Adjo's Journals (8 of N)
Oct. 8th, 2008 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So on the one hand, we no longer have to worry about that Dwarven stronghold being infested by Gibbers. On the other hand, we no longer have a Dwarven stronghold. We probably saved the city of Icewatch, but we probably didn't save the Shieldwall. I might get some credit for saving Icewatch, but my reward will probably be more stupid (and more dangerous) missions and possibly an extension of my contract if the Northmen have seriously breached the wall. I'm still alive, but I'm cold and miserable. Actually, being alive outweighs the cold and miserable. So on balance (and only by a hair's breadth), things are going well.
Also, my brief encounters with the fire node have actually made a few theoretical points clearer to me and I've been able to expand my repertoire of spells. That's another positive, but more of a long-term thing.
Right, so, we were in the chasm room attempting to cross it to reach the fire node and break up a nasty-sounding ritual. We employed neither halfling-grappling hook, nor halfling-bola opting for an arrow with a line attached to draw up the bridge Elias cut down in his flight from the gibbers. After sending over the halflings followed by a few heavier folks, I crossed over before the heavies. Luckily, the bridge was sufficiently sturdy that we could all make it across. We left Shay behind to stand guard and followed our map towards the fire node.
On our way up, we passed a series of dormitory facilities. The scouts heard some commotion and we halted the party. Kestrel gave the signal to prep for an ambush, gave the signal to attack...and then sort of stood there while we all flowed around her and into the hall. I'm not sure what she was waiting for. Anyway, in the hall were four gibbers surrounding a human figure who was bound and hooded. We had the element of surprise and thus, my crap shooting came to no ill effects as the gibbers were cut down before they could really mount any sort of defense.
Their prisoner was an exhausted young man named Tim. Probably a wizard considering that his fingers had been broken. He was a member of Elias's mercenary company. He couldn't provide us much useful information, so we patched him up as best we could and sent him back to Shay to rest up while we pressed on.
Here I must pause to note some curious behavior on Alanna's part. During our march from the bridge and our subsequent debriefing of Tim, she had been providing me with soft, chewy caramels on a surprisingly frequent basis. They're quite tasty, but I'm surprised that she would be so liberal in sharing them with me -- especially since I can make an ice cube taste like a hot toddy. But as she handed me another one, it struck me. I think she's developing something of a crush on me. In retrospect, it's not all that surprising. As a cleric she's obviously attracted to studious thinkers such as myself. There's also my exotic human nature to consider, that "human mystique" that other races find so alluring. How does that crude witticism go? "Once you go Human, you'll never engage in sexual congress with any other species again." No, that's not it. I seem to recall it was more jaunty somehow. Well, whatever, the point is the poor girl is infatuated with me.
This puts me in something of a dilemma. I've devoted myself to the arcane arts. The feeble pleasures of the flesh cannot compare to the glories of re-weaving the fabric of reality itself. Sexual release is part of a healthy life, of course, but that's why wizards know mage hand, prestidigitation and ghost sound. We're far too busy to deal with the tedium of a romance. My position is further complicated by my quest which would put an undue strain on any potential relationship and place Alanna in a great deal of danger. Not that she can't take care of herself, but this isn't her fight and it wouldn't be fair to put her in that position. Finally, she is a professional colleague and simple professionalism dictates that I maintain some distance.
Of course, this is the other side of the coin. I do enjoy and appreciate Alanna's company and I depend on her for a great deal of support (she's brought me back from death twice). I would not enjoy breaking her heart and I would particularly hate to upset her to the point where she withheld her healing magics from me. Having Ander tell me to "work through the pain" when some brute has just exposed my intestines to the sun is not the kind of medical care I want to depend on.
For the moment, I'm not sure how to handle this. I will maintain a polite, warm, yet firmly friendly attitude towards her until we have some time to discuss her feelings rationally.
So, as I say, we sent Tim back to Shay and resumed our push to the fire node. We soon reached the antechamber. A large room with pillars marching down the center to a large archway and a couple of smaller doorways left and right. The time for subtlety was long, long past and after the scouts skipped up the left side of the room, the bruisers went up the center, Blaze swung right and Alanna and I stayed back to await the inevitable attack.
