Adjo's Journal (36 of N)
Jun. 4th, 2009 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
It's amazing how a good night's sleep can make all the difference. Too bad, I had to spend several fitful hours resting in the deathtrap foyer of a deceased insane artificer with strange pounding noises coming from the rooms next to me whilst outside the death shield encompassing the place evil cultists were angling to break in.
On the upside, Taras showed up with belts of potions for everyone.
Once we were all ready to move out we spend a lot of time hemming and hawing at all the various directions we could go in. At last we picked a room and found it full of large, actively engaged pistons. There seemed to be no point so we moved on. Kestrel found a large hallway with a pair of large double-doors to one side. She set off the door's alarm and the pistons all ominously stopped. Well, in for a copper, in for a gold and all that.
We went through the doors to discover a large, storage room filled with crates and a magical elevator in one corner. The boxes were filled with a collection of bones. Each crate seemed to contain a different part of a skeleton (so a box of femurs, a box of patellas, etc.) Probably for some sort of biological experiments.
We gathered to check out the elevator and that's when were were jumped by this huge, Balhannoth, a be-tentacled horror with teleportation and invisibility powers. After its initial assault, I wisely pulled back to the nearest wall to cut down on its ability to get behind me and carefully watched for the right opportunity. Once the fighters got wrapped up, I stepped forward and set it on fire. It was at this point that Hendel announced we had more company approaching from further down the hallway. Leaving the flaming Balhannoth to the rest of the group I moved over to see if I could lend some help.
My help was clearly going to be needed. A brace of dimensional marauders were charging pell-mell down the hallway towards us. The others beat the Balhannoth into a retreat and formed up in front of me. To make sure their jobs were a bit easier, I dropped a fireball on the onrushing horde which blunted their attack although it didn't stop it. They crashed into our front line and promptly displayed a talent for teleporting victims of their bite. Poor Taras was used as a chew toy and chain-teleported via multiple bites some 40-50 feet away. That's when a couple of four-armed, dagger-wielding foulspawn appeared and started to put lots of holes in him.
The healers pushed forward and got him back on his feet and Taras (who seems to have become something of a holy-roller since he died) started closing up his own wounds and handing out the hurt to everyone around him.
At this point, the Balhannoth returned, but I dropped a mind mire on the thing and we beat him back down and Kaylee finished it off. The other fighters mopped up the marauders and the foul spawn decided cowardice was the better part of staying alive and booked it off down the hallway.
After some rest and discussion, we followed after them. Down one of the hallways, we found a door that had been savagely battered. When we went to investigate we had the following exchange:
Unknown Person: "Go away! Any one of you extra-dimensional freaks step in here and I'll blow your head off!"
Kendry: "Sir, I am a Knight of Anvil and swear to you that we mean you no harm."
Alanna: "Sir, I am a cleric of Illustrae, and I swear by my Goddess that we mean you no harm."
Me: "Sir, I am a powerful wizard and if I wanted to harm you, you'd be harmed by now, so just open up already."
In the end, we made the acquaintance of a gnome called Ganel who was hiding from the foulspawn. He'd been part of a small party that had infiltrated the estate about a week ago to kill the artificer, but they'd been attacked from the start, split up by traps and he was the only survivor. It turns out two other members of his party was the elf and dwarf we'd found in the foyer. A quick glance revealed we weren't currently wearing any of the stuff we liberated from them.
Ganel was also happy to talk about "The Family". Apparently the two foulspawn we ran into were part of a larger group that includes "Uncle Frosty" (some sort of ice beholder), "Jr." (some hulking brute) and "Pa" (of unknown classification) along with some others and that they'd been the primary architects of Gandel's misery. we also learned about some "guest" of the artificer that the Family were planning on eating.
This poses some interesting questions. To the best of Ganel's knowledge, the Family were already present on the estate when he arrived and they were clearly working with or for the artificer. But the artificer was a staunch supporter of the Tolling Bell, a human-supremacist cult. We'd been working on the theory that the foulspawn had either killed the artificer, were in league with whoever did, or were possibly some escaped specimens. The idea that the artificer would work with these guys seems at odds with his Tolling Bell affiliations.
We decided to press on, Ganel decided to stay holed up in his little fort. A half dozen yards down from where we left him, the hallway opened up into a large gallery. Apparently this was some sort of sitting room where the artificer's students could lounge. There was a large elevator shaft at the far end of the room. Kestrel was very quick to notice the lesser beholders floating in the corners of the room and pulled back. After a short conference (mostly about exactly how much better beholder depth perception might be) we decided to jump them.
It was a short fight. The elevator rose to our floor and unleashed a wave of ugly bone men, but they all went up like tinder and I was able to mop most of them up for the front lines. This gave the fighters room to rush in and surround the beholders who couldn't keep their eyes everywhere and they both went down.
So now we're taking a brief pause and we'll probably ride the elevator down for more fun and merriment.
