Adjo's Journal (25 of N)
Feb. 4th, 2009 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
Oddly enough, I’m not the bitterest smear in the Underdark.
Just bitter.
So now I have a moment to expand on my last, abbreviated, entry and continue to narrate my stimulating career as front-line fighter.
In my last full entry, we’d finally made it to the Hook where we were supposed to evacuate a legion of veterans back to the defensive line where they were sorely needed. We met with the Tribune of the legion and after garbled introductions we got the wounded loaded up and marched back through the tunnels to The Rookery. It was here that we discovered that while the near bridge was open for us to march across, the far bridge (leading back to the Duantless) had been sabotaged and was being repaired.
Noob graciously provided quarters for our troops and we informed the Tribune that letting soldiers wander off into the multidimensional Underdark free city was probably a bad idea. The Tribune got things squared away and then we joined Noob for brunch (totally signing up with him after this contract is over).
Brunch was a rather tense affair as Noob was also hosting delegations from several neighboring nations and no one was on terribly good terms with one another. Also, Alanna got into a staredown with one of the “bad” drow clerics of Lolth. Apparently “bad” drow are way too into spider motifs.
After brunch we realized the Legion would be cooling its heels for a few days and this would be a good time to help the vow-happy fulfill their promise to destroy the Orcite fane. Noob told us he’d provide a guide and gave us a time to assemble.
The next day we met up with a large lizardman named Sarl who would be our guide to the fane. We trudged about the cavernous bowels of the earth for a few hours and finally came to a bridge over a fast flowing river that swept down to a gigantic waterfall maybe 30-40 feet downstream.
Allow me to fix a few fine details in the reader’s mind:
1. The bridge was really quite close to the falls.
2. There were no railings or walls of any kind along the edge of the bridge which might prevent one from going over the side.
We made our way across and I paused momentarily on the mid-point of the bridge to indulge in an old Tenbrooks custom where one tosses a pair of sticks off the upstream side of a bridge and then dashes to the other side to see which stick will emerge first from beneath the bridge. There are any number of stories connected to the Bridge-Stick Game and children will often use it as some sort of divining tool. Completely spurious of course, but mostly harmless.
Not quite so harmless were the rifle-armed orcs on the raft who floated into view and shot me off the bridge and into the water.
Hendel tosses me a rope and after several long struggles, gets me back onto the bridge. The orcs have reached the near shore (where we arrived) and rifle-armed goblins have appeared on either shore. Accompanying the goblins on the near side is a large orc with a fancy staff and dire tribble on his arm ordering the others about.
With less obvious danger on the far side (and a few meat shields to protect me), I run over there and prepare to defend the far side. At this point, one of the far side goblins shoots me in the back and back into the water.
Kestrel runs to my aid and lassoes me, but the river current is swift and strong. There’s something about ogres showing up, but I’m a bit distracted by getting shot again. Then Kestrel is nearly pulled into the drink and she let’s go of me.
Luckily, I have prepared Featherfall.
I land on a ledge a hundred feet down or so and there are stairs leading back up to the top. I must admit that being shot into the river, twice, and sent over the falls pretty much shattered my usual detached calm so vital for a master of the arcane. For instance, in all the tumult I failed to recall that my magical orb possesses the ability to teleport me out of the water and on to the shoreline.
The swim, the injury, the fall, the long climb back up, and all the rest of this ridiculous physical activity had me seeing red. When I regained the top of the ledge, I saw two massive ogres crossing the bridge towards us. One of them was pushed into the water, but managed to grab onto the bridge. Seeing an opportunity to thunderwave the other one into the drink, I rushed up and summoned my terrible arcane powers…
…which promptly fizzled. [Memo to self: You could’ve stood 3 squares away and hit him with Thunderwave…try and retain your composure next time.]
So there I was, toe-to-toe with a massive ogre and that orc warlord rolling in hot behind him. I was pretty much a goner.
The ogre smashed me and then the orc grabbed me with his staff and slammed me down into unconsciousness. Alanna got me back on my feet but there was nowhere to run/teleport to that wouldn’t draw attacks from the monsters or get me far enough away to avoid their inevitable follow-on attack. So I tossed a force orb into the leader and the ogre, which seemed to darken their day a bit.
The other ogre got out of the water and rushed me, but failed to hit anything. At this point, the orc warlord grabbed me with his staff and attempted to use me as a giant hammer to smash Kestrel with. She dodged, I didn’t and hit the ground with a thump. Kestrel returned the favor by slicing off the head of the warlord and Hendel finished off one of the ogres.
That pretty much took the fight out of the bad guys and they fled the scene. We limped off to camp for awhile and regain our strength. Hendel and Sarl came across some markings on the corpses that told us our attackers were members of the mercenary Black Manacles (guess what the markings looked like). Apparently they’d been hired to take us out. Very interesting. Most people who want to kill us have their own brand-name minions to take us out and wouldn’t have to stoop to hire anyone.
The next day we reached what was an Official Underdark Transfer Point (TM) – Accept No Substitutes – and most certainly not, under pain of pain, a trading post. We took a ferry across the river and I caught up on some reading. On the far side we got out and started trudging upstream along the bank of the river.
