Post by David on Jun 9, 2008 13:16:36 GMT -5
The party (Dion, Clanndennagh, Marc, Mikhail with Samhain, Sky, Cliffy, Daj and Max) were just catching their breath from battling the lizard men when a dwarf ran across the drawbridge of the moathouse and up to the group. It was Helga, a dwarven fighter/cleric ally of Dajamira and Max's. She'd accompanied the pair out of town, but she'd tripped and done a face-plant on the jog from Hommlet. Because of this and her heavy armor, the dwarf had completely missed the combat, but by Haela Brightaxe, she was ready now!
Marc set about finishing off the lizard men, chopping off their heads, but as he did, Daj stood up from where she'd been bandaging one reptile and tried (lamely) to stop the beastmaster. The ranger argued that the lizard men were "people" too and had the same basic rights to life that elves, dwarves, and centaur do. According to Dajamira, it was the wicked lizard king which probably convinced the lizard men to do evil, although she did acknowlege that human is one of their favorite foods. Daj managed to win out, and the heroes left the other lizard men to bleed out from their wounds.
About this time, a man arrived -- the druid, Moonlight, and his wolf companion, Quicksilver. He was actually an old acquaintance of Helga's as well as Dion's. He explained that there was an unbalanced force within the walls of the moathouse which he was willing to help deal with, although he was equally motivated by thoughts of gold and treasure as ethical concerns.
The heroes began to systematically search the upper level of the ruins, battling giant ticks, giant ants, an ochre jelly, giant centipedes, and a giant slug. The jelly hurt Clanndennagh a bit, and the slug's acid nearly killed Helga (and burnt off some of her equipment), but none of the other monsters put up much of a fight.
Then the group descended to the lower level with Marc in the lead, followed by Clanndennagh, Sky, and Max. Unfortunately, there were a pair of gray oozes guarding the stairs -- one fell onto the beastmaster while the other reared up and struck at him. He dropped almost immediately, nearly dead. Clanndennagh charged to his defense, but the jedi's armor was quickly trashed and he too fell. Luckily, one ooze advanced on the party instead of finishing off either fallen hero, while Sky slithered down and defended Clanndennagh's fallen form, putting herself in great danger in the process since she used her body to shield the dying jedi. Meanwhile, Mikhail time shifted around the combat and dragged Marc to safety, using healing salve to somewhat stabilize his condition. That's when the carrion crawler and skeletons showed up...
Mikhail was surprised and paralysed, with four skeletons simply mindlessly hacking the helpless teenage psi, although not before the boy was able to instill fear in the crawler. Sky finished off one ooze and the heroes surged forward. Dion turned back the first wave of skeletons, only to see more coming and zombies behind those! Helga and Max formed up with Daj and the heroes managed to defeat the remaining undead, mostly with the aid of the cleric of Apollo.
The group tended the wounded and then did a brief search, Helga finding and attacking the carrion crawler, but getting paralysed for her efforts. The group tucked her into one of the cells and kept exploring. Marc had to hold back, since the gray ooze had burnt away a large section of his skin and exposed some of his ribs, effectively crippling the beastmaster. After battling a pair of fire beetles, the heroes came to a barred door. They couldn't open it and after the first attempt, something on the other side rang a gong! Cliffy almost got the bar off its brackets when something on the other side shoved it back down forcefully. That's when Max bashed the door in (flimsy wood!) and faced the two ogres!
The ogres struck, seriously wounding Daj and Moonlight. Daj's foe fought normally, but the other ogre left a thin strand in the druid's wound, stretching from the wound to the monster's spear. As the battle continued, the ogre got a bit smaller and began to look more and more like Moonlight, even nearly managing to sic Quicksilver on the party! That's when Marc attacked. The ogre turned around and struck Marc leaving a tendril in his as well and slowly taking on the beastmaster's speed and appearance, complete with corn-rows by the end of the battle. With the final blow, however, the creature dissovled into a gray-green puddle with two tentacles. The first ogre simply died.
The heroes located and rescued a gnome named Pithen and a merchant named Lubash from Hommlet. Moonlight and Quicksilver accompanied them out of the dungeon, taking the still-paralyzed Helga with them.
