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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 387960" data-attributes="member: 143">For me, it was reading Sepulchrave's Heretic of Wyre thread that really drew me into the idea of a high-level druid.  Nwm, to put it simply, rocks.  The Travels characters are fast approaching the higher levels of power, given that they are now in double-digits level-wise.  Admittedly my multiclassing choices have cost some of them in terms of spell power, but as I've noted in earlier threads I've always put game power in second place to character development.  Even so, Dana's ability to cast 5th level spells (including teleport, which she gets through her travel domain) will likely impact the story significantly, and Cal will join her up there pretty soon (he will probably take mage levels from here on out).  Thanks for the feedback, now here's today's update.* * * * * Book VI, Part 9Within the many-layered and twisting passages that made up the Underdark of Faerûn, a horde of gibberlings descended upon an embattled handful of dwarf warriors. Lok let out a battlecry as his axe met the first surge of the gibberling assault.  His first swing took down three of the loathsome creatures, their cries turning to squeals of pain as they bled out their lives upon the cold stone.  Others flooded over their fallen compatriots, however, and surged into the stalwart genasi.  The sheer impact of their assault would have felled most defenders, but Lok’s legs were planted on the stone as though roots had descended down from them into the depths of the earth below.  Several gibberlings latched onto him, clawing with futility at his armored limbs and torso; they might as well have been scratching at the stone itself.  A pair clambered up his left flank, scaling his shield as if it were the face of a great mountain.  Others came at him from the right, wary of the axe that was already proven deadly.  That wariness was demonstrated again as Lok swept the axe in a mighty swath that cleared his enemies like a farmer cutting overripe wheat with a scythe.  More gibberlings fell, their blood mixing with those that had already fallen, their bodies forming a rampart around the warrior. But still, they came on.  The onrushing wave had struck a stone wall in Lok, but it continued around him into his dwarven allies.  The urdunnir line held, though, and their weapons—some forged by Lok himself—bit deeply into the mass of raging gibberlings.  One dwarf staggered as a quartet of gibberlings leapt onto him, screaming and tearing; his companions tried to fight to him but were soon busy fighting off their own knots of foes.  The hapless dwarf managed to dislodge one enemy, but then went down as still more creatures piled onto him, and he vanished in a blur of hairy bodies.Lok, meanwhile, held his ground, and his axe spawned a storm of death around him.  With each swing up to a half-dozen of the creatures went down, until their bodies formed a ring around him.  Any rational foe would have retreated in the face of that implacable fury, but the gibberlings were beyond reason, driven mad in their lust for destruction.  They got what they wanted.One gibberling leapt up over the bodies and screamed as it came down toward Lok’s helmeted head.  Up came the shield, and the gibberling bounced off to the flank, hurled free by a single heave from the mighty warrior.  The creature was cut down an instant later by another dwarf, but the momentary distraction cost Lok as a half-dozen more of the creatures leapt at his right side before he could bring his deadly axe around again.  The creatures grappled him, three of them holding the arm bearing the axe, holding even his considerable strength at bay.  The gibberlings babbled in triumph, and others surged in over the pile of bodies, anticipating the kill.Their enthusiasm was a bit premature.  As the gibberlings on his right struggled to hold him, Lok shifted and slammed his shield into the faces of the ones attacking from directly ahead.  Two went down, their faces a smashed ruin, but others grabbed onto the shield, trying to hold his other arm in place.  This obliged Lok, who then slipped his arm from the shield straps and immediately drew his dagger.  As the three gibberlings holding the shield fell awkwardly back, holding their fellows momentarily in check, Lok twisted and carved through the gibberlings holding his axe-arm with the dagger.  One gibberling crumpled with half its neck torn through, and a second stumbled as blood filled its punctured lung.  The last remaining one found that he could not hold the genasi’s arm alone, and a moment later was knocked back as Lok rammed the haft of his axe solidly into its face.  Still the gibberlings came on, crawling over bodies to reach their deaths.  Lok was covered with blood, nearly all of it belonging to his enemies—other than a few bruises and scratches, he had not been seriously hurt.  He planted his dagger in the chest of a nearby gibberling and took up the axe with both hands, hacking and slashing with mechanical efficiency until the world around him was a sea of red.  And then it was over.  Finally, the reality of the toll being wreaked upon them had cut through the battle-madness of the gibberlings, activating some more primal instinct for survival.  The broken remnant of the gibberling rush fled in pure terror from the foes, from the demon that had demolished their rush.  Less than fifty survived to retreat back into the trackless tunnels of the Underdark, and never again would any of those survivors wander to within a league of this particular place, even years later.  The dwarves looked around in amazement, wondering at their survival against such odds.  Of the sixteen that had formed the line behind Lok, four had fallen to the rush, and most of the rest sported wounds that ranged from minor to serious.  Then their eyes turned to the armored figure that stood before them, covered in blood, surrounded by the hacked remains of his enemies.  Many of the gibberling corpses were rimned in frost that was slowly melting in the hot air of the battlefield, their deadly wounds frozen open by the magical power of Lok’s axe. Later, when they sorted out all the bodies for disposal, they would tally the slain of gibberling horde.  Six had died in the tunnel, dropped by dwarven bolts or trampled by their fellows in the eagerness of their rush.  Another forty had died in the trench or at the grating, and fully fifty more had been slain before the wedge formed by the defending dwarves.But the largest group of dead had been clustered in the center of the passageway, lying in bloody heaps around a single point.  Some of the piles reached nearly five feet in height.  When they had unstacked all the bodies and counted them, they tallied fifty-six slain gibberlings whose deaths could be directly attributed to Lok’s attacks.  And so another day passed in the Underdark.* * * * * EDIT: I've added Pelanther and Fenrus's stats to the Rogues' Gallery thread (link in sig).</blockquote>

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