Said attack consisted of two large drake hounds (giving me a brief, and unpleasant, flashback), and small squads of feral gibbers rushing in from the sides. Hendel rushed off to the right to help Blaze who'd been knocked over by one of their crude stone missiles. The scouts got to play chew toy for one of the hounds while the fighters squared up to take on the other. Alanna charged off to the left to handle the other ferals (she's as brave as she is foolhardy), and I advanced cautiously up the center while firing off a force orb on Alanna's ferals to help soften them up.
It was at this point that the doors on the far side of the room started slowly closing up, blocking our access to the fire node. I announced this to our comrades with a general order to "retreat forward". Dangerous as these creatures were, the real goal was beyond those doors and I was leery about expending too much effort in mopping them up. Sadly, the scouts and the central fighters seemed to take this as a sign to scoot past the hounds and rush past the door leaving a number of us on the far side and me in particular, dangerously unprotected in the face of one of the hounds.
I decided to veer off to the left. This would make me a less visible target and also close the range a bit towards the ferals who had surrounded Alanna. I hoped to be able to offer her some cover to disengage and move with me to the door. Alanna displayed a surprising talent by suddenly enveloping her immediate vicinity with a magical darkness and skipped out of the press of ferals. The darkness nicely defined the area of my scorching burst. Sadly, the flames failed to do any significant damage, but did give the ferals the beacon they needed to rush out of the darkness and form up around me. Alanna fell back, but Elias made the fatal mistake of maneuvering around to stand within my front arc. I tried to wave him off, but he was insistent upon his flanking opportunities.
The problem, of course, is that while I appreciate the tactical advantages one gains by surrounding the enemy, that's something that basically applies to more "brute force" combatants. I too surround the enemy, but I surround them with fire, ice, and fell energies launched from some distance away. I certainly don't go toe-to-toe with a bunch of snarling ferals and I wasn't about to stick around. With the hope that Elias would prove nimble, I unleashed my thunderwave to drive back the ferals. Sadly, my magics were all too effective and Elias and all three of the ferals were caught up and hurled back a good distance (one of the ferals being shattered in the process), providing me with the space I needed to flee the scene.
I moved towards the door, which was being held open by Taras and Thrace shoving on it (proving that their trap-disamring skills were every bit as efficient as their trap-detection skills), stopping a moment to fling some spells back toward the remaining ferals to give poor Elias some cover. It was at this point I heard a most unusual exchange. Ander had scampered off to the right to help Blaze and Hendel and was now facing off against a feral. Said feral made a savage lunge towards him and missed. Ander then upbraided the feral for its poor technique and said, "Lunge for the neck, right here, that's your target. Now let's see you attack me like you mean it!". The feral, obviously enlightened by Ander's direction promptly savaged him and threw him down to the floor. Halflings are such a puzzle to me. Ander regained his feet and eventually fought off his assailant so I guess it was some sort of misplaced machismo on his part.
But I was swiftly moving into the far room. There was the model of Icewatch on the floor with a molten ring of silver swirling menacingly. Almost as menacingly as the lava creatures high up on a platform overlooking the model who hurled balls of magma down onto us. The model was the focus, but the controls were clearly to be found at the back of that platform so I followed Taras up the left-hand ramp to get back there. Kestrel had apparently snuck up the right-hand side because she suddenly appeared chucking some throwing stars into one of the lava monsters and then yelling about a varlen in charge of things. The rest of the party came charging up with us and we soon gained the top platform.
At the back of the platform was a large alcove with the varlen holding some control stone and two obsidian fire scorpions protecting him. They were perfectly placed, but Kestrel was in the line of fire from my current position. To get a better shot I'd have to expose myself to one of the lava monsters. If I timed it just right and got lucky, I could dump a powerful ice spell on the varlen and his friends, then turn and shove the lava monster off the platform. A 60-foot fall should do just about anyone in and if it didn't kill the thing, it'd be awhile before it came back up.
So I rushed forward and turned the alcove into a zone of arctic chill. The varlen really hated that because he hammered me with a firebolt that shoved me right to the edge of the platform, right next to the lava monster and into unconsciousness.