The heroes decided to search the two doors they'd earlier by-passed, when bugbear began to spill in from a secret door. Marc saved the day and held the monsters with Clanndennagh's help. Then Daj took the beastmaster's place and lobbed a lightning bolt into their midst, smoking most of them. Sky, Mikhail, Samhain, and Max joined the melee, containing the monsters, but Mikhail felt a psychic intrusion. Then two of the bugbear shapeshifted into Daj and battled her while some gnolls came up behind the remaining bugbears. Marc slaughtered one wounded bugbear while Dion and Cliffy took on another. Unfortunately, Max got hacked down again in the process. "I'm the one doing the lightning bolt" was Daj's answer for the party to figure out who to strike, and with many more gnolls cindered in the hallway, she charged after the stragglers. Samhain finished off the last bugbear while Mikhail made sure they all the monsters, both bugbear and doppelganger, were very dead. Following the ranger, the group reached the bottom of the stairs and after Marc tended her wounds, the pair tracked the three which fled.
Marc caught up with the two flinds and gnoll, battling them in their living chamber. The Maneän fell as Daj's magic missiles wounded the pair, but the fresh gnoll sat in the back, waiting for a chance to slaughter Marc and Daj. That's when Cliffy charmed the gnoll to attack its allies! It took out one flind and Daj took out the other. Cliffy called the hyena-man off the ranger and had it explain about the remaining monsters in the dungeon -- the drow, the troglodytes, the ghouls, and the other undead. It even lead the heroes past the traps to the drows' section of the dungeon.
The heroes took a wrong turn and met a large blob of black goo which advanced on them until Mikhail psionically instilled fear in it. The group then headed to the one door they left behind. Sky could sense movement on the otherside, but not heat. Whatever it was, it stank!
Marc tried to shouldered open the door but because of his injuries failed. Max tried successfully and the group battled a trogolyte in the hallway on the other side. The monster had the upper-hand until Cliffy finally figured out what his wand did -- the gray beam worked on the trog, causing all it's muscles to painfully convulse and then become rigid with paralysis. Dion charged forward behind the gnoll, but as it rounded the end of the corridor trog war-darts pinned the hyena-man to the far wall killing it instantly. The cleric of Apollo fell back and briefly conversed with his party as the reptiles' stench assailed their nostrils.
The heroes charged the trogs, only to run into more skeletons which Dion turned. Cliffy's wand took out another trog and Sky slipped in unnoticed to bite more troglodytes. The combat became crazy, with fleeing skeletons running into charging zombies and isolated troglodytes hurling darts (and falling from snake bites below knee-level, no less!). That's when the shadows swept into the room. Dion's repeated turns had been very effective in clearing most of the undead, but here they failed. Samhain and Marc finished off the last of the trogs and zombies, but then a thunder from the room beyond announced where Daj had gone. Not just a ranger, but also a mage, she had turned herself invisible to catch the drow unawares. Well, it would have seemed that she caught something because now she was calling for help!
Shadows attacked (and somehow, amazingly) didn't kill Marc, Mikhail, Max, or Clanndennagh. Cliffy destroyed one and Dion had managed to turn the others before his power failed. The heroes peered into the room beyond to see one cindered drow, many vaporized undead, and Daj, battling for her life against two male drow and a zombie, with two other males and the priestess staring agape at the party!
Cliffy's wand took out the lead male, probably saving Daj's life. Samhain tore into another charging drow. Dion found himself in a turn-war with the priestess, but while he could no longer affect the shadows, she seemed only able to recover one lonely skeleton at a time! Clanndennagh dropped and Marc and Mikhail finished off the last of the shadows. Sky, meanwhile, had slipped around the combat and bitten the priestess a couple of times! She howled in pain and kept trying to sic undead on the snake, but Dion's turns (and her own *feeble* commands) kept her in danger. Even a dispel magic failed to go the priestess' way, as it did not free her paralyzed allies, but only removed the color cantrips disguising Dajamira's green-eye, copper-hair, slightly-tanned skin, and "not-really-Rhennee" clothes.
