Adjo's Journals (12 of N)
Nov. 5th, 2008 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
Say what you will about the Kraken, they certainly know how to feed and equip their troops. If they weren’t so anxious to kill me and their fanatical religious beliefs incompatible with my own secular leanings, they’d be a interesting client to work for.
So we followed Moranna (the woman with that blasted dire hound) back to her home, a sort of cabin on a small island in the middle of a river. Outside the house was a totem pole and atop the pole was a gigantic owl. At the base of the pole was Blaze who’d been flown here by the owl. Her surprise and confusion was immense.
After a quiet night we set out the next morning to get a look at the Kraken ships. The forest runs up to a cliff with a good overview of the harbor and that’s where we headed.
The scouts (Reth, Hendel, Shay and Kestrel) ran out ahead to check things out and from the yelling clearly found some trouble. I rushed up and discovered they were being menaced by a Warforged with a pair of wands, a Halfling with a wand and pack of Kraken marines with crossbows. I blasted the warforged with a magic missile and took cover behind a tree.
It was then that I heard a roaring, howling sound like a house on fire off in the distance to my right. I looked off in that direction and saw Ander racing out of the woods towards us.
I looked to my left and saw Taras charging full bore past me to attack the warforged. At least, that’s what I assumed he was doing. It turns out he was searching for traps in his own inimitable style. And he found one. A large, deep pit filled with spikes at the bottom. He fell and landed very hard if the bellows were to be believed. Luckily Thrace followed up right behind. She stopped short and prepared to deploy her winch to help Taras.
Meanwhile, Blaze skirted the pit and attacked the warforged, who promptly Thunderwaved her back…into the pit. She fell and landed very hard if her yelps were to be believed.
Ander had stopped beneath the tree where the enemy Halfling was located. Showing a surprising amount of dexterity, Ander climbed the tree and shoved his foe out, hoping to deal a significant amount of damage from the fall. He had, of course, completely underestimated the terrifying power of wizards and the Halfling executed a textbook feather fall and landed without harm.
Although I wasn’t having much luck hitting the warforged, we were driving him back. It was about this time that three hellhounds showed up and put themselves between him and us. The fighters rolled forward to deal with this threat despite the intense heat put out by the fiendish hounds, but the warforged used this moment to fireball everyone in range. The hounds didn’t much care, but it left my allies quite crisped.
Turn-about is fair play, of course, so I moved a bit closer and enveloped him in a fire shroud. Although it did a fair amount of damage it didn’t succeed in producing a long-lasting burn, in part because the warforged deployed some crude fire suppression system. It then produced a Thunderwave in a burst pattern shoving back Reth and Blaze who were flanking it, stepped up to me and deployed a shoulder mounted crossbow which hit me with a poisoned quarrel. Reeling from this assault, I stepped back and drilled him through the chest, finishing him off. Luckily, Reth was on hand to apply some healing and neutralize the poison.
So this left us with three hell hounds, the mighty Halfling wizard and his two crossbow comrades. I dropped a freezing cloud on the Halfling and the crossbowmen. It killed the marines outright, but the Halfling dodged most of the ill effects. Sadly, I also caught Kestrel in the area of effect. This is the second or third time that’s happened and I do feel badly about it. She was, however, a very good sport about it and climbed a bit higher in the tree she was perched in to fling her shuriken into the Halfling and kill him dead.
Everyone else converged on the hellhounds and after some intense close combat they finally managed to hack them all down. I think everyone in the party has a new, and healthy, hatred for dogs everywhere.
I, however, was delighted. I got three new wands. Two of them enhanced magic missiles to give them a small knockback effect, and the other allowed you to shape a Thunderwave as a burst centered on you. There were also some spellbooks with a water breathing ritual in it. We also stripped that shoulder crossbow from the warforged for Thrace and there was some gold too. All in all, an excellent day for me.
With the cleanup finished we went to the cliff’s edge and looked out over the bay. There were three ships. The Darmok was a vast hulk. It was flanked by the Gorgon and the Chimera, two slightly smaller ships. There were a number of longboats patrolling the harbor and an improvised dock where a crane waited to transfer cargo. Our guess is that the Darmok was the transport and the other two were loaded down with supplies for the trip.
