Adjo's Journal (39 of N)
Jun. 24th, 2009 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So once again we saved the day, yadda-yadda-yadda. Of more immediate note is the fact that I have at last received some of the recognition I am long overdue. The Ahura School teleported the documents to me overnight while I was resting. I am now a tenured Acadmey Master (Plenipotentiary) of the Ahura School! Aside from my usual duties of corresponding with the School's publications and the task of destroying the Secret Six and recovering school intellectual property, there is an open invite to teach special, short-term classes at the school when my schedule permits (and the lecture halls have finally been rebuilt). I look forward to molding the next generation of arcanists and the advanced topics I'll be covering should put them well ahead of other institutions.
So we were still trapped in the artificer's tower. The artificer's assassin, one Garret Jax, we'd rescued from the clutches of the foul spawn. Jax offered to be our guide back up to the artificer's lair where we could disable his deathshield. This was good because poor officer Cyrus was still fighting off the effects of the far realm goo he'd landed in.
According to Jax, we could take a set of stairs up to the 8th floor, but would then have to cross over to find another set of steps to the top (12th) level where he'd left the artificer. We easily gained the 8th floor but apparently the configuration had changed because Jax no longer recognized it. We had a couple of corridors and our choice of doors. We decided that the stairs were most likely as far away from us as possible and Kestrel picked open the locks on the double doors directly ahead of us.
Beyond the doors was a large room with a Golden Protector trapped within a cage of red beams. As Golden Protectors are draconic in nature, Thrace and Taras rushed into the room thus setting off the ambush. A section of wall slid down and from magical darkness emerged a scything mechanical menace. I recognized it straight off as a Slaughterstone Eviscerator. Despite the name, it's actually a cheap knock-off of a more terrifying dwarven contraption. Not that this information made Thrace or Taras happier as it went whirling into them with its blades.
I was standing in the doorway, along with Jax and was preparing to render aid to our impetuous warriors when a strangely mechanical "arf arf" noise issued from behind me. I turned to see a large swarm of mechanical poodles bearing down on me and Jax. They bore down on us with their tiny, mecha-teeth. After a savage mauling, I hurled them back with a thunderwave...right to the feet of a large flesh golem which rounded the corner.
The poodles rushed forward and pushed me back into the room. Another poodle swarm had surged in behind the eviscerator and had rushed into the back to menace the rear ranks. The golem chucked a rock at me that knocked me down. It was at this point that Taras stepped up and drew all the enemies in the room onto him and laid about with his greatsword.
Concentrated like that, I was able to fill the area with friendly fire which washed over all the mechanical horrors and slowly wore them down. Not quickly enough for Thrace who stepped up behind the Eviscerator and chopped it in half. But the poodles, laboring under fire, electricity, and the divine wrath of Illustrea weren't so lucky and went out with a whimper.
By this time, the golem had forced his way into the room, but was immediately surrounded by the front line fighters who turned him to scrap in no time.
We quickly found the control panel to lower the barrier confining the Golden Protector. His name was Andaren and the artificer was keeping him around to extract some vital essence from him to be used in the construction of the Tolling Bell's racist fire. We escorted him back downstairs to our bolt hole (the gnome's rationality was not helped in any way by our rescued friend) and then returned to the 8th floor where we quickly found the stairs leading up.
The artificer's penthouse suite was very nice. Large, open, huge control matrix for his death ward, pool of mysterious fluid, large tanks of mysterious fluid, high platform looking over the work area, large energy cage with a unicorn inside, it's one of the better lair's we've invaded.
Once more, Thrace grabbed Taras and dragged him over to check out the "pony", while Kestrel and Kendry moved out to the side to try and get a longer view down the room. That's about when all hell broke loose. Clay constructs with buzz saws burst from a large cabinet. More clockwork archers appeared on one of the tanks and the platform. A massive multi-weaponed construct rose up out of the pool while a warforged cyclops came barreling down from the platform. A writhing mass of teeth roiled from further back in the room and Taras and Thrace were suddenly swarmed by more of those clockwork toy soldiers that we saved the Duchess from awhile back.
