gratitude.
From there they travelled to Massos the jeweller to unload the sparkly stuff, then to the Mages’ Society, etc., to identify and exchange the items they had found. Deals were done and items ordered, before retiring to their villa for a few days’ rest and recuperation. After all, Li Kung was still a bit weak.
Boldo was charged with finding out whatever he could about possible jobs for them. Li Kung specified legendary treasures, hidden tombs and lone wizards in towers and the pygmy rogue went off to do his best. Meanwhile, the others disposed of their ill-gotten gains and ordered more personal items from the Mages’ Society – always happy to relieve an adventurer of his gold. After discovering that the Shadow’s axe was psionically-powered (a Collision weapon, altering its balance toward the head during a swing to do more damage) Li Kung decided to offer it to the Set temple in exchange for a belt that would enhance his monky abilities. Always on the lookout for items that might give them an edge, the temple agreed gladly.
Boldo found that there were many hundreds of tombs in the rocky hills of Ionia, with the possibility of many more still yet to be found. He also heard rumours of bandits, monsters and perhaps fouler things in the hills to the north of Turkistan, and it was to there that the party decided to go.
13th October 1699
Crossing the great Hellespont Bridge, a magnificent structure made of a strange metal which gracefully arced over the strait a hundred or more feet below (though it was mere string and driftwood compared to the fabulous 30 mile long Silver Bridge linking Granbretan with Normandia), they stopped at the Turkistani Border Post to enquire after notorious threats.
“For a moderate consideration…” the guards pointed them towards the far hills, some 2 days’ travel north of the capital, Ankara, where not only bandits might be found, but hordes of dragons, of every hue and size.
Gaelle handed over a gold coin, which the guards looked at with surprise and displeasure. The ranger added another but the guards were not happy until Keldor added a few more coins. Smiling and bowing to the most generous adventurers the guards watched as they rode off towards the hills and glory.
“Five silvers only half of them come back,” offered one guard.
“Ten says we never see them again,” countered the other.
“Heh, heh. You could be right at that.”
15th October 1699
Two days travelling across the plains of Turkistan brought them into the lower foothills of the range they had spied from the border. Gaelle, Keldor and Boldo were riding ahead to scout for anything interesting when Gaelle spotted a column of men in a dry river valley – they looked like bandits, twelve of them.
When she returned to the party, it was decided to move forward quickly to ambush the bandits before the bandit scouts (who hadn’t been seen but whose presence was assumed) found them.
This they did, apparently catching the bandits by surprise.
The archers popping out of cover told them that they had been incorrect and Boldo was pinned down by two of them after he popped out of his own cover to shoot.
Arrows rained down into the valley prompting the bandits to charge the party – not their best move, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The obvious leader moved closer to a very slim bandit who began firing magic missiles into whoever seemed the biggest nuisance at the time – Li Kung mainly.
Half a minute later, all the bandits who had charged in had fallen down, two of the scouts had scarpered, as had the bandit-mage (moving as fast as Li Kung could run) and the bandit leader (moving about as fast).
After making sure the bandits were really dead (some weren’t, but the party fixed that) the party, led by Gaelle, set about following the bandit leader’s tracks.
He had been accompanied by skilful scouts who, at several points, managed to obfuscate the trail sufficiently to force Gaelle to spend extra hours hunting for signs of passage.
Eventually, some 5 hours later, well after the sun had gone down, Gaelle lost the tracks again. She had been using her lantern to illuminate the trail but it had disappeared as the bandits crossed a rocky outcrop. Spending yet another fruitless hour searching in the fading light for the continuation of the tracks, the party were surprised by a pair of hidden bandit archers. These bandits must have been the least useful of the band, left behind to keep them out of the leader’s way as they were particularly useless, only scoring 1 hit out of 6 and that little more than a graze.
Swiftly dealing with them, Gaelle lost all chance of finding the trail again before daybreak and they settled down for what remained of the night.
Meanwhile, Cord and Helga had recovered from their nasty bout of corpse cough and followed the rest into Turkistan. Bribing the same border guards (“Good gig, this” “Yeah, soon be able to retire”) they headed towards the mountains. By the second evening, as they were about to set camp, they heard the sound of a brief fracas, not too far away in the darkness. Carefully, they picked their way through the rocks until they could see Gaelle wandering around with her lantern.
The gang was back together.
As Cord’s Fullblade passed through the mummy’s torso it slumped to the ground in a huge could of vile-smelling dust. Cord was so close that he could not help taking a great lungful of the mummy-dust and Helga couldn’t keep her nose out of trouble. They were both badly affected and had to have a sit down to catch their breath.
Meanwhile, with the dust still settling gently, Gaelle, Li Kung and Keldor continued down the stairs from whence the Mummy had come.
The found a room with a large stone slab, engraved all round with a frieze depicting a warrior, and with a dusty vaguely humanoid outline on the top - obviously where the mummy had lain.
Shining the lantern around, Gaelle noticed a crack of darkness at the near end of the slab – it was covering a hole!
As Gaelle kept watch, Li Kung went to examine the floor around the slab and had his head behind it when two wights appeared from the entrance behind him and attacked.
The fight was brief; barely enough to work up a sweat, but Keldor felt the undeads’ icy-cold touch before the creatures were slain.
Looking down the stair into darkness, Keldor could hear a faint banging – maybe just the blood in his temples, but maybe something else.
Leaving the slab for later, they continued further into the hill, coming to a large room with three heavy wooden doors. To one side was a huge mural, showing a lone warrior wielding an axe fighting off a horde of misshapen, demonic creatures. All around him were the bodies of his foes, as well as countless human dead. He looked similar to the man depicted on the slab.
To his left was a gleaming city and to his right a swirling vortex of darkness. Nice.
Keldor could still hear the faint banging, seeming to come from behind one of the doors, but so quiet that he could not decide which one.
The left door opened easily into a room the floor of which was covered in bones, all of them cracked and broken. They would appear to have found the lair of the wights.
The second door led down a corridor, empty except for the remains of a small wooden plinth in the wreckage of which Keldor found a 3” diameter glass ball, internally streaked with red. The door at the end opened easily into an empty room. Empty except for an alcove with a small metal figurine. It looked like a man wearing a deeply hooded cloak and leaning on a greatsword, only with no body – just cloak and sword. It was also surprisingly heavy and un-tarnished. Keldor added it to the large marble in his bag.
Through the third door and they could now hear the banging more clearly, though it stopped as they approached the door at the end of the short corridor.
This was the only door that hadn’t opened with the lightest touch, though the others had also closed by themselves, prompting Li Kung to stand in the doorways holding them open.
Both Gaelle and Keldor pushed at the door for a minute or more until Li Kung stepped up and unleashed a mighty kick, breaking the lock and swinging the door wide, revealing a small room with a Zombie Minotaur about to charge them.
Li Kung, followed by the others, stepped in and struck at the creature, doing no more than scratching it before its axe took a chunk out of Li Kung. Slowly backing out of the room, they did a little more damage to the zombie but, as it squeezed itself through the doorway, Li Kung took a large slice out of its right shoulder with his glaive. Unfortunately for them it came through the door and, placing its enormous hand on the monk’s face, pushed him back 15’ and into open space. It didn’t help its cause much, however, as they quickly finished it off.
Inside the room was the body of a second (or was that fourth?) Zombie Minotaur, obviously killed by its “brother” before it tried to batter the inward-opening door out – the banging they had been hearing.
Returning to the mural room, Gaelle checked it for secret doors, thinking that if she pressed the warrior’s eyes it would open. No matter how hard she pressed, no door opened.
Getting annoyed, Gaelle went back to the minotaurs and, dragging one of their axes with her, went on to attack the mural, hackling great chunks of plaster off what appeared to be a solid wall.
She must have made a mistake. Not like her.