Taras, clearly feeling some remorse from his earlier blunder with setting the drake hounds on me, shoved the lava monster over the edge of the platform, following up to dash a healing potion on me. The lava monster managed to grab the platform's edge as he fell, but another thunderwave from me pitched him far out into space and down to his shattering doom. This, unfortunately, alerted the other lava monster to the threat I posed and he promptly put me down again with another hurled lava ball.
I am told that my performance inspired Ander (who had finally gained the platform) to give that remaining lava monster a hard shove to its own gravity-assisted demise. But I wasn't aware of anything until Elias gave me another potion. Really quite sporting of him considering I'd blasted him earlier. It was probably his way of apologizing for getting in my way, really quite nice of him.
By this point, my terrible spell of ice had run it's course and savaged the varlen and his guards. The rest of the group stepped in and quickly polished them off. We were victorious and had saved Icewatch from a fiery doom.
It was then that the earthquake hit. Rather than a combination of fire and earth focused on Icewatch, it appears as though there were two separate rituals, one to burn Icewatch and the other to upend Shieldwall with tremors. The earthquake was going to tear this place apart first though and we needed to get out fast. We retraced our steps, grabbed Shay and Tim and raced out of the complex into the teeth of a raging blizzard. But standing on the side of a shaking mountain was hardly our idea of a good time, so we pushed on through the driving snow and cold until we found a scout shelter lower down the slopes. Which is where we are holed up for the night.
Hendel's estimates of Shieldwall losses are pretty appalling. Hopefully the earlier tremors were detected and alerted the watch to be more vigilant. At best, the wall is a mess and fending off the assault is difficult. At worst, there's a full breach and the army is retreating back to IceWatch to hold them off there. If the latter is true, we've got a long slog ahead of us to reach any kind of safety.
NOTES: Again, Adjo got to pull out a lot of neat tricks and felt pretty wizard-y. The friendly fire issues highlight the Wizard's biggest problem. The combat types have lots of powers/abilities that encourage them to move around and get mixed in with the enemy, but as soon as that happens, the wizard can't employ a lot of area-effect spells. Adjo's new encounter power is Fire Shroud, picked precisely because it affects all enemies in a burst. There were a couple of other spells that affected a larger area or did more damage, but friendlies would've been caught up in the effects and there's only so often I can give a sheepish grin and say "oops".
later
Tom
So on the one hand, we no longer have to worry about that Dwarven stronghold being infested by Gibbers. On the other hand, we no longer have a Dwarven stronghold. We probably saved the city of Icewatch, but we probably didn't save the Shieldwall. I might get some credit for saving Icewatch, but my reward will probably be more stupid (and more dangerous) missions and possibly an extension of my contract if the Northmen have seriously breached the wall. I'm still alive, but I'm cold and miserable. Actually, being alive outweighs the cold and miserable. So on balance (and only by a hair's breadth), things are going well.
Also, my brief encounters with the fire node have actually made a few theoretical points clearer to me and I've been able to expand my repertoire of spells. That's another positive, but more of a long-term thing.
Right, so, we were in the chasm room attempting to cross it to reach the fire node and break up a nasty-sounding ritual. We employed neither halfling-grappling hook, nor halfling-bola opting for an arrow with a line attached to draw up the bridge Elias cut down in his flight from the gibbers. After sending over the halflings followed by a few heavier folks, I crossed over before the heavies. Luckily, the bridge was sufficiently sturdy that we could all make it across. We left Shay behind to stand guard and followed our map towards the fire node.
On our way up, we passed a series of dormitory facilities. The scouts heard some commotion and we halted the party. Kestrel gave the signal to prep for an ambush, gave the signal to attack...and then sort of stood there while we all flowed around her and into the hall. I'm not sure what she was waiting for. Anyway, in the hall were four gibbers surrounding a human figure who was bound and hooded. We had the element of surprise and thus, my crap shooting came to no ill effects as the gibbers were cut down before they could really mount any sort of defense.
Their prisoner was an exhausted young man named Tim. Probably a wizard considering that his fingers had been broken. He was a member of Elias's mercenary company. He couldn't provide us much useful information, so we patched him up as best we could and sent him back to Shay to rest up while we pressed on.