We all rushed out as best we can, despite the exploding shells falling amongst us. By the time I get onto the field, Taras, Thrace and...Kestrel for some reason are all in the thick of it, but they're surrounded by a huge conglomeration of targets. So I launched a fireball that disrupted a large number of opponents while only hitting Kestrel full-on. Although frankly, as far as I can tell, Taras is some sort of secret masochist because he was a bloody mess most the fight and kept begging for more as he lashed out time and again at the folks surrounding him.
A second wave of clay men and the teeth rushed in to fill the gap and I put down a large zone of ally-safe fire to make their day miserable. The construct had moved off to one side allowing the warforged cyclops to come in around the edges. With most of the party tied down in the center, he looked to be a formidable problem. I promptly called upon my star pact powers to blind the cyclops to our party. Kendry hammered into him and pushed him back a step. Kestrel fired a shot that backed him right to the edge of pool. Just before his vision cleared, I fired a magic missile into him and shoved him all the way back into the pool where he sank from view. The other grunt warriors and swarms were rapidly going down and that just left the construct. Luckily, once Kestrel, Taras, and Alanna got a few good whacks on it, we discovered it had quite the glass jaw. Must've been a glass everything else because when we brought it down, it exploded in a shower of shrapnel.
But that was basically the fight. We rested up, freed the unicorn, brought up the other survivors, lowered the deathshield and called Dauntless in for a rooftop extraction. I'm a bit disappointed we didn't do any more looting, but I'll have to be content with all the gemstones we picked up from the constructs.
As it is, the city of Anvil is pretty much in a state of civil war so we're probably going to have to go and pull the clapper out of the bell.
[NOTES: So for 11th level, Adjo took Academy Master as his paragon path. It's out of Dragon Magazine and mostly lets him recover spells and stuff. Blood Mage was tempting, but no one wants me to do 2d10 to myself to do equal damage to my opponents. Too bad because that's a nice boost to fireball and Blood Mage does have some nice controlling spells.]
later
Tom
So once again we saved the day, yadda-yadda-yadda. Of more immediate note is the fact that I have at last received some of the recognition I am long overdue. The Ahura School teleported the documents to me overnight while I was resting. I am now a tenured Acadmey Master (Plenipotentiary) of the Ahura School! Aside from my usual duties of corresponding with the School's publications and the task of destroying the Secret Six and recovering school intellectual property, there is an open invite to teach special, short-term classes at the school when my schedule permits (and the lecture halls have finally been rebuilt). I look forward to molding the next generation of arcanists and the advanced topics I'll be covering should put them well ahead of other institutions.
So we were still trapped in the artificer's tower. The artificer's assassin, one Garret Jax, we'd rescued from the clutches of the foul spawn. Jax offered to be our guide back up to the artificer's lair where we could disable his deathshield. This was good because poor officer Cyrus was still fighting off the effects of the far realm goo he'd landed in.
According to Jax, we could take a set of stairs up to the 8th floor, but would then have to cross over to find another set of steps to the top (12th) level where he'd left the artificer. We easily gained the 8th floor but apparently the configuration had changed because Jax no longer recognized it. We had a couple of corridors and our choice of doors. We decided that the stairs were most likely as far away from us as possible and Kestrel picked open the locks on the double doors directly ahead of us.
Beyond the doors was a large room with a Golden Protector trapped within a cage of red beams. As Golden Protectors are draconic in nature, Thrace and Taras rushed into the room thus setting off the ambush. A section of wall slid down and from magical darkness emerged a scything mechanical menace. I recognized it straight off as a Slaughterstone Eviscerator. Despite the name, it's actually a cheap knock-off of a more terrifying dwarven contraption. Not that this information made Thrace or Taras happier as it went whirling into them with its blades.
I was standing in the doorway, along with Jax and was preparing to render aid to our impetuous warriors when a strangely mechanical "arf arf" noise issued from behind me. I turned to see a large swarm of mechanical poodles bearing down on me and Jax. They bore down on us with their tiny, mecha-teeth. After a savage mauling, I hurled them back with a thunderwave...right to the feet of a large flesh golem which rounded the corner.
