Catriona Will: 1d20 ⇒ 10
Catriona Initiative: 1d20 ⇒ 3
Will = 15
Initiative = 4
Vos, in true Vos style, carefully considered the being before him. Something about his obvious transformation from person to non-person just did not sit right in his over-trained, under-performing mind.
He knew what it was. He knew exactly what it was. He knew everything there was to know about it. He probably knew it's birth name, it's hometown, it's favorite color, and it's worst terror. In true Vos style, he did not bother to warn us; preferring to gauge its reaction to [Eiji].Vos drew forth his crossbow, but he had to have known it was ineffective without a magical enchantment... not that he could have hit the darn thing anyway. Really, he was way more of a danger to us.
With a silent scream, the creature launches itself at Eiji, clawing viciously.
His first swipe cleanly misses. His other set of filthy claws screech like stone across Eiji's breastplate.
- Vostok
- Bad Guy
- Hokkaido
- Catriona
- Eiji
- Copper
Ailmar swiftly calls upon the powers of the tiger, readies his bow, moves into position and fires at the beast.
Catriona's wands spring into place from her wrist sheathes, and she casts an icicle spear at the ghost-thingy's square from her icicle wand.
DC 18 reflex for half damage
The creature nearly dodges the spear of enchanted ice that erupts beneath its feet, but the slick ice slows its reaction just enough for the spell to have its full effect.
Despite this, the abomination doesn't seem to mind the shard of ice jutting through it's flesh.
While tangled in the effective, magical ice spear (definitely not from Vos) Eiji also skewers the abomination before him.
So, there Vos was, maybe 15 feet behind me, his nigh useless crossbow loaded and ready. I don't know what was going through his mind, but he must have thought he was channeling Old Deadeye himself to attempt to shoot through whatever narrow gap he saw between the magic ice stalagmite and the smooth, dance-like movements of my combat stance, while striking low enough to save my jewels and still hit the prone, still twitching undead abomination...
So yeah, he missed. Last I saw, his crossbow bolt was sailing well over the collection of dead trees behind the shrine.
With a persistence known only to the undead and other unnatural beings, the monstrosity continues to attempt to savage Eiji, despite being nearly incapacitated
Eiji casually place the point of his spear on the staggered creature's skull and hops onto the boar spear's lugs like a pogo stick.
I learned this move from a shady wizard in the south. Called it the "Monkey Smasher," and claimed he perfected it while stranded on a deserted island.
- Vostok
- Bad Guy
- It's turn
- Hokkaido
- Catriona
- Eiji
- Copper
Ailmar's going to just hold his turn, knowing his weapons can't hurt this tortured undead creature, which seems to be pretty well under control. He turns his attention instead to scanning for any other threats.
Eiji spears the undead thing, piercing through the icicle spear as well.
The body of the faithless cleric finally lies dead, as it should have been long ago. A small whirl of wind picks up, and the face of a little child seems to appear briefly, nodding to Eiji as if in thanks as he fades away.
The travellers look through the shrine, but it appears there is not much left aside from the stone walls. As Ailmar makes to leave, he notices a loose flagstone. Nudging it with his toe, it comes away easily, revealing an ancient lockbox; it contains:
While Hoki searches around the walls, no doubt behaving like a giant chicken looking for scratch, Eiji begins to roll out his bedroll.
This seems like a nice place to bed down for the night. Wake me for my watch once you thinky types figure out who needs the most sleep.
You pass an uneventful night in the relative shelter of the ruins. It does not take you long in the morning to break your camp and you set out early.
As the city of Whitethrone comes into view, you approach a bridge spanning a small river. The river cuts across the path, heading south toward the cliffs that overlook Glacier Lake. The stone bridge crosses the river, seemingly constructed with horse, wagon, and caravan traffic in mind. The bridge is well maintained, and the snow has been cleared from its span.
Four-foot-high stone railings run along both sides of the bridge, topped at either end by iron spikes upon which clean and meticulously polished skulls have been carefully impaled and turned as if to observe the traffic.
A white-painted sign post greets travelers approaching from the east:
So, that's Glacier Lake... I wonder how cold this river could be?
Vos, what's that sign say?
Catriona reads the sign aloud to the party.
Foreign merchants headed to Whitethrone require licenses and may be stopped for inspection without further notice. Those seeking licenses should apply at the city gates
After pausing for a few seconds to think, Catriona says: We could pose as a group of merchants and apply for a license once we arrive at the city. It could be a good cover while we are in Whitethrone. What does everyone think?
As you stand near the sign discussing your options, a cloaked figure passes by your party. As soon as he sets foot on the bridge, slinks out from under the bridge demanding, in a deep, booming voice.
You clearly see at least two more such creatures lurking under the bridge.
A freshwater merrow is 12 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds.
Merrows are best described as the aquatic cousins of ogres. Although their green, scaled skin and webbed hands and feet make them appear different, merrows are just as cruel, savage, and wicked as their ogre relatives.
