Adjo's Journal (46 of 46)
Aug. 26th, 2009 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
The last entry for this campaign, your last chance to get some Adjo love.
Well trembling mortals, you may all rest safely in your beds tonight. Once more, I, Adjo, have upheld the noble traditions of the Ahura School and wizards everywhere and saved all of you from the implacable forces of evil. The evil in this case being Orcus himself on another bid for godhood, so my altruism has probably saved creatures throughout the multiverse.
You're welcome.
With the flights of ornithopers, it took us a couple of days to reach the Dragonwall. As we got closer, we met with a Lt. Dress, who was commander of a flight of gryphons. He took us down to meet with General Deadmore, an unfortunate name, but an excellent commander as it turns out.
With his extensive knowledge of the fortifications and Capricious's intel (supplemented by the pair of dragons we picked up), we determined that Orcus's main assult would be against the large castle we currently occupied. Partially because of some necromantic catastrophes that had gone down in the area as well as the fact that a scale of Bahaumut was located within the complex, a handy artifact to have when you're planning on storming the gates of heaven.
Our dragon companions and Dauntless took to the skies to fend off the approaching Dracoliches and we set up on the fortifications. Kestral and myself took advantage of a high tower mid-way in the defensive lines where we had a commanding view of the battlefield -- which included a couple of large pits both before and behind us where the necromantic assaults of the past had rotted out the fortress. Alanna moved off to the right, Hendel and Deena went left and everyone else set up a bit forward. As a final precaution, we parked Brawl in front of the citadel gates.
We didn't have to wait too long. From out in the night massive siege towers came rolling towards the walls and hordes of ghoul-like creatures began pouring out. They were hardly fit opponents and I laid down a rolling barrage of fire that scoured large swaths of them from our line. More were hot on their heels however, and enough of them survived our withering fire to reach the outer line of walls and, bolstered with the strength of Orcus, push them over.
As the wall went down, a death knight and a couple of large dogs came rushing through. They made it to the second wall where our front-line fighters stood ready to receive them. They were not quite so ready for the undead hydra that crawled up out of the first pit. Kestrel was excited about the prospect of a trophy (that tavern back in Icewatch has triggered some sort of obsession with her), but I pointed out that it only had six heads itself and thus, wasn't worth keeping.
With more ranks of foot soldiers slogging in from the towers, I was hard pressed between mowing them down and directing more focused firepower on the heavies we were seeing -- bearing in mind that our true target had yet to present himself. It was then that the beholder rose up from the pit behind us and blasted all and sundry with it's eye beams. Alanna joined us in the tower to help deal with this abomination but had to reconsider when Orcus rose from the front pit.
There were too many targets to deal with all at once, so I simply "dug deep" as they say and "did more with less". Not happy with the prospect of a two-front battle, I opened an elemental maw beneath the beholder and shifted it to the other side. It was now closer to Orcus, but all the bad guys were on the same side and that side was further away and bunched up for area effects. I followed that up with a boosted disintegration shot right into Orcus. The energies ate away at him, but he would soon shrug it off.
I continued hammering away at various targets, struggling under the necrotic aura of Orcus. Then the two hounds slipped past the defenders and collapsed the tower we were standing in. Luckily, I have learned to become somewhat nimble when traveling with my companions and remained upright amongst the rubble. Although there was now a huge hound looming over me.
Then Orcus teleported behind the wall right next to me.
And then the beholder shot Kestrel, Alanna and me with a Ray of Madness. The three of us had a very frank discussion which I think has really cleared the air. They expressed a concern that I wasn't doing enough to foster a positive work environment and I admitted that Kestrel's control over the Dauntless really hurt my feelings (and I expressed it hard enough with the magic missile to shove her out of the rubble). It was a good talk that didn't bloody me.
But we really didn't have time for group therapy. I teleported away from the dog, took my lumps in the interdimensional spaces distorted by Orcus's presence and wound up with a good view of the beholder who I cursed and fireballed.
At this point, Thrace really came through. I mean, she had channeled Bahaumut and laid into Orcus, but now she rushed across the battlefield and physically climed up Orcus's manifestation and just started chopping away like a berserker. Orcus zapped her with the touch of death, but she just kept carving into him. Finally, she clean cut his head off.
That was pretty much the end of the fight. Alanna, Deathmore and Snow finished off the dogs. Kestrel teleported the beholder into Alanna's consecrated ground and then someone else finished it off. I blasted the death knight away with an ice field. All along the wall, the rank and file fled to their siege engines and back out into the ruined lands. We recovered and liberated the last two books.
So Orcus is back in hell and there he'll rot for another thousand years. I think that's long enough for me to rest up and find my next group of proxies. I think I'll rather enjoy watching from the sidelines this time.
Oh, incidentally: Vecna? Kind of a cheapskate. His "help" was a magic ring. Big deal. Didn't even bother to use it in the fight. I suppose it could be the first item in my collection though. I'll have to isolate that somewhere.
Anyway, I think we're all going to take a long vacation and then Kestrel will probably take off with her flying tavern idea. Me, I've got a heck of a lot of preparations to make. I figured it out some time ago, but it was clear that I had to go through all of this both to stop Orcus and to fully develop my arcane abilities. Well...develop them enough. It's clear that I've reached an important, but preliminary plateau. Further development will require some historical perspective.
So I will soon be taking my leave of the Storm Crows. But I'll eventually have met them again. The look on my face will be priceless.
So yeah, that's it for Adjo. He's been a lot of fun to play and now it's time to do something completely different lest my gaming group kill me. Next week is my back-game and then we start up an Eberron run.