[NOTES: A good night for Adjo. Never really took any damage the whole night and snatched away clusters of mooks at a time, forcing the fighter facing them to reconsider their actions on their turn.]
later
Tom
It's amazing how a good night's sleep can make all the difference. Too bad, I had to spend several fitful hours resting in the deathtrap foyer of a deceased insane artificer with strange pounding noises coming from the rooms next to me whilst outside the death shield encompassing the place evil cultists were angling to break in.
On the upside, Taras showed up with belts of potions for everyone.
Once we were all ready to move out we spend a lot of time hemming and hawing at all the various directions we could go in. At last we picked a room and found it full of large, actively engaged pistons. There seemed to be no point so we moved on. Kestrel found a large hallway with a pair of large double-doors to one side. She set off the door's alarm and the pistons all ominously stopped. Well, in for a copper, in for a gold and all that.
We went through the doors to discover a large, storage room filled with crates and a magical elevator in one corner. The boxes were filled with a collection of bones. Each crate seemed to contain a different part of a skeleton (so a box of femurs, a box of patellas, etc.) Probably for some sort of biological experiments.
We gathered to check out the elevator and that's when were were jumped by this huge, Balhannoth, a be-tentacled horror with teleportation and invisibility powers. After its initial assault, I wisely pulled back to the nearest wall to cut down on its ability to get behind me and carefully watched for the right opportunity. Once the fighters got wrapped up, I stepped forward and set it on fire. It was at this point that Hendel announced we had more company approaching from further down the hallway. Leaving the flaming Balhannoth to the rest of the group I moved over to see if I could lend some help.
My help was clearly going to be needed. A brace of dimensional marauders were charging pell-mell down the hallway towards us. The others beat the Balhannoth into a retreat and formed up in front of me. To make sure their jobs were a bit easier, I dropped a fireball on the onrushing horde which blunted their attack although it didn't stop it. They crashed into our front line and promptly displayed a talent for teleporting victims of their bite. Poor Taras was used as a chew toy and chain-teleported via multiple bites some 40-50 feet away. That's when a couple of four-armed, dagger-wielding foulspawn appeared and started to put lots of holes in him.
The healers pushed forward and got him back on his feet and Taras (who seems to have become something of a holy-roller since he died) started closing up his own wounds and handing out the hurt to everyone around him.
At this point, the Balhannoth returned, but I dropped a mind mire on the thing and we beat him back down and Kaylee finished it off. The other fighters mopped up the marauders and the foul spawn decided cowardice was the better part of staying alive and booked it off down the hallway.
After some rest and discussion, we followed after them. Down one of the hallways, we found a door that had been savagely battered. When we went to investigate we had the following exchange:
Unknown Person: "Go away! Any one of you extra-dimensional freaks step in here and I'll blow your head off!"
Kendry: "Sir, I am a Knight of Anvil and swear to you that we mean you no harm."
Alanna: "Sir, I am a cleric of Illustrae, and I swear by my Goddess that we mean you no harm."
Me: "Sir, I am a powerful wizard and if I wanted to harm you, you'd be harmed by now, so just open up already."
In the end, we made the acquaintance of a gnome called Ganel who was hiding from the foulspawn. He'd been part of a small party that had infiltrated the estate about a week ago to kill the artificer, but they'd been attacked from the start, split up by traps and he was the only survivor. It turns out two other members of his party was the elf and dwarf we'd found in the foyer. A quick glance revealed we weren't currently wearing any of the stuff we liberated from them.
Ganel was also happy to talk about "The Family". Apparently the two foulspawn we ran into were part of a larger group that includes "Uncle Frosty" (some sort of ice beholder), "Jr." (some hulking brute) and "Pa" (of unknown classification) along with some others and that they'd been the primary architects of Gandel's misery. we also learned about some "guest" of the artificer that the Family were planning on eating.
This poses some interesting questions. To the best of Ganel's knowledge, the Family were already present on the estate when he arrived and they were clearly working with or for the artificer. But the artificer was a staunch supporter of the Tolling Bell, a human-supremacist cult. We'd been working on the theory that the foulspawn had either killed the artificer, were in league with whoever did, or were possibly some escaped specimens. The idea that the artificer would work with these guys seems at odds with his Tolling Bell affiliations.
We decided to press on, Ganel decided to stay holed up in his little fort. A half dozen yards down from where we left him, the hallway opened up into a large gallery. Apparently this was some sort of sitting room where the artificer's students could lounge. There was a large elevator shaft at the far end of the room. Kestrel was very quick to notice the lesser beholders floating in the corners of the room and pulled back. After a short conference (mostly about exactly how much better beholder depth perception might be) we decided to jump them.
It was a short fight. The elevator rose to our floor and unleashed a wave of ugly bone men, but they all went up like tinder and I was able to mop most of them up for the front lines. This gave the fighters room to rush in and surround the beholders who couldn't keep their eyes everywhere and they both went down.
So now we're taking a brief pause and we'll probably ride the elevator down for more fun and merriment.
[NOTES: A good night for Adjo. Never really took any damage the whole night and snatched away clusters of mooks at a time, forcing the fighter facing them to reconsider their actions on their turn.]
later
Tom