They decided to return to the slab room to rest for a few hours to recuperate from the fight with the Minotaur, after which they again investigated the slab.
They exerted their strength for some time to no avail, only succeeding in moving the slab an inch to the sound of creaking and squealing mechanical devices. Admitting temporary defeat, they stood back only to hear a faint voice from under the slab.
“Good day to you, brave adventurers,” the voice said in quavering, accented Graecae. “If you wish to speak to the Master, you are welcome to come down.”
“Fair enough,” answered Li Kung.
“Then please stand away from the slab”
They took a step back as the slab quivered and, with a painful sound of tortured gears, slowly moved back away from the dark hole in the floor.
They could see nothing down the stairway revealed but, as Gaelle put her foot on the top step, tiny flames appeared all the way down the passage with a soft “whoomph”. She flinched minutely, remembering the last time flame had “whoomphed “in front of her. Her eyebrows had not yet started to grow back.
They entered a small chamber with a large marble sarcophagus, carved in the shape of an armoured warrior, and could see a small wizened figure to one side.
“If you wish to worship my Master, it is customary to do so on your knees”, the little man advised.
Standing, almost insolently, Gaelle replied “Did your master create all the undead around here?”
“Yes, my Master is most adept at creating unlife. Most adept. You may worship him now.”
“We were thinking of bringing more people down here, to meet your master. Maybe he could use them for his experiments?” suggested Gaelle, still firmly upright.
As the small man was about to restate the offer to drop to their knees, a pocket of shadow around the sarcophagus became somewhat deeper and a dark, shimmering shape rose from the stone effigy.
Whispering to his minion in some eerie language the darkness gave his instructions. “My Master says you may now worship him, if that is your choice.”
“I don’t think so,” stated Li Kung.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to..” the minion began as the darkness, whispering menacingly, swept forward and thrust a portion of itself deep into Li Kung’s chest. The monk, open mouthed and shocked to feel half of his strength sucked out of his body, staggered back a pace as the Great Shadow removed its appendage.
Gaelle attacked, receiving a lesser draining for her trouble while Keldor circled around it, firing a ray of fire harmlessly through it. Li Kung swept his staff through its insubstantial form and Keldor again sent a bar of fire through the dark being. Gaelle was having little luck until, after taking another minor draining of strength (if any draining could be called “minor”) managed to contact it with her greatsword. If she had only known the command word she could have scorched the undead thing as well.
Li Kung again hit nothing with his staff and Keldor fired a splash of acid at the wall the other side of the shadow, again passing harmlessly through it.
At last, they succeeded in dissipating the Great Shadow into the lesser darkness, much to the chagrin of its minion. The little man cowered behind the sarcophagus until they assured him they meant him no real harm. And he believed them!
He explained that he had been captured by the Shadow’s undead some time ago and had been employed writing its memoirs all this time. He asked what year it was and was horrified by the answer. He had been down here, only seeing the daylight a dozen times, for thirty years!
He had been initiated in the “religion” of the Shadow and had some very minor spells he could cast. Nothing that would be particularly useful in adventuring, though more useful than him – he was 5’5” tall and weighed approximately 100 pounds. The shadow didn’t seem to understand about food and he had had to eat whatever he could lay his hands on. Keldor suppressed a shudder as he realise that probably meant cannibalism, at the very least.
“Did your master have any treasure?” asked Gaelle, getting back to the point.
The scribe admitted that he did and went over to a blank wall, pressed a very well concealed catch and revealed a small room containing 4 chests, “they are full of coins”, a potion, a scroll and a small pouch of gems, along with a greataxe that had not suffered the ravages of time.
Taking all the items, they made the scribe open the chests (just in case) and carry everything out of the room. He couldn’t actually carry the chests and only just managed to drag one out before collapsing in a panting heap. Deciding to do it themselves, they quickly discovered 1000 coins each of platinum, gold, silver and copper, which they split between themselves.
Keldor cast a magical detection and confirmed that the scroll, potion and axe were magical, though the axe held a strange additional feature that he could make out. It was as if the axe’s power was avoiding his arcane gaze. Weird.
After a further rest, they moved their booty up into the outer chamber, where Cord and Helga were still sitting propped against a wall, wheezing. There they were met by Boldo Chanunga and his new friend, Fragh the Uruk Barbarian. Fragh had been in a mixed Uruk/Orc group that had been taken over by Kron, the murderous fugitive Uruk. Kron had killed the chief and his bodyguard and declared himself chief, turning the generally roughly law-abiding tribe into a marauding band. Fragh didn’t mind that but hated the idea of an outsider just taking over like that, but knew that he was not powerful enough to take on Kron and his new cronies. He decided to leave and get help, training and experience before returning to claim what would become his birthright.
Boldo had come upon the Uruk as he rested and, after removing all Fragh’s wealth from his pockets realised that he was very unlikely to get away with them so put them back before sneaking away and approaching the dangerous-looking Uruk from the front. Fragh took a liking to the tiny rogue, little more than quarter his height, and they had been together for some months. Neither particularly liked Byzantium: Boldo was never taken seriously and Fragh was run out of town for being a “bad sort” whenever he was seen by the Watch, so they kept to themselves in the wilds. A day ago they had come across the ruined wagon and chose to follow the trail back to the hill and the tomb, arriving after dark and in time to join the others for further adventures.
6th October 1699
Thinking that enough time must have passed that they would not look so suspicious returning to Byzantium, they helped Cord and Helga to their horses and headed back.
After a quiet four days in the saddle, taking it easy for the sake of their unwell members, the finally arrived back at their villa. Leaving the wounded there, the others first made their way to the Temple of Set to return Gracientus’ holy symbol.
Gaelle explained to Boldo that the Set Temple took rather unkindly to anyone who harmed one of theirs so they were going to go out of their way to ensure they were seen the best light possible.
They were warmly greeted and thanked for their consideration to their dead companion and were assured of Maxis’ (the High Priest’s) gratitude.
From there they travelled to Massos the jeweller to unload the sparkly stuff, then to the Mages’ Society, etc., to identify and exchange the items they had found. Deals were done and items ordered, before retiring to their villa for a few days’ rest and recuperation. After all, Li Kung was still a bit weak.
Boldo was charged with finding out whatever he could about possible jobs for them. Li Kung specified legendary treasures, hidden tombs and lone wizards in towers and the pygmy rogue went off to do his best. Meanwhile, the others disposed of their ill-gotten gains and ordered more personal items from the Mages’ Society – always happy to relieve an adventurer of his gold. After discovering that the Shadow’s axe was psionically-powered (a Collision weapon, altering its balance toward the head during a swing to do more damage) Li Kung decided to offer it to the Set temple in exchange for a belt that would enhance his monky abilities. Always on the lookout for items that might give them an edge, the temple agreed gladly.
Boldo found that there were many hundreds of tombs in the rocky hills of Ionia, with the possibility of many more still yet to be found. He also heard rumours of bandits, monsters and perhaps fouler things in the hills to the north of Turkistan, and it was to there that the party decided to go.
13th October 1699
Crossing the great Hellespont Bridge, a magnificent structure made of a strange metal which gracefully arced over the strait a hundred or more feet below (though it was mere string and driftwood compared to the fabulous 30 mile long Silver Bridge linking Granbretan with Normandia), they stopped at the Turkistani Border Post to enquire after notorious threats.
“For a moderate consideration…” the guards pointed them towards the far hills, some 2 days’ travel north of the capital, Ankara, where not only bandits might be found, but hordes of dragons, of every hue and size.
Gaelle handed over a gold coin, which the guards looked at with surprise and displeasure. The ranger added another but the guards were not happy until Keldor added a few more coins. Smiling and bowing to the most generous adventurers the guards watched as they rode off towards the hills and glory.
“Five silvers only half of them come back,” offered one guard.