Eventually we came to a wider section with several tunnels leading off and another stupid bridge over the river. Sarl assured me that the path did not lead that way (and, to be fair, there was no waterfall nearby) so I was satisfied.
I was less satisfied by the brace of undead hounds that appeared before us. Even less satisfied by the waterlogged zombies staggering out of the river.
I was, however, gratified to see them go down like wet blankets when I covered them in fire. The wet shamblers could barely make it off the shoreline before I dropped them.
Once more, my stout front line failed to provide any meaningful protection and a hound rushed around them, bit deep into me and threw me to the ground. Thrace rushed over and helped me shake off the necrotic damage and shattered the dog. I regained my feet and continued to rain fire down on the zombies rising up out of the water while the rest maneuvered around the dogs and crushed them.
A bracing fight and we all pulled next to the cave wall to recover.
Which put us all in a cluster when more undead hounds appeared. They rushed in and Sarl, clearly filling in for Taras, pulled this deft maneuver that put the dog between him and Kestrel, but also put it right in front of me. Apparently no one informed him that guiding me to the fane also involves making sure I’m alive when I get there.
Well, the dogs suddenly became the least of my worries as wraiths began surging up out of the ground around us and large zombie ogres along with a mass of more human-sized zombies swarmed out of the tunnels and headed straight for us.
Alanna, bless her heart, threw down consecrated ground and I was able to bask in it’s healing, healing light for most of the fight. Which is good because the wraiths weakened me and the ogre smashed me down. When I recovered my footing I set a bunch of wraiths on fire.
The wraiths fled Alanna’s zone, but dared to rush back in to try and take me out. Luckily, between the holy ground and the fire, they couldn’t make any headway and where soon out of the fight. With the wraiths down we could focus on the ogres and soon there were piles of putrescence everywhere.
There was also one more dwarf than we started with. Happily for us, he’s Hendel’s uncle and thus has lots of those dwarven blood ties that obligate him to help us out. So a another meat shield to stand around. Oh his name is Wildtread. Pretty weird name for a dwarf, but whatever.
Anyway, Sarl says we’re getting close so hopefully we can find this fane, shut it down and go back to a hero’s feast at Noob’s.
[Note: Adjo will be on a brief hiatus while the group does a brief 2-3 session high level game to see what all the fuss is about. I'm thinking of playing a Droll Ranger. Droll is part Drow, part Gnoll all badass. I'll let you know how it goes.]
later
Tom
Oddly enough, I’m not the bitterest smear in the Underdark.
Just bitter.
So now I have a moment to expand on my last, abbreviated, entry and continue to narrate my stimulating career as front-line fighter.
In my last full entry, we’d finally made it to the Hook where we were supposed to evacuate a legion of veterans back to the defensive line where they were sorely needed. We met with the Tribune of the legion and after garbled introductions we got the wounded loaded up and marched back through the tunnels to The Rookery. It was here that we discovered that while the near bridge was open for us to march across, the far bridge (leading back to the Duantless) had been sabotaged and was being repaired.
Noob graciously provided quarters for our troops and we informed the Tribune that letting soldiers wander off into the multidimensional Underdark free city was probably a bad idea. The Tribune got things squared away and then we joined Noob for brunch (totally signing up with him after this contract is over).
Brunch was a rather tense affair as Noob was also hosting delegations from several neighboring nations and no one was on terribly good terms with one another. Also, Alanna got into a staredown with one of the “bad” drow clerics of Lolth. Apparently “bad” drow are way too into spider motifs.
After brunch we realized the Legion would be cooling its heels for a few days and this would be a good time to help the vow-happy fulfill their promise to destroy the Orcite fane. Noob told us he’d provide a guide and gave us a time to assemble.
The next day we met up with a large lizardman named Sarl who would be our guide to the fane. We trudged about the cavernous bowels of the earth for a few hours and finally came to a bridge over a fast flowing river that swept down to a gigantic waterfall maybe 30-40 feet downstream.
Allow me to fix a few fine details in the reader’s mind:
1. The bridge was really quite close to the falls.
2. There were no railings or walls of any kind along the edge of the bridge which might prevent one from going over the side.
We made our way across and I paused momentarily on the mid-point of the bridge to indulge in an old Tenbrooks custom where one tosses a pair of sticks off the upstream side of a bridge and then dashes to the other side to see which stick will emerge first from beneath the bridge. There are any number of stories connected to the Bridge-Stick Game and children will often use it as some sort of divining tool. Completely spurious of course, but mostly harmless.
Not quite so harmless were the rifle-armed orcs on the raft who floated into view and shot me off the bridge and into the water.
Hendel tosses me a rope and after several long struggles, gets me back onto the bridge. The orcs have reached the near shore (where we arrived) and rifle-armed goblins have appeared on either shore. Accompanying the goblins on the near side is a large orc with a fancy staff and dire tribble on his arm ordering the others about.
With less obvious danger on the far side (and a few meat shields to protect me), I run over there and prepare to defend the far side. At this point, one of the far side goblins shoots me in the back and back into the water.