The poodles rushed forward and pushed me back into the room. Another poodle swarm had surged in behind the eviscerator and had rushed into the back to menace the rear ranks. The golem chucked a rock at me that knocked me down. It was at this point that Taras stepped up and drew all the enemies in the room onto him and laid about with his greatsword.
Concentrated like that, I was able to fill the area with friendly fire which washed over all the mechanical horrors and slowly wore them down. Not quickly enough for Thrace who stepped up behind the Eviscerator and chopped it in half. But the poodles, laboring under fire, electricity, and the divine wrath of Illustrea weren't so lucky and went out with a whimper.
By this time, the golem had forced his way into the room, but was immediately surrounded by the front line fighters who turned him to scrap in no time.
We quickly found the control panel to lower the barrier confining the Golden Protector. His name was Andaren and the artificer was keeping him around to extract some vital essence from him to be used in the construction of the Tolling Bell's racist fire. We escorted him back downstairs to our bolt hole (the gnome's rationality was not helped in any way by our rescued friend) and then returned to the 8th floor where we quickly found the stairs leading up.
The artificer's penthouse suite was very nice. Large, open, huge control matrix for his death ward, pool of mysterious fluid, large tanks of mysterious fluid, high platform looking over the work area, large energy cage with a unicorn inside, it's one of the better lair's we've invaded.
Once more, Thrace grabbed Taras and dragged him over to check out the "pony", while Kestrel and Kendry moved out to the side to try and get a longer view down the room. That's about when all hell broke loose. Clay constructs with buzz saws burst from a large cabinet. More clockwork archers appeared on one of the tanks and the platform. A massive multi-weaponed construct rose up out of the pool while a warforged cyclops came barreling down from the platform. A writhing mass of teeth roiled from further back in the room and Taras and Thrace were suddenly swarmed by more of those clockwork toy soldiers that we saved the Duchess from awhile back.
We all rushed out as best we can, despite the exploding shells falling amongst us. By the time I get onto the field, Taras, Thrace and...Kestrel for some reason are all in the thick of it, but they're surrounded by a huge conglomeration of targets. So I launched a fireball that disrupted a large number of opponents while only hitting Kestrel full-on. Although frankly, as far as I can tell, Taras is some sort of secret masochist because he was a bloody mess most the fight and kept begging for more as he lashed out time and again at the folks surrounding him.
A second wave of clay men and the teeth rushed in to fill the gap and I put down a large zone of ally-safe fire to make their day miserable. The construct had moved off to one side allowing the warforged cyclops to come in around the edges. With most of the party tied down in the center, he looked to be a formidable problem. I promptly called upon my star pact powers to blind the cyclops to our party. Kendry hammered into him and pushed him back a step. Kestrel fired a shot that backed him right to the edge of pool. Just before his vision cleared, I fired a magic missile into him and shoved him all the way back into the pool where he sank from view. The other grunt warriors and swarms were rapidly going down and that just left the construct. Luckily, once Kestrel, Taras, and Alanna got a few good whacks on it, we discovered it had quite the glass jaw. Must've been a glass everything else because when we brought it down, it exploded in a shower of shrapnel.
But that was basically the fight. We rested up, freed the unicorn, brought up the other survivors, lowered the deathshield and called Dauntless in for a rooftop extraction. I'm a bit disappointed we didn't do any more looting, but I'll have to be content with all the gemstones we picked up from the constructs.
As it is, the city of Anvil is pretty much in a state of civil war so we're probably going to have to go and pull the clapper out of the bell.
[NOTES: So for 11th level, Adjo took Academy Master as his paragon path. It's out of Dragon Magazine and mostly lets him recover spells and stuff. Blood Mage was tempting, but no one wants me to do 2d10 to myself to do equal damage to my opponents. Too bad because that's a nice boost to fireball and Blood Mage does have some nice controlling spells.]
later
Tom