“Ten says we never see them again,” countered the other.
“Heh, heh. You could be right at that.”
15th October 1699
Two days travelling across the plains of Turkistan brought them into the lower foothills of the range they had spied from the border. Gaelle, Keldor and Boldo were riding ahead to scout for anything interesting when Gaelle spotted a column of men in a dry river valley – they looked like bandits, twelve of them.
When she returned to the party, it was decided to move forward quickly to ambush the bandits before the bandit scouts (who hadn’t been seen but whose presence was assumed) found them.
This they did, apparently catching the bandits by surprise.
The archers popping out of cover told them that they had been incorrect and Boldo was pinned down by two of them after he popped out of his own cover to shoot.
Arrows rained down into the valley prompting the bandits to charge the party – not their best move, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The obvious leader moved closer to a very slim bandit who began firing magic missiles into whoever seemed the biggest nuisance at the time – Li Kung mainly.
Half a minute later, all the bandits who had charged in had fallen down, two of the scouts had scarpered, as had the bandit-mage (moving as fast as Li Kung could run) and the bandit leader (moving about as fast).
After making sure the bandits were really dead (some weren’t, but the party fixed that) the party, led by Gaelle, set about following the bandit leader’s tracks.
He had been accompanied by skilful scouts who, at several points, managed to obfuscate the trail sufficiently to force Gaelle to spend extra hours hunting for signs of passage.
Eventually, some 5 hours later, well after the sun had gone down, Gaelle lost the tracks again. She had been using her lantern to illuminate the trail but it had disappeared as the bandits crossed a rocky outcrop. Spending yet another fruitless hour searching in the fading light for the continuation of the tracks, the party were surprised by a pair of hidden bandit archers. These bandits must have been the least useful of the band, left behind to keep them out of the leader’s way as they were particularly useless, only scoring 1 hit out of 6 and that little more than a graze.
Swiftly dealing with them, Gaelle lost all chance of finding the trail again before daybreak and they settled down for what remained of the night.
Meanwhile, Cord and Helga had recovered from their nasty bout of corpse cough and followed the rest into Turkistan. Bribing the same border guards (“Good gig, this” “Yeah, soon be able to retire”) they headed towards the mountains. By the second evening, as they were about to set camp, they heard the sound of a brief fracas, not too far away in the darkness. Carefully, they picked their way through the rocks until they could see Gaelle wandering around with her lantern.
The gang was back together.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
However, since effective == will die soon, don't you think you're being a bit carried away
robberbaron
First Post
Crime Just Doesn't Pay - Part 1
16th October 1699
During the night, Fragh the Uruk barbarian had leapt up and decided to go off in a different direction. He didn’t see any fun in killing a few measly bandits and it didn’t get him any closer to retaking his tribe.
Boldo, feeling that his new friend would not last long on his own, went along to persuade him to the contrary.
Over breakfast, the rest of the party interrogated the bandit they had captured during the night (Li Kung had grappled him unconscious). They wanted to know how big the bandit group was and how many scouty-rogue types there were. Li Kung was asking a lot of questions without waiting to hear the answers.
The captive, worried by the quick fire questioning but thinking that they might let him live if he cooperated (rolled 2 for Sense Motive) told them that there were four raiding parties, each with about fifteen men. Theirs was the only one to contain a magician.
“Any clerics?” pressed the monk.
“Not that I’ve seen”.
“So, nobody to take care of their spiritual welfare,” mumbled Helga in the background.
“Do they take prisoners?” interjected Gaelle.
“Rarely. Did once, a long time ago”
“Not keeping anyone for ransom at the minute?” asked Helga, hoping, perhaps, to take over the ransom process herself.
“No. We’ve been out for a couple of weeks so things might have changed. Doubt it”
“Where were you heading when we caught up with you?”
“Heading back by a ‘circuitous route’ to avoid meeting anyone. That worked well.”
“Not a successful mission then” sneered Li Kung, enjoying the bandit’s discomfort.
“Not exactly, no. Cold”
“Draw us a map to your hideout” ordered Li Kung, untying one of the bandits hands, luckily the one he used to write.
“So, that makes at least 50 bandits,” reasoned Gaelle. “10 to 1. Nice”
“If we know where they come from, we could bushwhack the other groups as they return” the monk added, not liking the thought of taking on 50 bandits.
“If I was a bandit leader“ Cord explained, adding a silent ‘maybe later’, “I wouldn’t have all the groups out at once. Maybe half at a time, more than likely the tougher ones, including the leader”
“So, 6 to 1. Getting better. 4 to 1 would be preferable, though.”
“Come on, most of those are going to be the same sort of plebs that you killed yesterday” said Cord, trying to make Gaelle feel better.
By this time the map was complete, showing the hills around the bandits’ lair, a small village and the rough layout of a palisade containing several buildings. The main building was dug into the hillside behind it.
“So, how many men can we expect to find there?” Gaelle asked the now more relaxed bandit.
He explained that there would probably be at least 2 groups, maybe 3. Even in significantly sub-zero temperatures like they were experiencing they still had to send out patrols to bring supplies.
“Any dragons?” asked Gaelle.
“Yeah, up in the mountains”
“Where?”
“Dunno exactly. We don’t go hunting them. Last group went out looking never came back”
”We do” added Li Kung sternly.
“We could probably sneak up closer and have a look at that palisade” suggested Cord.
“Bound to be a lookout up there” added Gaelle.
“Our two rangers could do some rangering then,” said Li Kung, “and have a look around.”
“OK”, agreed Gaelle, “except that this ranger (pointing to Keldor) is barely conscious”
“I’m hurt, but nothing a bit of rest wouldn’t cure” retorted the other ranger.
Deciding to continue on to the bandits’ lair and sneak up for a better look they packed up camp and Li Kung casually snapped their captive’s neck before they all marched off. Gaelle tutted and cut off his head, stuffing it into the sack with the others.
Taking most of the daylight, they rode close to the nearest hill, then waited halfway up while Gaelle and Keldor crawled through the grass toward the hill’s crest. Keldor was quiet as the wind, Gaelle was making enough noise for two. Over to their right was an obvious place to hide, giving an excellent view of the rest of their party.
Keldor, peering over the other side of the hill, spotted a man moving quickly, in cover, heading toward the village. Gaelle stood up and fired three arrows in his vague direction, rustling a bush near him.
The startled bandit began moving a little more slowly, into deeper cover.
Gaelle could still see him and sent another three arrows into the scenery around him.
“Well, they know we’re here” said Keldor, sagely, looking at Gaelle, who was using indistinct but obviously foul language to mark her lack of success.
“I wonder how our rangers are doing?” wondered Li Kung.
Upon looking back down the hill, however, neither ranger could spot the bandit, though Gaelle peered for some minutes at the cover. Then, Keldor saw him break from cover and sprint, dodging wildly, towards the gate of the palisade.
Gaelle loosed two more arrows at him, hitting with one and forcing him to break stride, but not injuring him badly enough to stop him running towards the now opening gate. The wind carried his shouts of alarm to them, though they couldn’t quite make out the words.
“Were you unlucky today or lucky last time?” asked Keldor, not understanding his companion’s poor shooting.
Not deigning to answer, Gaelle led the way back down the hill to the others, waiting patiently below.
“There was one, he ran” she explained succinctly.
“But you got him?” asked Cord.
“I shot him, but he got away. He just stood and watched” Gaelle offloaded some of the blame on Keldor who, in her eyes, should have at least carried a missile weapon, like a proper ranger.
“Do you want to borrow a crossbow?” Helga asked Keldor, who ignored her.
“So,” intoned Li Kung, “there was a scout who watched us approach and who got back to the fort and raised the alarm”
“Pretty much, yeah” agreed Keldor.
“Perhaps we should go back up there and watch. Chance are they will come out to deal with us” suggested a very calm Cord.