Kestrel runs to my aid and lassoes me, but the river current is swift and strong. There’s something about ogres showing up, but I’m a bit distracted by getting shot again. Then Kestrel is nearly pulled into the drink and she let’s go of me.
Luckily, I have prepared Featherfall.
I land on a ledge a hundred feet down or so and there are stairs leading back up to the top. I must admit that being shot into the river, twice, and sent over the falls pretty much shattered my usual detached calm so vital for a master of the arcane. For instance, in all the tumult I failed to recall that my magical orb possesses the ability to teleport me out of the water and on to the shoreline.
The swim, the injury, the fall, the long climb back up, and all the rest of this ridiculous physical activity had me seeing red. When I regained the top of the ledge, I saw two massive ogres crossing the bridge towards us. One of them was pushed into the water, but managed to grab onto the bridge. Seeing an opportunity to thunderwave the other one into the drink, I rushed up and summoned my terrible arcane powers…
…which promptly fizzled. [Memo to self: You could’ve stood 3 squares away and hit him with Thunderwave…try and retain your composure next time.]
So there I was, toe-to-toe with a massive ogre and that orc warlord rolling in hot behind him. I was pretty much a goner.
The ogre smashed me and then the orc grabbed me with his staff and slammed me down into unconsciousness. Alanna got me back on my feet but there was nowhere to run/teleport to that wouldn’t draw attacks from the monsters or get me far enough away to avoid their inevitable follow-on attack. So I tossed a force orb into the leader and the ogre, which seemed to darken their day a bit.
The other ogre got out of the water and rushed me, but failed to hit anything. At this point, the orc warlord grabbed me with his staff and attempted to use me as a giant hammer to smash Kestrel with. She dodged, I didn’t and hit the ground with a thump. Kestrel returned the favor by slicing off the head of the warlord and Hendel finished off one of the ogres.
That pretty much took the fight out of the bad guys and they fled the scene. We limped off to camp for awhile and regain our strength. Hendel and Sarl came across some markings on the corpses that told us our attackers were members of the mercenary Black Manacles (guess what the markings looked like). Apparently they’d been hired to take us out. Very interesting. Most people who want to kill us have their own brand-name minions to take us out and wouldn’t have to stoop to hire anyone.
The next day we reached what was an Official Underdark Transfer Point (TM) – Accept No Substitutes – and most certainly not, under pain of pain, a trading post. We took a ferry across the river and I caught up on some reading. On the far side we got out and started trudging upstream along the bank of the river.
Eventually we came to a wider section with several tunnels leading off and another stupid bridge over the river. Sarl assured me that the path did not lead that way (and, to be fair, there was no waterfall nearby) so I was satisfied.
I was less satisfied by the brace of undead hounds that appeared before us. Even less satisfied by the waterlogged zombies staggering out of the river.
I was, however, gratified to see them go down like wet blankets when I covered them in fire. The wet shamblers could barely make it off the shoreline before I dropped them.
Once more, my stout front line failed to provide any meaningful protection and a hound rushed around them, bit deep into me and threw me to the ground. Thrace rushed over and helped me shake off the necrotic damage and shattered the dog. I regained my feet and continued to rain fire down on the zombies rising up out of the water while the rest maneuvered around the dogs and crushed them.
A bracing fight and we all pulled next to the cave wall to recover.
Which put us all in a cluster when more undead hounds appeared. They rushed in and Sarl, clearly filling in for Taras, pulled this deft maneuver that put the dog between him and Kestrel, but also put it right in front of me. Apparently no one informed him that guiding me to the fane also involves making sure I’m alive when I get there.
Well, the dogs suddenly became the least of my worries as wraiths began surging up out of the ground around us and large zombie ogres along with a mass of more human-sized zombies swarmed out of the tunnels and headed straight for us.
Alanna, bless her heart, threw down consecrated ground and I was able to bask in it’s healing, healing light for most of the fight. Which is good because the wraiths weakened me and the ogre smashed me down. When I recovered my footing I set a bunch of wraiths on fire.
The wraiths fled Alanna’s zone, but dared to rush back in to try and take me out. Luckily, between the holy ground and the fire, they couldn’t make any headway and where soon out of the fight. With the wraiths down we could focus on the ogres and soon there were piles of putrescence everywhere.
There was also one more dwarf than we started with. Happily for us, he’s Hendel’s uncle and thus has lots of those dwarven blood ties that obligate him to help us out. So a another meat shield to stand around. Oh his name is Wildtread. Pretty weird name for a dwarf, but whatever.
Anyway, Sarl says we’re getting close so hopefully we can find this fane, shut it down and go back to a hero’s feast at Noob’s.
[Note: Adjo will be on a brief hiatus while the group does a brief 2-3 session high level game to see what all the fuss is about. I'm thinking of playing a Droll Ranger. Droll is part Drow, part Gnoll all badass. I'll let you know how it goes.]
later
Tom
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 04:08 pm (UTC)This is making my BRAIN HURT.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 04:09 pm (UTC)Now you have a small glimmer of what it's like to play in a D&D game with me. :)
later
Tom
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 04:23 pm (UTC)