Here I must pause to note some curious behavior on Alanna's part. During our march from the bridge and our subsequent debriefing of Tim, she had been providing me with soft, chewy caramels on a surprisingly frequent basis. They're quite tasty, but I'm surprised that she would be so liberal in sharing them with me -- especially since I can make an ice cube taste like a hot toddy. But as she handed me another one, it struck me. I think she's developing something of a crush on me. In retrospect, it's not all that surprising. As a cleric she's obviously attracted to studious thinkers such as myself. There's also my exotic human nature to consider, that "human mystique" that other races find so alluring. How does that crude witticism go? "Once you go Human, you'll never engage in sexual congress with any other species again." No, that's not it. I seem to recall it was more jaunty somehow. Well, whatever, the point is the poor girl is infatuated with me.
This puts me in something of a dilemma. I've devoted myself to the arcane arts. The feeble pleasures of the flesh cannot compare to the glories of re-weaving the fabric of reality itself. Sexual release is part of a healthy life, of course, but that's why wizards know mage hand, prestidigitation and ghost sound. We're far too busy to deal with the tedium of a romance. My position is further complicated by my quest which would put an undue strain on any potential relationship and place Alanna in a great deal of danger. Not that she can't take care of herself, but this isn't her fight and it wouldn't be fair to put her in that position. Finally, she is a professional colleague and simple professionalism dictates that I maintain some distance.
Of course, this is the other side of the coin. I do enjoy and appreciate Alanna's company and I depend on her for a great deal of support (she's brought me back from death twice). I would not enjoy breaking her heart and I would particularly hate to upset her to the point where she withheld her healing magics from me. Having Ander tell me to "work through the pain" when some brute has just exposed my intestines to the sun is not the kind of medical care I want to depend on.
For the moment, I'm not sure how to handle this. I will maintain a polite, warm, yet firmly friendly attitude towards her until we have some time to discuss her feelings rationally.
So, as I say, we sent Tim back to Shay and resumed our push to the fire node. We soon reached the antechamber. A large room with pillars marching down the center to a large archway and a couple of smaller doorways left and right. The time for subtlety was long, long past and after the scouts skipped up the left side of the room, the bruisers went up the center, Blaze swung right and Alanna and I stayed back to await the inevitable attack.
Said attack consisted of two large drake hounds (giving me a brief, and unpleasant, flashback), and small squads of feral gibbers rushing in from the sides. Hendel rushed off to the right to help Blaze who'd been knocked over by one of their crude stone missiles. The scouts got to play chew toy for one of the hounds while the fighters squared up to take on the other. Alanna charged off to the left to handle the other ferals (she's as brave as she is foolhardy), and I advanced cautiously up the center while firing off a force orb on Alanna's ferals to help soften them up.
It was at this point that the doors on the far side of the room started slowly closing up, blocking our access to the fire node. I announced this to our comrades with a general order to "retreat forward". Dangerous as these creatures were, the real goal was beyond those doors and I was leery about expending too much effort in mopping them up. Sadly, the scouts and the central fighters seemed to take this as a sign to scoot past the hounds and rush past the door leaving a number of us on the far side and me in particular, dangerously unprotected in the face of one of the hounds.
I decided to veer off to the left. This would make me a less visible target and also close the range a bit towards the ferals who had surrounded Alanna. I hoped to be able to offer her some cover to disengage and move with me to the door. Alanna displayed a surprising talent by suddenly enveloping her immediate vicinity with a magical darkness and skipped out of the press of ferals. The darkness nicely defined the area of my scorching burst. Sadly, the flames failed to do any significant damage, but did give the ferals the beacon they needed to rush out of the darkness and form up around me. Alanna fell back, but Elias made the fatal mistake of maneuvering around to stand within my front arc. I tried to wave him off, but he was insistent upon his flanking opportunities.
The problem, of course, is that while I appreciate the tactical advantages one gains by surrounding the enemy, that's something that basically applies to more "brute force" combatants. I too surround the enemy, but I surround them with fire, ice, and fell energies launched from some distance away. I certainly don't go toe-to-toe with a bunch of snarling ferals and I wasn't about to stick around. With the hope that Elias would prove nimble, I unleashed my thunderwave to drive back the ferals. Sadly, my magics were all too effective and Elias and all three of the ferals were caught up and hurled back a good distance (one of the ferals being shattered in the process), providing me with the space I needed to flee the scene.