They tied the horses up and slunk to the top of the hill, to see what the bandits would do. Even the super-sneaky Gaelle and Helga lost sight of uber-sneaky Keldor as the ranger hugged the dirt like a worm.
From the top, they could see plenty of movement between the buildings and counted 10 bandits manning the palisades. They were convinced that the bandits had to come out to deal with them, sooner rather than later.
“We could send Helga to lure them out with her feminine wiles” suggested Li Kung, perhaps hoping for another glimpse of pale flesh.
“She could exude pus at them,” sneered Gaelle.
“I secrete slime. I don’t exude pus,” Helga countered in her defence.
“Slime?” exclaimed Keldor. “What the hell are you?”
“Could go down there, but I don’t see any advantage at this point” answered Helga, ignoring the young ranger’s incredulity.
“Blonde Bimbo Airhead” muttered Gaelle.
“Blood Guts Slime” added Li Kung, sotto voce.
Staying in place for several minutes watching the bandits mount guard on the palisade, they counted at least a couple of dozen bandits in total. Cord was adamant that they would have to come out and deal with them. In his warrior’s mind, the bandit leader couldn’t let his losses go unavenged.
“Perhaps we should be on THAT hill,” suggested Keldor to Gaelle, pointing toward the hill behind the fort. “We would be much closer and you might have more luck hitting them with your arrows.”
Gaelle chose not to reply and continued to observe the comings and goings in the fort and on the palisade.
“I could jump that,” offered Li Kung, having judged the palisade as 20 feet high.
“Running jump?” inquired Gaelle. The monk nodded.
“Maybe we could come back when Helga has wings” offered Gaelle.
“That’s some way in the future,” answered the strange sorceress, “if I even go down that route. Difficult to hide wings. Prehensile tail, maybe.”
Gaelle shook her head and avoided the strange sorceress’ gaze.
“Maybe Helga could make us invisible and you bowpeople could cover us from here?” suggested the monk.
“Only lasts a few minutes, though,” advised Helga.
“That’s useless!” exclaimed Li Kung. “I was thinking of some of us hiding ourselves by the gate to go in invisible when the bandits sallied out. Maybe not.”
“You could get to the gate, though,” commented Gaelle.
After an hour of observation they noticed that there were more bandits going into the fort than coming out. They weren’t sure what that meant, but it must have meant something.
“While you were studying your books this morning, “Li Kung turned to the general area where a perfectly hidden Keldor lay, “did you load up with significant magical power?”
“As much as I could,” the ranger defended himself.
Realising that the sun was beginning to dip towards the western hill, Cord suggested it might be a good idea to prepare some defences, just in case.
Helga wanted to move away from the area, get a good night’s sleep while the bandits would be on alert all night, and come back the next day when they would be a lot fresher than their foe.
“We’d still have to lose sleep defending ourselves,” Cord pointed out.
Li Kung thought it might be a good idea to use the bandits’ hide on the other side of their hill as it was a well-hidden, prepared site. Gaelle pointed out that there was another, similar, hide on the north side of their hill, though with a more restricted field of view while remaining in cover.
“If I was sending out a flanking force, I’d know where those hides were and take routes to avoid their fields of view,” Li Kung voiced his concern a second before Cord echoed the thought.
Cord determined that they could remove most of the spiky bushes from the crest of the hill and surround the hide with them. That might stop the bandit scouts from sneaking in on them.
It was agreed by the others and they spent the last 90 minutes of failing light cutting bushes and setting them in a defensive position.
Helga placed herself in the bandits’ hiding place, gaining a good view down the hill away from the fort, with a handful of caltrops laid to one side for extra protection, while the others arrayed themselves to protect the gaps in their screen of bushes. She asked if anyone had healing potions she could feed them in the event they went down, but no-one admitted to having any. Disappointed she prepared a spell which would allow silent communication between them, to cast in the event of an attack.
As Luna rose full in the star-filled sky, they spotted a pair of bandits running out of the fort gate and disappearing round the side of the hill.
Another cold half-hour later Gaelle’s dog, Rover, growled and the alerted party spotted several bandits moving down the hillside towards them, with two bowbandits a little further up the slope.
Gaelle loosed a volley of arrows, one heading towards Luna, one into a bush and the third into one of the bandits. Li Kung concentrated and sank several inches into the ground as his mass suddenly increased.
The bandits went to ground, particularly the one with the arrow in his guts, while Keldor cast an armour spell on himself. Cord prepared his sword, eyes searching all around him for further foes and Helga activated her message spell.
Two more bandits broke cover to the side of the hide and shot at Gaelle, who was shocked that she hadn’t seen them. She made up for it by putting her first arrow through a bandit’s eye, her next two killing his neighbour.
Li Kung went into action – in a flash of fists he knocked his closest foe unconscious.
The last two bowbandits both shot at Gaelle, not liking her ability to kill their friends with ease.
Keldor decided to do something stupid. He couldn’t see any other bandits so he stepped forward and flashed his sword around, making a target of himself, but no more.
Cord carved a bandit into a bloody heap and Helga maintained her vigil, listening to the sounds of bandit death around her and unable to hear much more than Rover’s growling.
Li Kung, not afraid of the bandits’ shortswords, was untouched. Keldor, a little more afraid, also remained unscathed. Gaelle shot another bandit to death.
Li Kung, still not afraid, flailed his limbs around in front of him, succeeding only in stuffing his foot deep into the thorn bush he was using for cover. Leaving much of his “Dude Field” behind (not my term – ask Plain Sailing to explain), mostly in the form of blood on the thorns, he concentrated and regained most of his appearance of cool superiority.
Keldor finally managed to draw blood, sorely hurting his opponent with two blows. He then had the rest of the bandit’s blood showered over him as Cord’s Fullblade passed clean through his body.
“I lose so many potential components that way!” bemoaned Helga from within her cover, noticing another bandit to the other side of the hide and firing her crossbow in his general direction.
Gaelle took an arrow in the thigh before an invisible bandit appeared beside her and stuck his shortsword and dagger into her abdomen, a little concerned that the ranger was not taken out. Gaelle’s luck reasserted itself as the bandit’s sword failed to connect with her when she shot him. Twice.
Li Kung, limping slightly from his bloody foot, stepped back, cut one bandit down and hurt another with his glaive. Keldor, choosing not to leave the hide, sent a ray of fire at the flanking bowbandit, scorching him badly, softening him up for Cord to eviscerate him on a charge.
Helga fired another bolt off into the sky and Li Kung’s bandit sliced the monk across the forearm as Gaelle’s arrow pierced his ear and Li Kung’s foot ruptured his scrotum.
Mostly covered in bandit blood, the party dragged all the bodies into a pile so Helga could check them for magic stuff (the leather jerkin and sword of the invisible bandit) while letting the last bandit disappear into the moonlit brush.
Li Kung tried to remove the jerkin, thinking that he could wear it without spoiling his abilities but decided he was wasting his time when, after a few minutes of effort, he found that it felt like armour. Damn!
Helga performed first aid on her more wounded companions, while Gaelle managed to find the bandits’ incoming tracks in the moonlight. Gathering everyone together, they followed the trail around the hillside and down towards the back of the fort hill, right to a well-hidden dark entrance. They had found the back door!
Helga turned Gaelle invisible and she and Rover crept to the entrance for a bit of a scout. Rover could smell something in the opening, but nothing distinct or close. Cord jogged up to the entrance, not trying to move quietly across the pebble-strewn ground (not that he could anyway) in order to draw any bandit’s attention, while Li Kung sneaked up the other side.
The entrance was as quiet as it was dark. That is to say, very.
Keldor picked up a pebble, cast a light spell on it and tossed it into the yawning darkness. At least, he tried to. The pebble clipped the side of the entrance and ricocheted out, narrowly missing an unimpressed Cord.