Marc charged in to help as Mikhail began tending to the wounded jedi. Max fell and Cliffy (the bookish mage/thief) wound up the lead fighter against the priestess, since despite her fierceness, Sky is small, slow, and easily avoided. Daj was still pinned in the corner, trying to deal with the last drow warrior. The priestes finally managed to command more undead to aid her, but Dion turned them back again, with Marc bottling the undead up in a corridor. Mikhail finished with Clanndennagh and called for Sammy. Sky bit the priestess repeatedly, figuring out that she was shielded with a protection for good but that at least one of THREE doses of her venom had had some (small) effect.
The priestess' tentacle rod attacked with a life of it's own, while she faerie fired and darknessed the room. These attacked gave her the chance to nearly kill Dion. Meanwhile, Marc began to faulter. Luckily, Sammy re-entered the fray at this point, freshly bandaged and having drunk half a potion of growth! The 18' long giant weasel slaughtered the last male drow, giving Daj a chance to releave Marc (as he fell) and keep the undead contained. Unfortunately, Dion couldn't touch the priestess and only a single (amazingly lucky) blow from Cliffy landed either, while the drow's tentacle wand kept hitting again and again. Dion, barely conscious, pulled out to bring Clanndennagh conscious. Sky slipped behind the priestess as the monsterous Samhain attacked with Cliffy. Both monsters bit, seriously thrashing the cleric of Ghaunadaur -- Samhain having less trouble since he is a neutral animal. Meanwhile, Dajamira FINALLY finished off the last skeleton as Mikhail began tending to Marc.
The jedi and cleric of Apollo ran back into the room as Samhain sucked out most of the priestess' blood and Dion struck the killing blow. Between their fangs, the snake and weasel were the drow's undoing. The heroes tended the wounded and used oil and Daj's last spell, a web to finish all but two shadows, which Cliffy, Daj, and Mikhail destroyed with Dion's support.
The party searched, but with so many badly wounded party members and a number of ghouls somewhere in the area, elected to stay in the dungeon and rest. Mikhail tended to the dying, saving first Marc, then stailizing Max. Unfortunately, the quarter-orcish fighter could not be moved and would die without some powerful form of healing soon. Clanndennagh set about meditating while Mikhail tended the fighter's bleeding wounds. The other party members sifted through their foes' loot.
Daj volunteered to go back to Jaroo in order to discover if the heroes had indeed defeated their target. Dion accompanied her to the surface, but she didn't return for nearly two hours. She brought one of the magical communication cubes with her, but discovered they only had a range of a quarter mile or so.
About three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the ranger/mage slipped back in the group's lair, clearly healed and with news that the heroes were victorious!
What to do next?
Marc set about finishing off the lizard men, chopping off their heads, but as he did, Daj stood up from where she'd been bandaging one reptile and tried (lamely) to stop the beastmaster. The ranger argued that the lizard men were "people" too and had the same basic rights to life that elves, dwarves, and centaur do. According to Dajamira, it was the wicked lizard king which probably convinced the lizard men to do evil, although she did acknowlege that human is one of their favorite foods. Daj managed to win out, and the heroes left the other lizard men to bleed out from their wounds.
About this time, a man arrived -- the druid, Moonlight, and his wolf companion, Quicksilver. He was actually an old acquaintance of Helga's as well as Dion's. He explained that there was an unbalanced force within the walls of the moathouse which he was willing to help deal with, although he was equally motivated by thoughts of gold and treasure as ethical concerns.
The heroes began to systematically search the upper level of the ruins, battling giant ticks, giant ants, an ochre jelly, giant centipedes, and a giant slug. The jelly hurt Clanndennagh a bit, and the slug's acid nearly killed Helga (and burnt off some of her equipment), but none of the other monsters put up much of a fight.
Then the group descended to the lower level with Marc in the lead, followed by Clanndennagh, Sky, and Max. Unfortunately, there were a pair of gray oozes guarding the stairs -- one fell onto the beastmaster while the other reared up and struck at him. He dropped almost immediately, nearly dead. Clanndennagh charged to his defense, but the jedi's armor was quickly trashed and he too fell. Luckily, one ooze advanced on the party instead of finishing off either fallen hero, while Sky slithered down and defended Clanndennagh's fallen form, putting herself in great danger in the process since she used her body to shield the dying jedi. Meanwhile, Mikhail time shifted around the combat and dragged Marc to safety, using healing salve to somewhat stabilize his condition. That's when the carrion crawler and skeletons showed up...
