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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zad" data-source="post: 3183898" data-attributes="member: 90">Flood Season - Chapter 5Flood Season – Chapter 5OOC Notes: Exp is 1600This Week’s Adventure:There were some quick preparations and then Astrid kicked open the door. The conversation in the room ceased as Elizabeth charged in and cut deep into one of the hillfolk. The response of the hillfolk was impressive. They weren’t panicked or disorganized – they regrouped as best they could and worked together well. They tried to grapple with the Tygers or create openings for their fellows, but despite some good coordination they weren’t making much headway.That is until Triel burst out of a door into the hallway. There was no mistaking her spiked plate and red hair, nor the heavy flail she whipped around. The door she came out of put her squarely in our back ranks facing down Maris, and there was no way that could end well. Fortunately, or perhaps not, Triel was more interested in Kris and for a moment I wondered if she was going to try to kill him or seduce him. Astrid and Elizabeth swapped looks and Astrid pulled back to deal with Triel while Elizabeth stayed in the room to fight the hillfolk. Astrid moved out of the room and in front of Kris, and Triel seemed quite put out by that. So much so that she gave Astrid such a fierce thumping that it nearly took her off her feet immediately.Maris stepped back to see more reinforcements coming down the hall. She quickly filled the hall with spider webs and kept us safe on that front for the time being. Meanwhile Kris and Glyph did everything they could to keep Astrid on her feet and fighting. They healed a lot of her wounds, but Triel executed a brilliant feint and then hit Astrid so hard she collapsed in a pile on the floor.In the room, the hillfolk were still using brilliant tactics and failing miserably to even scratch Elizabeth, while she cut one down after the next. She saw Astrid collapse, and knew what she had to do. She pulled back from the room and into the hall to face down Triel, hoping that her mental shield would let her endure Triel’s attacks better. The hillfolk watched her pull back, and no doubt their pride suffered, being considered so inconsequential that they could be ignored. They swung feverishly at Elizabeth as she retreated, but only proved that she was right to ignore them.Straddling Astrid as she was, her first shot glanced off the wall and missed, but it turned out swordplay wasn’t going to decide this fight. Kris stretched out a hand and said “Hold!”And Triel did. She was caught in his spell, unable to move. Maris, seeing the opportunity, released a bolt of fire into the back of Triel’s head, and she died instantly.Things went more smoothly from there. A few of the hillfolk got away, but despite the morale-crusher of their leader being killed, most stood, fought, and died. Astrid’s wounds were healed, and all was well. The most clear indicator of success came from searching Triel – she had three wands on her, and the markings made us sure they were the water control wands that Jenya needed. It wasn’t the full eight, but it was a start.“Only three?” Astrid asked Glyph, who was verifying they were the right wands.“Only three,” he said.“What now?” Elizabeth asked. “Do we take what we have and go, or do we search this place more? We know Triel took them all from Sarsen, but she could have done anything with them.”“Three is good, but I think to help Cauldron we’ll need more. Each wand we don’t have probably represents a lot of dead people,” Kris said.So we moved on hoping to find more wands. We moved carefully, expecting more traps. We weren’t disappointed. A pivoting floor deposited Bellsin into a murky cistern. We hauled him out, but not before a number of leech-like things had attached to him and started sucking his blood. There was some frenzy around getting them off but after a bit he was safe, and only slightly woozy from the blood loss.“Erm… there’s something magical in the water,” Glyph said, studying the cistern. “Might be a wand.”A collective groan went out – the leech-y things were going to make life difficult. At least that’s what everyone thought – everyone except Bellsin.He took out one of the wands we had already recovered, and used it. The water in the cistern drained away, and the leech-creatures were exposed. After that it was a simple matter of lowering someone waving around a torch to recover the wand that had been hidden below.Bloody brilliant.We continued exploring and checking carefully – Triel must have gone through some trouble to hide the other wands. Rubble-strewn caverns held broken furniture, and some old zombies. In one large cave, we were attacked by some kind of twisted gnoll – he had a spiked chain and chainmail melted into his flesh. The fight was brief and bloody for him. We suspected he might be guarding another wand but there was nothing in the room or on his body (which they spent a great deal of time pouring over extricating the enchanted weapon and armor, macabre as it was).In searching the room, Maris saw two sources of magic that were floating around. Something was up there, darting to and fro. Elizabeth had a flash of memory and dug out a potion from her bag – it was labeled “See invisible”.Drinking it, she could see a small winged demon flying around, holding a wand. It saw her drink the potion, and it knew it was revealed.“What do you want? Go away. This is mine, you can’t have it!” it said. Despite its words, everything about it said that perhaps we could have it. There was talk of breaking out bows, but the creature was small and invisible, and could probably escape us in these caves.“Why would you want that crummy wand? Do you know what it does?” Elizabeth asked.“I know it’s mine, and I know you want it,” it said.“It’s a wand of Control Water. Maybe we could trade you something for it,” Elizabeth countered. “What do you want?”“Hm…” the creature said. When it learned what kind of wand it was, it was obviously disappointed. But it clearly trying to gauge our desperation and see what it might get away with. Before it got far, Elizabeth had an idea.“Tell you what. We just got this wand from that thing over there. It’s a wand of Inflict Moderate Wounds. Much better than the one you have. We’ll trade you that,” and she tossed the wand towards the creature.It immediately abandoned the wand it was carrying and grabbed the new one like it was a diamond. “Yeah! I know what to do with this one. Control water sucks! This is great!” “Since your so happy, maybe you could tell us where some of the other wands might be?” Astrid suggested.The quasit hesitated. It was pretty happy though, so it decided to answer. “The gnome has at least one of them. There’s a gnome somewheres in here – Skaven I think his name is. I think he had two but gave one to the big spider.”“And where is this gnome?” Bellsin asked.The quasit got snarky. “Well, imagine the place in here on the farthest opposite side of where you are, and that’d be it. Of course if you wanted to offer something else, I might be inclined to be more helpful…”Everyone just shrugged. “No thanks, that’ll be ok. We’ll figure it out.” The quasit was disappointed but a clumsy negotiator. “Well, ok. Oh, by the way, say hi to Sparky for me,” it said giggling, trying to entice us. But we just walked away.Back down some caves and lava tubes, we came into another large cavern. A sudden roar came from the rocks, and a massive skeleton in the shape of a dinosaur emerged from behind a collapsed area and charged.Astrid said “I wonder if this is Sparky.”Loot:3 wands control water1 wand cure serious wounds, 7 charges (level?)+1 silver heavy flail+1 spiked full plate2 potions of cure light wounds1 scroll of cure moderate wounds and hold personsilver holy symbol of hextor30 gold4 platekeyringeverburning torch6 standard hillfolk kitchain mailMW large steel shieldMW long swordPotion of cure moderateWand of control water (#4)+1 chain mail+1 spiked chainWand of inflict moderate wounds (35 charges) (traded out)Wand of control water (#5)</blockquote>

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