“You want to try throwing it again, then?” he asked the younger ranger.
Keldor, trying very hard not to embarrass himself further, picked it up and succeeded in tossing it some 60’ down the roughly dug passage, illuminating a couple of dark patches (side entrances?) as it bounced along.
Taking a minute to sort themselves out in to a line they entered the passage.
“If those are side passages, don’t go into them” warned Cord, taking up position behind the more sneaky members of the party. Actually, he was standing behind Helga who, in his estimation, needed all the help she could get. And some therapy.
Helga magically changed her appearance to one of the roguey bandits they had killed, complete with most of the injuries, and pretended to be a captive coerced into showing the party the way in.
She was relying on her reflexes to save her from any traps she might “find”, as she didn’t want to screw up her act by searching for them.
As they approached the shining pebble, it became obvious that there were, indeed, openings on both sides.
Cord and Li Kung coordinated their movements and both stepped into the side passages simultaneously.
And the waiting bandits’ swords swung harmlessly across their faces. The best laid plans of mice, eh?
A rapidly reacting Li Kung grabbed his bandit, but failed to get a good grip, Cord took a chunk out of his opponent, who continued to flail about with his sword before stepping back into the darkness. Li Kung, however, took a knife in the ribs from his bandit.
Helga moved toward the light, pretending to trip and fall, surreptitiously checking for traps.
Li Kung nutted his bandit, failing to put his lights out and Cord stepped into the deeper dark and unerringly slid his sword into the bandit’s chest. Then he wiggled it about a bit after the body hit the floor, just to be sure.
Out of the passage beyond the light, a bandit appeared and stuck his sword into Helga’s back – he hadn’t been taken in by her acting – and another bandit stepped into Cord’s reach. Gaelle, at the back, called to Keldor to duck and prepared to shoot when he did.
Li Kung’s bandit grazed his knife across the monk’s ribs, without breaking the skin, getting a knee in the cods for his trouble. Li Kung’s shoulder gained an even covering of bandit puke before the monk twisted the bandit’s head rather further than it normally went. The already limp bandit went a bit limper and twitched a bit.
Helga, bravely, chose to get up, apparently not hearing Gaelle’s call and receiving a flesh wound from the bandit next to her, before moving back down the passage past the two rangers.
Cord and his bandit swapped swishes while Helga’s attacker and Keldor swapped blood before the young ranger ducked. Gaelle’s arrow parted Keldor’s hair to take the bandit in the throat. Keldor got some more blood showered over him.
Li Kung tried to hurl his unconscious bandit down the passage but only managed to drop him at his feet, before bravely tumbling forward into the darkness.
Cord’s bandit was feeling lucky – the Fullblade hadn’t come within a foot of him for a whole 12 seconds – and made the most of it by stepping away, into the black passage.
Li Kung heard another bandit move towards him and felt the shortsword whistle past his arm, but couldn’t really see anything. Keldor attempted to kick the light stone further down the passage, but only managed to scuff his boot. Gaelle, feeling that she needed more light, opened up her lantern and called Rover to move in front of her, as Helga moved back to the front of the queue.
Li Kung thought about how effective his head had been and unleashed a flurry of head butts on his unsuspecting foe, breaking the bandit’s nose and fracturing his skull, his wounds exacerbated by his face hitting the floor shortly afterward.
Across the passage, Cord deftly revealed his bandit’s intestines, neatly sidestepping the spilled offal.
The fight over, Cord and Li Kung investigated the side passages, finding two small guard rooms devoid of anything interesting.
“Right,” said Gaelle, purposefully, “let’s go!” and threw the light-stone further down the passage, striding off after it.
After some 200 yards further into the hillside, approximately half-way through, Keldor plainly heard a ‘ching-a-ching-a-ching-clang’ noise from ahead.
“Either they’ve closed a portcullis or they’ve released the Cave Monster” surmised Cord.
Li Kung listened intently for the sound of an imaginary enormous stone ball on its way towards them.
”I think the tunnel slopes away from us” Cord reassured the monk.
Li Kung turned and tried to focus his hearing behind them, up the slope, still unable to hear anything untoward.
Shaking his head Cord led on into the hillside, right to a metal grille blocking the passage.
Exerting himself mightily, he only managed to lift it about a half inch before having to let go.
Helga squeezed past (everyone shrunk back slightly to avoid any slime) and tried to find a locking mechanism. She couldn’t see anything but thought that the grille had definitely been locked in the down position.
“Can you poke your snake through the hole?” Li Kung asked Keldor, to raised eyebrows.
“It’s a bit cold, but I suppose so”.
Shelving that idea, Li Kung and Cord decided to team up on the task, one kneeling and one standing.
With a few minutes of preparation and an almighty heave they heard a metallic ‘snap’ and the grille came free.
Returning to the previous fight’s debris, Cord liberated a couple of shortswords, with which Helga disabled the grille in the up position.
“Maybe we should leave it down to stop you lot running away” mused Cord.
Getting herself back in character as a wounded captive bandit, Helga led the way, on into the hillside.
Stumbling through the passage, doing a fair impersonation of a bandit who had been thoroughly duffed up, Helga only just noticed that she was putting her foot onto something sharp as the point pierced her sole. Jerking her foot back she could make out a patch of passage with a large number of spikes stuck in the floor. Carefully avoiding the spikes, they continued on, lobbing the light-stone before them.
A hundred feet further on, as the light-stone bounced to illuminate a small chamber, Cord could just make out a pair of bandit archers as they loosed. The fighter’s quick-thinking could have saved Helga as he lifted and swung her behind his shield, but the arrows struck her before he had completed the move.
At least they struck her in her rump instead of her belly.
Taking the opportunity to get out of the imminent fracas, Helga slumped, as if dead, while Cord dropped her and stomped forward to meet these latest foes. Straight through another patch of spikes, some getting through his boots. “Spikes!” he yelled, as he charged up to one of the bowmen and bloodied his sword.
The room they were in was faintly lit by several small candles set in niches in the walls. Not enough light to read by, but the only thing Cord wanted to read was the auguries from bandit entrails.
From her position on the floor, Helga couldn’t see much beyond the light-stone, not even enough to target a magic missile when the bandit swordsmen, who had been hiding in the chamber’s corners, stepped in to combat.
Gaelle, gagging for combat, moved closer but couldn’t see any spikes.
Having noticed where Cord had stepped on spikes, Li Kung moved up behind Cord and thought, briefly, about poking his glaive past the warrior. A job made more difficult by Cord flailing his Fullblade around wildly. The bandits were kept at bay, however.
The monk, also gagging for combat, prepared to move past Cord as soon as he cut the lead bandit down.
The moment the bandit’s bleeding corpse hit the ground, Li Kung sprung forward, bounced off Cord’s broad back to land exactly where he started, on his backside. Leaping back to his feet, the proud monk’s demeanour suggested that this was the result he had planned all along. No-one laughed.
“There you go, Cord” he said, “I’ve distracted him for you!”
Gaelle shouted “Duck!” hoping vainly for a clear shot while Cord chopped away at the front, not ducking.
Li Kung again tried to tumble past Cord and through the bandit’s legs, again landing on his arse, though at least not with a bandit sword in him.
Cord was interested in why Li Kung kept jumping on him, but was too busy killing bandits to give it too much thought. As his opponent fell, the two bowmen across the room fired, one arrow grazing Cord’s thigh.
Li Kung, who had obviously taken a clumsy pill that morning, leaped past the remaining bandit swordsman, who waved his sword roughly where Li Kung would have been had he was crawling, and presented his foot for an archer to sniff.
Gaelle, finally getting a clear shot, ricocheted her first arrow past Cord’s left ear and embedded her second in the wall by his right ear. Cord was again impressed by her prowess with the bow.