I moved towards the door, which was being held open by Taras and Thrace shoving on it (proving that their trap-disamring skills were every bit as efficient as their trap-detection skills), stopping a moment to fling some spells back toward the remaining ferals to give poor Elias some cover. It was at this point I heard a most unusual exchange. Ander had scampered off to the right to help Blaze and Hendel and was now facing off against a feral. Said feral made a savage lunge towards him and missed. Ander then upbraided the feral for its poor technique and said, "Lunge for the neck, right here, that's your target. Now let's see you attack me like you mean it!". The feral, obviously enlightened by Ander's direction promptly savaged him and threw him down to the floor. Halflings are such a puzzle to me. Ander regained his feet and eventually fought off his assailant so I guess it was some sort of misplaced machismo on his part.
But I was swiftly moving into the far room. There was the model of Icewatch on the floor with a molten ring of silver swirling menacingly. Almost as menacingly as the lava creatures high up on a platform overlooking the model who hurled balls of magma down onto us. The model was the focus, but the controls were clearly to be found at the back of that platform so I followed Taras up the left-hand ramp to get back there. Kestrel had apparently snuck up the right-hand side because she suddenly appeared chucking some throwing stars into one of the lava monsters and then yelling about a varlen in charge of things. The rest of the party came charging up with us and we soon gained the top platform.
At the back of the platform was a large alcove with the varlen holding some control stone and two obsidian fire scorpions protecting him. They were perfectly placed, but Kestrel was in the line of fire from my current position. To get a better shot I'd have to expose myself to one of the lava monsters. If I timed it just right and got lucky, I could dump a powerful ice spell on the varlen and his friends, then turn and shove the lava monster off the platform. A 60-foot fall should do just about anyone in and if it didn't kill the thing, it'd be awhile before it came back up.
So I rushed forward and turned the alcove into a zone of arctic chill. The varlen really hated that because he hammered me with a firebolt that shoved me right to the edge of the platform, right next to the lava monster and into unconsciousness.
Taras, clearly feeling some remorse from his earlier blunder with setting the drake hounds on me, shoved the lava monster over the edge of the platform, following up to dash a healing potion on me. The lava monster managed to grab the platform's edge as he fell, but another thunderwave from me pitched him far out into space and down to his shattering doom. This, unfortunately, alerted the other lava monster to the threat I posed and he promptly put me down again with another hurled lava ball.
I am told that my performance inspired Ander (who had finally gained the platform) to give that remaining lava monster a hard shove to its own gravity-assisted demise. But I wasn't aware of anything until Elias gave me another potion. Really quite sporting of him considering I'd blasted him earlier. It was probably his way of apologizing for getting in my way, really quite nice of him.
By this point, my terrible spell of ice had run it's course and savaged the varlen and his guards. The rest of the group stepped in and quickly polished them off. We were victorious and had saved Icewatch from a fiery doom.
It was then that the earthquake hit. Rather than a combination of fire and earth focused on Icewatch, it appears as though there were two separate rituals, one to burn Icewatch and the other to upend Shieldwall with tremors. The earthquake was going to tear this place apart first though and we needed to get out fast. We retraced our steps, grabbed Shay and Tim and raced out of the complex into the teeth of a raging blizzard. But standing on the side of a shaking mountain was hardly our idea of a good time, so we pushed on through the driving snow and cold until we found a scout shelter lower down the slopes. Which is where we are holed up for the night.
Hendel's estimates of Shieldwall losses are pretty appalling. Hopefully the earlier tremors were detected and alerted the watch to be more vigilant. At best, the wall is a mess and fending off the assault is difficult. At worst, there's a full breach and the army is retreating back to IceWatch to hold them off there. If the latter is true, we've got a long slog ahead of us to reach any kind of safety.
NOTES: Again, Adjo got to pull out a lot of neat tricks and felt pretty wizard-y. The friendly fire issues highlight the Wizard's biggest problem. The combat types have lots of powers/abilities that encourage them to move around and get mixed in with the enemy, but as soon as that happens, the wizard can't employ a lot of area-effect spells. Adjo's new encounter power is Fire Shroud, picked precisely because it affects all enemies in a burst. There were a couple of other spells that affected a larger area or did more damage, but friendlies would've been caught up in the effects and there's only so often I can give a sheepish grin and say "oops".
later
Tom