Which brought us back to the question of what to do next. In the end, we decided to make use of the clothing and gear amongst the pirates we’d just killed to disguise ourselves as a Kraken patrol. We’d return to the pirate’s dig site and pretend we were a patrol that had gotten lost in the woods. Once inside the compound, we’d try and find out what was in the tent and what the pirates were digging up. If we’re lucky, it’s something small and portable we can make off with. If we’re really lucky it’s a flying boat and we can just wing our way out of there. Most likely it’ll be some monstrous stone thing we’ll have to shatter rather than allow to fall into evil hands.
We spent the night at Moranna’s again (Ander needed a lot of sleep. He kept muttering about the political evolution of badgers.). The next morning we set off.
Being in a magical forest lets you forget that it’s winter outside its borders. The wind was a cold, howling knife and the snow was almost a foot deep in places. Since he had the most experience at this sort of thing, we allowed Shay to do most of the talking. He easily managed to convince the guards to let us in. In the process I discovered something new: Pirates have canastas.
Once inside we went to one of the two barracks that had been constructed. Sadly, insulation was not given a proper consideration, but just being in out of the wind was a relief. We got some (surprisingly tasty) food and sat down to keep our ears open. Shay joined a card game to get some more information, but most of the pirates were grumbling about being here. They seemed to be mostly security forces. It seems that only new recruits were being put to work in the tent. No one knows why they’re up here, but the Captain of the Darmok gave the orders and she hasn’t steered them wrong before so here they are.
Since there’s little to find out here, we’re going to move on and try to get into the tent where the dig is going on. I hope that the large handlebar mustache I’ve applied to my face to disguise my distinguished (and highly sought-after) features doesn’t fall off from the cold.
NOTES: The hell hounds were just ridiculous, the fire auras really chipped away at everyone. Taras and Shay both took initiate feats to gain healing skills from other classes (Cleric and Warlord respectively). Between cleric and fighter healing powers, Taras healed himself for something like 160 points and was *still* hanging on by a thread facing down the hounds. Ander spent most of the battle in a tree having the other PCs fight for him on his turn which was kind of amusing. I'm miffed that even with my Orb of Imposition power putting a -5 penalty on his save, the warforged still snuffed out the flame shroud early. Ah well, zotting him with a magic missile felt pretty good too.
later
Tom
Say what you will about the Kraken, they certainly know how to feed and equip their troops. If they weren’t so anxious to kill me and their fanatical religious beliefs incompatible with my own secular leanings, they’d be a interesting client to work for.
So we followed Moranna (the woman with that blasted dire hound) back to her home, a sort of cabin on a small island in the middle of a river. Outside the house was a totem pole and atop the pole was a gigantic owl. At the base of the pole was Blaze who’d been flown here by the owl. Her surprise and confusion was immense.
After a quiet night we set out the next morning to get a look at the Kraken ships. The forest runs up to a cliff with a good overview of the harbor and that’s where we headed.
The scouts (Reth, Hendel, Shay and Kestrel) ran out ahead to check things out and from the yelling clearly found some trouble. I rushed up and discovered they were being menaced by a Warforged with a pair of wands, a Halfling with a wand and pack of Kraken marines with crossbows. I blasted the warforged with a magic missile and took cover behind a tree.
It was then that I heard a roaring, howling sound like a house on fire off in the distance to my right. I looked off in that direction and saw Ander racing out of the woods towards us.
I looked to my left and saw Taras charging full bore past me to attack the warforged. At least, that’s what I assumed he was doing. It turns out he was searching for traps in his own inimitable style. And he found one. A large, deep pit filled with spikes at the bottom. He fell and landed very hard if the bellows were to be believed. Luckily Thrace followed up right behind. She stopped short and prepared to deploy her winch to help Taras.
Meanwhile, Blaze skirted the pit and attacked the warforged, who promptly Thunderwaved her back…into the pit. She fell and landed very hard if her yelps were to be believed.
Ander had stopped beneath the tree where the enemy Halfling was located. Showing a surprising amount of dexterity, Ander climbed the tree and shoved his foe out, hoping to deal a significant amount of damage from the fall. He had, of course, completely underestimated the terrifying power of wizards and the Halfling executed a textbook feather fall and landed without harm.
Although I wasn’t having much luck hitting the warforged, we were driving him back. It was about this time that three hellhounds showed up and put themselves between him and us. The fighters rolled forward to deal with this threat despite the intense heat put out by the fiendish hounds, but the warforged used this moment to fireball everyone in range. The hounds didn’t much care, but it left my allies quite crisped.