Keldor, thinking that being in front of Gaelle might not be the safest place to be, moved to the side and killed the last swordsbandit.
As the two archers fired at Li Kung, who was standing right in front of them, the doughty monk twirled around, grazing the wall with his foot just managing to not fall over, before kicking one of them in the belly. He did, however, take two painful arrows in the chest. A little bit more painful than he was expecting. And was that a fizzing he could hear?
Now pained and annoyed (and a little embarrassed), Li Kung broke one archer’s jaw before stamping on his mate’s face.
After a few moments’ pause Helga got to her feet and went to minister to her companions, who were already rifling through the bandits’ possessions.
Li Kung examined the arrows as Helga pulled them out but couldn’t see anything funny about them. When he looked in the bandits’ quivers, however, he found that each had a separate section, specially lined, containing 3 arrows. Arrows that appeared to have been dipped in clear grease-like substance. Acid! Nasty. He considered scraping some of the goop onto some shuriken, but realised that he wouldn’t be able to do anything with them that wouldn’t wipe the acid off.
Gaelle took one of the quivers and attached it to Rover’s harness. It nicely balanced the quiver on the dog’s other side. Not having noticed this trick before, Helga and Keldor were suitably impressed.
Taking a few moments to get their breath back, the party prepared to move on.
16th October 1699
During the night, Fragh the Uruk barbarian had leapt up and decided to go off in a different direction. He didn’t see any fun in killing a few measly bandits and it didn’t get him any closer to retaking his tribe.
Boldo, feeling that his new friend would not last long on his own, went along to persuade him to the contrary.
Over breakfast, the rest of the party interrogated the bandit they had captured during the night (Li Kung had grappled him unconscious). They wanted to know how big the bandit group was and how many scouty-rogue types there were. Li Kung was asking a lot of questions without waiting to hear the answers.
The captive, worried by the quick fire questioning but thinking that they might let him live if he cooperated (rolled 2 for Sense Motive) told them that there were four raiding parties, each with about fifteen men. Theirs was the only one to contain a magician.
“Any clerics?” pressed the monk.
“Not that I’ve seen”.
“So, nobody to take care of their spiritual welfare,” mumbled Helga in the background.
“Do they take prisoners?” interjected Gaelle.
“Rarely. Did once, a long time ago”
“Not keeping anyone for ransom at the minute?” asked Helga, hoping, perhaps, to take over the ransom process herself.
“No. We’ve been out for a couple of weeks so things might have changed. Doubt it”
“Where were you heading when we caught up with you?”
“Heading back by a ‘circuitous route’ to avoid meeting anyone. That worked well.”
“Not a successful mission then” sneered Li Kung, enjoying the bandit’s discomfort.
“Not exactly, no. Cold”
“Draw us a map to your hideout” ordered Li Kung, untying one of the bandits hands, luckily the one he used to write.
“So, that makes at least 50 bandits,” reasoned Gaelle. “10 to 1. Nice”
“If we know where they come from, we could bushwhack the other groups as they return” the monk added, not liking the thought of taking on 50 bandits.
“If I was a bandit leader“ Cord explained, adding a silent ‘maybe later’, “I wouldn’t have all the groups out at once. Maybe half at a time, more than likely the tougher ones, including the leader”
“So, 6 to 1. Getting better. 4 to 1 would be preferable, though.”
“Come on, most of those are going to be the same sort of plebs that you killed yesterday” said Cord, trying to make Gaelle feel better.
By this time the map was complete, showing the hills around the bandits’ lair, a small village and the rough layout of a palisade containing several buildings. The main building was dug into the hillside behind it.
“So, how many men can we expect to find there?” Gaelle asked the now more relaxed bandit.
He explained that there would probably be at least 2 groups, maybe 3. Even in significantly sub-zero temperatures like they were experiencing they still had to send out patrols to bring supplies.
“Any dragons?” asked Gaelle.
“Yeah, up in the mountains”
“Where?”
“Dunno exactly. We don’t go hunting them. Last group went out looking never came back”
”We do” added Li Kung sternly.
“We could probably sneak up closer and have a look at that palisade” suggested Cord.
“Bound to be a lookout up there” added Gaelle.
“Our two rangers could do some rangering then,” said Li Kung, “and have a look around.”
“OK”, agreed Gaelle, “except that this ranger (pointing to Keldor) is barely conscious”
“I’m hurt, but nothing a bit of rest wouldn’t cure” retorted the other ranger.
Deciding to continue on to the bandits’ lair and sneak up for a better look they packed up camp and Li Kung casually snapped their captive’s neck before they all marched off. Gaelle tutted and cut off his head, stuffing it into the sack with the others.
Taking most of the daylight, they rode close to the nearest hill, then waited halfway up while Gaelle and Keldor crawled through the grass toward the hill’s crest. Keldor was quiet as the wind, Gaelle was making enough noise for two. Over to their right was an obvious place to hide, giving an excellent view of the rest of their party.
Keldor, peering over the other side of the hill, spotted a man moving quickly, in cover, heading toward the village. Gaelle stood up and fired three arrows in his vague direction, rustling a bush near him.
The startled bandit began moving a little more slowly, into deeper cover.
Gaelle could still see him and sent another three arrows into the scenery around him.
“Well, they know we’re here” said Keldor, sagely, looking at Gaelle, who was using indistinct but obviously foul language to mark her lack of success.
“I wonder how our rangers are doing?” wondered Li Kung.
Upon looking back down the hill, however, neither ranger could spot the bandit, though Gaelle peered for some minutes at the cover. Then, Keldor saw him break from cover and sprint, dodging wildly, towards the gate of the palisade.
Gaelle loosed two more arrows at him, hitting with one and forcing him to break stride, but not injuring him badly enough to stop him running towards the now opening gate. The wind carried his shouts of alarm to them, though they couldn’t quite make out the words.
“Were you unlucky today or lucky last time?” asked Keldor, not understanding his companion’s poor shooting.
Not deigning to answer, Gaelle led the way back down the hill to the others, waiting patiently below.
“There was one, he ran” she explained succinctly.
“But you got him?” asked Cord.
“I shot him, but he got away. He just stood and watched” Gaelle offloaded some of the blame on Keldor who, in her eyes, should have at least carried a missile weapon, like a proper ranger.
“Do you want to borrow a crossbow?” Helga asked Keldor, who ignored her.
“So,” intoned Li Kung, “there was a scout who watched us approach and who got back to the fort and raised the alarm”
“Pretty much, yeah” agreed Keldor.
“Perhaps we should go back up there and watch. Chance are they will come out to deal with us” suggested a very calm Cord.
They tied the horses up and slunk to the top of the hill, to see what the bandits would do. Even the super-sneaky Gaelle and Helga lost sight of uber-sneaky Keldor as the ranger hugged the dirt like a worm.
From the top, they could see plenty of movement between the buildings and counted 10 bandits manning the palisades. They were convinced that the bandits had to come out to deal with them, sooner rather than later.
“We could send Helga to lure them out with her feminine wiles” suggested Li Kung, perhaps hoping for another glimpse of pale flesh.
“She could exude pus at them,” sneered Gaelle.
“I secrete slime. I don’t exude pus,” Helga countered in her defence.
“Slime?” exclaimed Keldor. “What the hell are you?”
“Could go down there, but I don’t see any advantage at this point” answered Helga, ignoring the young ranger’s incredulity.
“Blonde Bimbo Airhead” muttered Gaelle.
“Blood Guts Slime” added Li Kung, sotto voce.
Staying in place for several minutes watching the bandits mount guard on the palisade, they counted at least a couple of dozen bandits in total. Cord was adamant that they would have to come out and deal with them. In his warrior’s mind, the bandit leader couldn’t let his losses go unavenged.