I will be playing a Gnomish Barbarian. I can't wait.
later
Tom
The last entry for this campaign, your last chance to get some Adjo love.
Well trembling mortals, you may all rest safely in your beds tonight. Once more, I, Adjo, have upheld the noble traditions of the Ahura School and wizards everywhere and saved all of you from the implacable forces of evil. The evil in this case being Orcus himself on another bid for godhood, so my altruism has probably saved creatures throughout the multiverse.
You're welcome.
With the flights of ornithopers, it took us a couple of days to reach the Dragonwall. As we got closer, we met with a Lt. Dress, who was commander of a flight of gryphons. He took us down to meet with General Deadmore, an unfortunate name, but an excellent commander as it turns out.
With his extensive knowledge of the fortifications and Capricious's intel (supplemented by the pair of dragons we picked up), we determined that Orcus's main assult would be against the large castle we currently occupied. Partially because of some necromantic catastrophes that had gone down in the area as well as the fact that a scale of Bahaumut was located within the complex, a handy artifact to have when you're planning on storming the gates of heaven.
Our dragon companions and Dauntless took to the skies to fend off the approaching Dracoliches and we set up on the fortifications. Kestral and myself took advantage of a high tower mid-way in the defensive lines where we had a commanding view of the battlefield -- which included a couple of large pits both before and behind us where the necromantic assaults of the past had rotted out the fortress. Alanna moved off to the right, Hendel and Deena went left and everyone else set up a bit forward. As a final precaution, we parked Brawl in front of the citadel gates.
We didn't have to wait too long. From out in the night massive siege towers came rolling towards the walls and hordes of ghoul-like creatures began pouring out. They were hardly fit opponents and I laid down a rolling barrage of fire that scoured large swaths of them from our line. More were hot on their heels however, and enough of them survived our withering fire to reach the outer line of walls and, bolstered with the strength of Orcus, push them over.
As the wall went down, a death knight and a couple of large dogs came rushing through. They made it to the second wall where our front-line fighters stood ready to receive them. They were not quite so ready for the undead hydra that crawled up out of the first pit. Kestrel was excited about the prospect of a trophy (that tavern back in Icewatch has triggered some sort of obsession with her), but I pointed out that it only had six heads itself and thus, wasn't worth keeping.
With more ranks of foot soldiers slogging in from the towers, I was hard pressed between mowing them down and directing more focused firepower on the heavies we were seeing -- bearing in mind that our true target had yet to present himself. It was then that the beholder rose up from the pit behind us and blasted all and sundry with it's eye beams. Alanna joined us in the tower to help deal with this abomination but had to reconsider when Orcus rose from the front pit.
There were too many targets to deal with all at once, so I simply "dug deep" as they say and "did more with less". Not happy with the prospect of a two-front battle, I opened an elemental maw beneath the beholder and shifted it to the other side. It was now closer to Orcus, but all the bad guys were on the same side and that side was further away and bunched up for area effects. I followed that up with a boosted disintegration shot right into Orcus. The energies ate away at him, but he would soon shrug it off.
I continued hammering away at various targets, struggling under the necrotic aura of Orcus. Then the two hounds slipped past the defenders and collapsed the tower we were standing in. Luckily, I have learned to become somewhat nimble when traveling with my companions and remained upright amongst the rubble. Although there was now a huge hound looming over me.
Then Orcus teleported behind the wall right next to me.
And then the beholder shot Kestrel, Alanna and me with a Ray of Madness. The three of us had a very frank discussion which I think has really cleared the air. They expressed a concern that I wasn't doing enough to foster a positive work environment and I admitted that Kestrel's control over the Dauntless really hurt my feelings (and I expressed it hard enough with the magic missile to shove her out of the rubble). It was a good talk that didn't bloody me.
But we really didn't have time for group therapy. I teleported away from the dog, took my lumps in the interdimensional spaces distorted by Orcus's presence and wound up with a good view of the beholder who I cursed and fireballed.
At this point, Thrace really came through. I mean, she had channeled Bahaumut and laid into Orcus, but now she rushed across the battlefield and physically climed up Orcus's manifestation and just started chopping away like a berserker. Orcus zapped her with the touch of death, but she just kept carving into him. Finally, she clean cut his head off.
That was pretty much the end of the fight. Alanna, Deathmore and Snow finished off the dogs. Kestrel teleported the beholder into Alanna's consecrated ground and then someone else finished it off. I blasted the death knight away with an ice field. All along the wall, the rank and file fled to their siege engines and back out into the ruined lands. We recovered and liberated the last two books.
So Orcus is back in hell and there he'll rot for another thousand years. I think that's long enough for me to rest up and find my next group of proxies. I think I'll rather enjoy watching from the sidelines this time.
Oh, incidentally: Vecna? Kind of a cheapskate. His "help" was a magic ring. Big deal. Didn't even bother to use it in the fight. I suppose it could be the first item in my collection though. I'll have to isolate that somewhere.
Anyway, I think we're all going to take a long vacation and then Kestrel will probably take off with her flying tavern idea. Me, I've got a heck of a lot of preparations to make. I figured it out some time ago, but it was clear that I had to go through all of this both to stop Orcus and to fully develop my arcane abilities. Well...develop them enough. It's clear that I've reached an important, but preliminary plateau. Further development will require some historical perspective.
So I will soon be taking my leave of the Storm Crows. But I'll eventually have met them again. The look on my face will be priceless.
So yeah, that's it for Adjo. He's been a lot of fun to play and now it's time to do something completely different lest my gaming group kill me. Next week is my back-game and then we start up an Eberron run.
I will be playing a Gnomish Barbarian. I can't wait.
later
Tom