Turn-about is fair play, of course, so I moved a bit closer and enveloped him in a fire shroud. Although it did a fair amount of damage it didn’t succeed in producing a long-lasting burn, in part because the warforged deployed some crude fire suppression system. It then produced a Thunderwave in a burst pattern shoving back Reth and Blaze who were flanking it, stepped up to me and deployed a shoulder mounted crossbow which hit me with a poisoned quarrel. Reeling from this assault, I stepped back and drilled him through the chest, finishing him off. Luckily, Reth was on hand to apply some healing and neutralize the poison.
So this left us with three hell hounds, the mighty Halfling wizard and his two crossbow comrades. I dropped a freezing cloud on the Halfling and the crossbowmen. It killed the marines outright, but the Halfling dodged most of the ill effects. Sadly, I also caught Kestrel in the area of effect. This is the second or third time that’s happened and I do feel badly about it. She was, however, a very good sport about it and climbed a bit higher in the tree she was perched in to fling her shuriken into the Halfling and kill him dead.
Everyone else converged on the hellhounds and after some intense close combat they finally managed to hack them all down. I think everyone in the party has a new, and healthy, hatred for dogs everywhere.
I, however, was delighted. I got three new wands. Two of them enhanced magic missiles to give them a small knockback effect, and the other allowed you to shape a Thunderwave as a burst centered on you. There were also some spellbooks with a water breathing ritual in it. We also stripped that shoulder crossbow from the warforged for Thrace and there was some gold too. All in all, an excellent day for me.
With the cleanup finished we went to the cliff’s edge and looked out over the bay. There were three ships. The Darmok was a vast hulk. It was flanked by the Gorgon and the Chimera, two slightly smaller ships. There were a number of longboats patrolling the harbor and an improvised dock where a crane waited to transfer cargo. Our guess is that the Darmok was the transport and the other two were loaded down with supplies for the trip.
Which brought us back to the question of what to do next. In the end, we decided to make use of the clothing and gear amongst the pirates we’d just killed to disguise ourselves as a Kraken patrol. We’d return to the pirate’s dig site and pretend we were a patrol that had gotten lost in the woods. Once inside the compound, we’d try and find out what was in the tent and what the pirates were digging up. If we’re lucky, it’s something small and portable we can make off with. If we’re really lucky it’s a flying boat and we can just wing our way out of there. Most likely it’ll be some monstrous stone thing we’ll have to shatter rather than allow to fall into evil hands.
We spent the night at Moranna’s again (Ander needed a lot of sleep. He kept muttering about the political evolution of badgers.). The next morning we set off.
Being in a magical forest lets you forget that it’s winter outside its borders. The wind was a cold, howling knife and the snow was almost a foot deep in places. Since he had the most experience at this sort of thing, we allowed Shay to do most of the talking. He easily managed to convince the guards to let us in. In the process I discovered something new: Pirates have canastas.
Once inside we went to one of the two barracks that had been constructed. Sadly, insulation was not given a proper consideration, but just being in out of the wind was a relief. We got some (surprisingly tasty) food and sat down to keep our ears open. Shay joined a card game to get some more information, but most of the pirates were grumbling about being here. They seemed to be mostly security forces. It seems that only new recruits were being put to work in the tent. No one knows why they’re up here, but the Captain of the Darmok gave the orders and she hasn’t steered them wrong before so here they are.
Since there’s little to find out here, we’re going to move on and try to get into the tent where the dig is going on. I hope that the large handlebar mustache I’ve applied to my face to disguise my distinguished (and highly sought-after) features doesn’t fall off from the cold.
NOTES: The hell hounds were just ridiculous, the fire auras really chipped away at everyone. Taras and Shay both took initiate feats to gain healing skills from other classes (Cleric and Warlord respectively). Between cleric and fighter healing powers, Taras healed himself for something like 160 points and was *still* hanging on by a thread facing down the hounds. Ander spent most of the battle in a tree having the other PCs fight for him on his turn which was kind of amusing. I'm miffed that even with my Orb of Imposition power putting a -5 penalty on his save, the warforged still snuffed out the flame shroud early. Ah well, zotting him with a magic missile felt pretty good too.
later
Tom