“Perhaps we should be on THAT hill,” suggested Keldor to Gaelle, pointing toward the hill behind the fort. “We would be much closer and you might have more luck hitting them with your arrows.”
Gaelle chose not to reply and continued to observe the comings and goings in the fort and on the palisade.
“I could jump that,” offered Li Kung, having judged the palisade as 20 feet high.
“Running jump?” inquired Gaelle. The monk nodded.
“Maybe we could come back when Helga has wings” offered Gaelle.
“That’s some way in the future,” answered the strange sorceress, “if I even go down that route. Difficult to hide wings. Prehensile tail, maybe.”
Gaelle shook her head and avoided the strange sorceress’ gaze.
“Maybe Helga could make us invisible and you bowpeople could cover us from here?” suggested the monk.
“Only lasts a few minutes, though,” advised Helga.
“That’s useless!” exclaimed Li Kung. “I was thinking of some of us hiding ourselves by the gate to go in invisible when the bandits sallied out. Maybe not.”
“You could get to the gate, though,” commented Gaelle.
After an hour of observation they noticed that there were more bandits going into the fort than coming out. They weren’t sure what that meant, but it must have meant something.
“While you were studying your books this morning, “Li Kung turned to the general area where a perfectly hidden Keldor lay, “did you load up with significant magical power?”
“As much as I could,” the ranger defended himself.
Realising that the sun was beginning to dip towards the western hill, Cord suggested it might be a good idea to prepare some defences, just in case.
Helga wanted to move away from the area, get a good night’s sleep while the bandits would be on alert all night, and come back the next day when they would be a lot fresher than their foe.
“We’d still have to lose sleep defending ourselves,” Cord pointed out.
Li Kung thought it might be a good idea to use the bandits’ hide on the other side of their hill as it was a well-hidden, prepared site. Gaelle pointed out that there was another, similar, hide on the north side of their hill, though with a more restricted field of view while remaining in cover.
“If I was sending out a flanking force, I’d know where those hides were and take routes to avoid their fields of view,” Li Kung voiced his concern a second before Cord echoed the thought.
Cord determined that they could remove most of the spiky bushes from the crest of the hill and surround the hide with them. That might stop the bandit scouts from sneaking in on them.
It was agreed by the others and they spent the last 90 minutes of failing light cutting bushes and setting them in a defensive position.
Helga placed herself in the bandits’ hiding place, gaining a good view down the hill away from the fort, with a handful of caltrops laid to one side for extra protection, while the others arrayed themselves to protect the gaps in their screen of bushes. She asked if anyone had healing potions she could feed them in the event they went down, but no-one admitted to having any. Disappointed she prepared a spell which would allow silent communication between them, to cast in the event of an attack.
As Luna rose full in the star-filled sky, they spotted a pair of bandits running out of the fort gate and disappearing round the side of the hill.
Another cold half-hour later Gaelle’s dog, Rover, growled and the alerted party spotted several bandits moving down the hillside towards them, with two bowbandits a little further up the slope.
Gaelle loosed a volley of arrows, one heading towards Luna, one into a bush and the third into one of the bandits. Li Kung concentrated and sank several inches into the ground as his mass suddenly increased.
The bandits went to ground, particularly the one with the arrow in his guts, while Keldor cast an armour spell on himself. Cord prepared his sword, eyes searching all around him for further foes and Helga activated her message spell.
Two more bandits broke cover to the side of the hide and shot at Gaelle, who was shocked that she hadn’t seen them. She made up for it by putting her first arrow through a bandit’s eye, her next two killing his neighbour.
Li Kung went into action – in a flash of fists he knocked his closest foe unconscious.
The last two bowbandits both shot at Gaelle, not liking her ability to kill their friends with ease.
Keldor decided to do something stupid. He couldn’t see any other bandits so he stepped forward and flashed his sword around, making a target of himself, but no more.
Cord carved a bandit into a bloody heap and Helga maintained her vigil, listening to the sounds of bandit death around her and unable to hear much more than Rover’s growling.
Li Kung, not afraid of the bandits’ shortswords, was untouched. Keldor, a little more afraid, also remained unscathed. Gaelle shot another bandit to death.
Li Kung, still not afraid, flailed his limbs around in front of him, succeeding only in stuffing his foot deep into the thorn bush he was using for cover. Leaving much of his “Dude Field” behind (not my term – ask Plain Sailing to explain), mostly in the form of blood on the thorns, he concentrated and regained most of his appearance of cool superiority.
Keldor finally managed to draw blood, sorely hurting his opponent with two blows. He then had the rest of the bandit’s blood showered over him as Cord’s Fullblade passed clean through his body.
“I lose so many potential components that way!” bemoaned Helga from within her cover, noticing another bandit to the other side of the hide and firing her crossbow in his general direction.
Gaelle took an arrow in the thigh before an invisible bandit appeared beside her and stuck his shortsword and dagger into her abdomen, a little concerned that the ranger was not taken out. Gaelle’s luck reasserted itself as the bandit’s sword failed to connect with her when she shot him. Twice.
Li Kung, limping slightly from his bloody foot, stepped back, cut one bandit down and hurt another with his glaive. Keldor, choosing not to leave the hide, sent a ray of fire at the flanking bowbandit, scorching him badly, softening him up for Cord to eviscerate him on a charge.
Helga fired another bolt off into the sky and Li Kung’s bandit sliced the monk across the forearm as Gaelle’s arrow pierced his ear and Li Kung’s foot ruptured his scrotum.
Mostly covered in bandit blood, the party dragged all the bodies into a pile so Helga could check them for magic stuff (the leather jerkin and sword of the invisible bandit) while letting the last bandit disappear into the moonlit brush.
Li Kung tried to remove the jerkin, thinking that he could wear it without spoiling his abilities but decided he was wasting his time when, after a few minutes of effort, he found that it felt like armour. Damn!
Helga performed first aid on her more wounded companions, while Gaelle managed to find the bandits’ incoming tracks in the moonlight. Gathering everyone together, they followed the trail around the hillside and down towards the back of the fort hill, right to a well-hidden dark entrance. They had found the back door!
Helga turned Gaelle invisible and she and Rover crept to the entrance for a bit of a scout. Rover could smell something in the opening, but nothing distinct or close. Cord jogged up to the entrance, not trying to move quietly across the pebble-strewn ground (not that he could anyway) in order to draw any bandit’s attention, while Li Kung sneaked up the other side.
The entrance was as quiet as it was dark. That is to say, very.
Keldor picked up a pebble, cast a light spell on it and tossed it into the yawning darkness. At least, he tried to. The pebble clipped the side of the entrance and ricocheted out, narrowly missing an unimpressed Cord.
“You want to try throwing it again, then?” he asked the younger ranger.
Keldor, trying very hard not to embarrass himself further, picked it up and succeeded in tossing it some 60’ down the roughly dug passage, illuminating a couple of dark patches (side entrances?) as it bounced along.
Taking a minute to sort themselves out in to a line they entered the passage.
“If those are side passages, don’t go into them” warned Cord, taking up position behind the more sneaky members of the party. Actually, he was standing behind Helga who, in his estimation, needed all the help she could get. And some therapy.
Helga magically changed her appearance to one of the roguey bandits they had killed, complete with most of the injuries, and pretended to be a captive coerced into showing the party the way in.
She was relying on her reflexes to save her from any traps she might “find”, as she didn’t want to screw up her act by searching for them.
As they approached the shining pebble, it became obvious that there were, indeed, openings on both sides.
Cord and Li Kung coordinated their movements and both stepped into the side passages simultaneously.
And the waiting bandits’ swords swung harmlessly across their faces. The best laid plans of mice, eh?
A rapidly reacting Li Kung grabbed his bandit, but failed to get a good grip, Cord took a chunk out of his opponent, who continued to flail about with his sword before stepping back into the darkness. Li Kung, however, took a knife in the ribs from his bandit.