Mikhail was surprised and paralysed, with four skeletons simply mindlessly hacking the helpless teenage psi, although not before the boy was able to instill fear in the crawler. Sky finished off one ooze and the heroes surged forward. Dion turned back the first wave of skeletons, only to see more coming and zombies behind those! Helga and Max formed up with Daj and the heroes managed to defeat the remaining undead, mostly with the aid of the cleric of Apollo.
The group tended the wounded and then did a brief search, Helga finding and attacking the carrion crawler, but getting paralysed for her efforts. The group tucked her into one of the cells and kept exploring. Marc had to hold back, since the gray ooze had burnt away a large section of his skin and exposed some of his ribs, effectively crippling the beastmaster. After battling a pair of fire beetles, the heroes came to a barred door. They couldn't open it and after the first attempt, something on the other side rang a gong! Cliffy almost got the bar off its brackets when something on the other side shoved it back down forcefully. That's when Max bashed the door in (flimsy wood!) and faced the two ogres!
The ogres struck, seriously wounding Daj and Moonlight. Daj's foe fought normally, but the other ogre left a thin strand in the druid's wound, stretching from the wound to the monster's spear. As the battle continued, the ogre got a bit smaller and began to look more and more like Moonlight, even nearly managing to sic Quicksilver on the party! That's when Marc attacked. The ogre turned around and struck Marc leaving a tendril in his as well and slowly taking on the beastmaster's speed and appearance, complete with corn-rows by the end of the battle. With the final blow, however, the creature dissovled into a gray-green puddle with two tentacles. The first ogre simply died.
The heroes located and rescued a gnome named Pithen and a merchant named Lubash from Hommlet. Moonlight and Quicksilver accompanied them out of the dungeon, taking the still-paralyzed Helga with them.
The heroes decided to search the two doors they'd earlier by-passed, when bugbear began to spill in from a secret door. Marc saved the day and held the monsters with Clanndennagh's help. Then Daj took the beastmaster's place and lobbed a lightning bolt into their midst, smoking most of them. Sky, Mikhail, Samhain, and Max joined the melee, containing the monsters, but Mikhail felt a psychic intrusion. Then two of the bugbear shapeshifted into Daj and battled her while some gnolls came up behind the remaining bugbears. Marc slaughtered one wounded bugbear while Dion and Cliffy took on another. Unfortunately, Max got hacked down again in the process. "I'm the one doing the lightning bolt" was Daj's answer for the party to figure out who to strike, and with many more gnolls cindered in the hallway, she charged after the stragglers. Samhain finished off the last bugbear while Mikhail made sure they all the monsters, both bugbear and doppelganger, were very dead. Following the ranger, the group reached the bottom of the stairs and after Marc tended her wounds, the pair tracked the three which fled.
Marc caught up with the two flinds and gnoll, battling them in their living chamber. The Maneän fell as Daj's magic missiles wounded the pair, but the fresh gnoll sat in the back, waiting for a chance to slaughter Marc and Daj. That's when Cliffy charmed the gnoll to attack its allies! It took out one flind and Daj took out the other. Cliffy called the hyena-man off the ranger and had it explain about the remaining monsters in the dungeon -- the drow, the troglodytes, the ghouls, and the other undead. It even lead the heroes past the traps to the drows' section of the dungeon.
The heroes took a wrong turn and met a large blob of black goo which advanced on them until Mikhail psionically instilled fear in it. The group then headed to the one door they left behind. Sky could sense movement on the otherside, but not heat. Whatever it was, it stank!
Marc tried to shouldered open the door but because of his injuries failed. Max tried successfully and the group battled a trogolyte in the hallway on the other side. The monster had the upper-hand until Cliffy finally figured out what his wand did -- the gray beam worked on the trog, causing all it's muscles to painfully convulse and then become rigid with paralysis. Dion charged forward behind the gnoll, but as it rounded the end of the corridor trog war-darts pinned the hyena-man to the far wall killing it instantly. The cleric of Apollo fell back and briefly conversed with his party as the reptiles' stench assailed their nostrils.