Helga moved toward the light, pretending to trip and fall, surreptitiously checking for traps.
Li Kung nutted his bandit, failing to put his lights out and Cord stepped into the deeper dark and unerringly slid his sword into the bandit’s chest. Then he wiggled it about a bit after the body hit the floor, just to be sure.
Out of the passage beyond the light, a bandit appeared and stuck his sword into Helga’s back – he hadn’t been taken in by her acting – and another bandit stepped into Cord’s reach. Gaelle, at the back, called to Keldor to duck and prepared to shoot when he did.
Li Kung’s bandit grazed his knife across the monk’s ribs, without breaking the skin, getting a knee in the cods for his trouble. Li Kung’s shoulder gained an even covering of bandit puke before the monk twisted the bandit’s head rather further than it normally went. The already limp bandit went a bit limper and twitched a bit.
Helga, bravely, chose to get up, apparently not hearing Gaelle’s call and receiving a flesh wound from the bandit next to her, before moving back down the passage past the two rangers.
Cord and his bandit swapped swishes while Helga’s attacker and Keldor swapped blood before the young ranger ducked. Gaelle’s arrow parted Keldor’s hair to take the bandit in the throat. Keldor got some more blood showered over him.
Li Kung tried to hurl his unconscious bandit down the passage but only managed to drop him at his feet, before bravely tumbling forward into the darkness.
Cord’s bandit was feeling lucky – the Fullblade hadn’t come within a foot of him for a whole 12 seconds – and made the most of it by stepping away, into the black passage.
Li Kung heard another bandit move towards him and felt the shortsword whistle past his arm, but couldn’t really see anything. Keldor attempted to kick the light stone further down the passage, but only managed to scuff his boot. Gaelle, feeling that she needed more light, opened up her lantern and called Rover to move in front of her, as Helga moved back to the front of the queue.
Li Kung thought about how effective his head had been and unleashed a flurry of head butts on his unsuspecting foe, breaking the bandit’s nose and fracturing his skull, his wounds exacerbated by his face hitting the floor shortly afterward.
Across the passage, Cord deftly revealed his bandit’s intestines, neatly sidestepping the spilled offal.
The fight over, Cord and Li Kung investigated the side passages, finding two small guard rooms devoid of anything interesting.
“Right,” said Gaelle, purposefully, “let’s go!” and threw the light-stone further down the passage, striding off after it.
After some 200 yards further into the hillside, approximately half-way through, Keldor plainly heard a ‘ching-a-ching-a-ching-clang’ noise from ahead.
“Either they’ve closed a portcullis or they’ve released the Cave Monster” surmised Cord.
Li Kung listened intently for the sound of an imaginary enormous stone ball on its way towards them.
”I think the tunnel slopes away from us” Cord reassured the monk.
Li Kung turned and tried to focus his hearing behind them, up the slope, still unable to hear anything untoward.
Shaking his head Cord led on into the hillside, right to a metal grille blocking the passage.
Exerting himself mightily, he only managed to lift it about a half inch before having to let go.
Helga squeezed past (everyone shrunk back slightly to avoid any slime) and tried to find a locking mechanism. She couldn’t see anything but thought that the grille had definitely been locked in the down position.
“Can you poke your snake through the hole?” Li Kung asked Keldor, to raised eyebrows.
“It’s a bit cold, but I suppose so”.
Shelving that idea, Li Kung and Cord decided to team up on the task, one kneeling and one standing.
With a few minutes of preparation and an almighty heave they heard a metallic ‘snap’ and the grille came free.
Returning to the previous fight’s debris, Cord liberated a couple of shortswords, with which Helga disabled the grille in the up position.
“Maybe we should leave it down to stop you lot running away” mused Cord.
Getting herself back in character as a wounded captive bandit, Helga led the way, on into the hillside.
Stumbling through the passage, doing a fair impersonation of a bandit who had been thoroughly duffed up, Helga only just noticed that she was putting her foot onto something sharp as the point pierced her sole. Jerking her foot back she could make out a patch of passage with a large number of spikes stuck in the floor. Carefully avoiding the spikes, they continued on, lobbing the light-stone before them.
A hundred feet further on, as the light-stone bounced to illuminate a small chamber, Cord could just make out a pair of bandit archers as they loosed. The fighter’s quick-thinking could have saved Helga as he lifted and swung her behind his shield, but the arrows struck her before he had completed the move.
At least they struck her in her rump instead of her belly.
Taking the opportunity to get out of the imminent fracas, Helga slumped, as if dead, while Cord dropped her and stomped forward to meet these latest foes. Straight through another patch of spikes, some getting through his boots. “Spikes!” he yelled, as he charged up to one of the bowmen and bloodied his sword.
The room they were in was faintly lit by several small candles set in niches in the walls. Not enough light to read by, but the only thing Cord wanted to read was the auguries from bandit entrails.
From her position on the floor, Helga couldn’t see much beyond the light-stone, not even enough to target a magic missile when the bandit swordsmen, who had been hiding in the chamber’s corners, stepped in to combat.
Gaelle, gagging for combat, moved closer but couldn’t see any spikes.
Having noticed where Cord had stepped on spikes, Li Kung moved up behind Cord and thought, briefly, about poking his glaive past the warrior. A job made more difficult by Cord flailing his Fullblade around wildly. The bandits were kept at bay, however.
The monk, also gagging for combat, prepared to move past Cord as soon as he cut the lead bandit down.
The moment the bandit’s bleeding corpse hit the ground, Li Kung sprung forward, bounced off Cord’s broad back to land exactly where he started, on his backside. Leaping back to his feet, the proud monk’s demeanour suggested that this was the result he had planned all along. No-one laughed.
“There you go, Cord” he said, “I’ve distracted him for you!”
Gaelle shouted “Duck!” hoping vainly for a clear shot while Cord chopped away at the front, not ducking.
Li Kung again tried to tumble past Cord and through the bandit’s legs, again landing on his arse, though at least not with a bandit sword in him.
Cord was interested in why Li Kung kept jumping on him, but was too busy killing bandits to give it too much thought. As his opponent fell, the two bowmen across the room fired, one arrow grazing Cord’s thigh.
Li Kung, who had obviously taken a clumsy pill that morning, leaped past the remaining bandit swordsman, who waved his sword roughly where Li Kung would have been had he was crawling, and presented his foot for an archer to sniff.
Gaelle, finally getting a clear shot, ricocheted her first arrow past Cord’s left ear and embedded her second in the wall by his right ear. Cord was again impressed by her prowess with the bow.
Keldor, thinking that being in front of Gaelle might not be the safest place to be, moved to the side and killed the last swordsbandit.
As the two archers fired at Li Kung, who was standing right in front of them, the doughty monk twirled around, grazing the wall with his foot just managing to not fall over, before kicking one of them in the belly. He did, however, take two painful arrows in the chest. A little bit more painful than he was expecting. And was that a fizzing he could hear?
Now pained and annoyed (and a little embarrassed), Li Kung broke one archer’s jaw before stamping on his mate’s face.
After a few moments’ pause Helga got to her feet and went to minister to her companions, who were already rifling through the bandits’ possessions.
Li Kung examined the arrows as Helga pulled them out but couldn’t see anything funny about them. When he looked in the bandits’ quivers, however, he found that each had a separate section, specially lined, containing 3 arrows. Arrows that appeared to have been dipped in clear grease-like substance. Acid! Nasty. He considered scraping some of the goop onto some shuriken, but realised that he wouldn’t be able to do anything with them that wouldn’t wipe the acid off.
Gaelle took one of the quivers and attached it to Rover’s harness. It nicely balanced the quiver on the dog’s other side. Not having noticed this trick before, Helga and Keldor were suitably impressed.
Taking a few moments to get their breath back, the party prepared to move on.
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