The heroes charged the trogs, only to run into more skeletons which Dion turned. Cliffy's wand took out another trog and Sky slipped in unnoticed to bite more troglodytes. The combat became crazy, with fleeing skeletons running into charging zombies and isolated troglodytes hurling darts (and falling from snake bites below knee-level, no less!). That's when the shadows swept into the room. Dion's repeated turns had been very effective in clearing most of the undead, but here they failed. Samhain and Marc finished off the last of the trogs and zombies, but then a thunder from the room beyond announced where Daj had gone. Not just a ranger, but also a mage, she had turned herself invisible to catch the drow unawares. Well, it would have seemed that she caught something because now she was calling for help!
Shadows attacked (and somehow, amazingly) didn't kill Marc, Mikhail, Max, or Clanndennagh. Cliffy destroyed one and Dion had managed to turn the others before his power failed. The heroes peered into the room beyond to see one cindered drow, many vaporized undead, and Daj, battling for her life against two male drow and a zombie, with two other males and the priestess staring agape at the party!
Cliffy's wand took out the lead male, probably saving Daj's life. Samhain tore into another charging drow. Dion found himself in a turn-war with the priestess, but while he could no longer affect the shadows, she seemed only able to recover one lonely skeleton at a time! Clanndennagh dropped and Marc and Mikhail finished off the last of the shadows. Sky, meanwhile, had slipped around the combat and bitten the priestess a couple of times! She howled in pain and kept trying to sic undead on the snake, but Dion's turns (and her own *feeble* commands) kept her in danger. Even a dispel magic failed to go the priestess' way, as it did not free her paralyzed allies, but only removed the color cantrips disguising Dajamira's green-eye, copper-hair, slightly-tanned skin, and "not-really-Rhennee" clothes.
Marc charged in to help as Mikhail began tending to the wounded jedi. Max fell and Cliffy (the bookish mage/thief) wound up the lead fighter against the priestess, since despite her fierceness, Sky is small, slow, and easily avoided. Daj was still pinned in the corner, trying to deal with the last drow warrior. The priestes finally managed to command more undead to aid her, but Dion turned them back again, with Marc bottling the undead up in a corridor. Mikhail finished with Clanndennagh and called for Sammy. Sky bit the priestess repeatedly, figuring out that she was shielded with a protection for good but that at least one of THREE doses of her venom had had some (small) effect.
The priestess' tentacle rod attacked with a life of it's own, while she faerie fired and darknessed the room. These attacked gave her the chance to nearly kill Dion. Meanwhile, Marc began to faulter. Luckily, Sammy re-entered the fray at this point, freshly bandaged and having drunk half a potion of growth! The 18' long giant weasel slaughtered the last male drow, giving Daj a chance to releave Marc (as he fell) and keep the undead contained. Unfortunately, Dion couldn't touch the priestess and only a single (amazingly lucky) blow from Cliffy landed either, while the drow's tentacle wand kept hitting again and again. Dion, barely conscious, pulled out to bring Clanndennagh conscious. Sky slipped behind the priestess as the monsterous Samhain attacked with Cliffy. Both monsters bit, seriously thrashing the cleric of Ghaunadaur -- Samhain having less trouble since he is a neutral animal. Meanwhile, Dajamira FINALLY finished off the last skeleton as Mikhail began tending to Marc.
The jedi and cleric of Apollo ran back into the room as Samhain sucked out most of the priestess' blood and Dion struck the killing blow. Between their fangs, the snake and weasel were the drow's undoing. The heroes tended the wounded and used oil and Daj's last spell, a web to finish all but two shadows, which Cliffy, Daj, and Mikhail destroyed with Dion's support.
The party searched, but with so many badly wounded party members and a number of ghouls somewhere in the area, elected to stay in the dungeon and rest. Mikhail tended to the dying, saving first Marc, then stailizing Max. Unfortunately, the quarter-orcish fighter could not be moved and would die without some powerful form of healing soon. Clanndennagh set about meditating while Mikhail tended the fighter's bleeding wounds. The other party members sifted through their foes' loot.
Daj volunteered to go back to Jaroo in order to discover if the heroes had indeed defeated their target. Dion accompanied her to the surface, but she didn't return for nearly two hours. She brought one of the magical communication cubes with her, but discovered they only had a range of a quarter mile or so.
About three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the ranger/mage slipped back in the group's lair, clearly healed and with news that the heroes were victorious!
What to do next?