Merrows are known for pillaging small fishing villages and towns under cover of night. Similar to ogres, merrows have a strong sense of family and typically hunt in gangs, preferring to grab a couple of villagers and head back into the water rather than sticking around and dealing with armed resistance.
They have no particular weaknesses, immunities, or resistances.
Nadya looks on a bit confusedly at the exchange going on ahead. She comments quietly to Catriona, "Strange. I don't remember encountering this last time I was around here, though that was a bit ago. I don't see how we could need to present papers now, when the sign clearly says to apply for them as the city gates..."
Hokkaido sidles in behind Copper and her mount, watching the exchange. Aside from the two creatures lurking below, he also catches sight of a filthy sack with what appear to be a few arrows poking out. The arrows are not sized appropriately for the creatures.
Knowledge of merrows happily dances about Catriona's head.
A freshwater merrow is 12 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds.
Merrows are best described as the aquatic cousins of ogres. Although their green, scaled skin and webbed hands and feet make them appear different, merrows are just as cruel, savage, and wicked as their ogre relatives.
Merrows are known for pillaging small fishing villages and towns under cover of night. Similar to ogres, merrows have a strong sense of family and typically hunt in gangs, preferring to grab a couple of villagers and head back into the water rather than sticking around and dealing with armed resistance.
They have no particular weaknesses, immunities, or resistances.
Hearing Nadya's words, Catriona steps forward, moving between Nadya and the Merrows, while she attempts to address them diplomatically.
Greetings gentlemen. Are things so bad in Whitethrone that they've moved their inspection points so far from the city gates?
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Hokkaido whispers to those near him, "Those big things are armed, but apparently not that well."
Hokkaido thinks to himself, This isn't exactly the safest country to be traveling through. Who does this alone? Hokkaido scans the other person not from our party who stepped forward on the bridge to remember details about them.
Then, using his concealed position and the distraction of Catriona, Hokkaido quietly draws his short bow and trains it on the big one demanding papers. This encounter may go sour fast and he's looking to cover the Witch.
The merrow on the bridge turns his attention to Catriona. He surveys the group momentarily before continuing, He smacks his lips adding,
Catriona looks at Copper appraisingly and looks back at the merrow on the bridge. Well I'm afraid that's just not possible. You see, we are bringing the small one to the city for a great feast, which she is to be the main course. You'll find that the great ladies of Whitethrone will pay absurd amounts of gold for organic grass-fed free-range gnome. But perhaps we can tempt you with some filet of tiefling. He was fed a diet whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and I hear that puree of tiefling tail is simply heavenly. I can see that you are a discerning gentleman though and only the best will do for you. Perhaps you would like to try a sample of our frozen merrow brains?
As a swift action Catriona's wands release from her sheathes and pop into her hands, and she fires her icicle wand at the merrow on the bridge.
Ailmar takes a second look at that cloaked figure while nocking an arrow to loose at the merrow on the bridge.
Ailmar raises his dex as a swift action (+2)
On his turn, Ailmar lets fly his arrows, first at the merrow on the bridge, or the next closest or most threatening if that one is already dead.
Ice spear from the square of the bridge merrow
Need a reflex save of 16 to avoid the trip and to take only half damage.
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If the main ogre thing Hokkaido was trained on still seems alive then Hokkaido shoots him.
If Hokkaido observes that the big thing is now just a sack of lifeless meat in the way of our path to glory, then he aims and shoots at one of those 2 other shadowy ones lurking under the bridge.
If my stealth worked and w/in 30ft.:
And the target is Disoriented for a round (-2 Attack penalty when vs. party. -4 vs. Hokkaido).
The merrow on the bridge, full of icicles and arrows bellows:
"...was just trying to negotiate a payment..."
Disoriented as he is, the merrow stumbles backwards and tumbles off the bridge. The remaining merrows, having seen the swift attack perpetrated on their fellow, swiftly swim towards safety, dragging their gangleader along with them.
The other traveler stares between y'all and the fleeing merrows and back again. "That's one way to handle a toll troll," he says to himself.
Addressing the party, he continues, "I suppose I should thank you for dealing with that for me, though I'm not sure of the consequences, and I really haven't the time to find out."
"Important business, you understand?" he adds rhetorically as he turns and continues on his way.
In their haste, the merrows left behind their loot bag that you spotted earlier with three +2 arrows, three +1 arrows, a frost-forged chain shirtu, a masterwork cold iron battleaxe, and a leather pouch containing 70 gp.
The lone traveller throws Hokkaido some shade saying, "I don't know what you're into; I don't want to know. Let's just go our separate ways, and I won't mention this to anyone."
The water ogres were really just cold-blooded cowards, and this appears to be a running theme surrounding the frozen heart of . We continued on to White Throne, and made our way through what I can only describe as a dismal shanty town outside the city walls. The local peasants called it fish-town or fish-camp or fish-gut-stink-ville or some such. I wasn't really paying attention to them. They were dirty and smelled bad. Then again, so did everything else in fish-stench-ton. Nadja took us to meet Ringer or Ringier... possibly Ringiest. I wasn't really paying attention to her. To my surprise, he wasn't where she thought he would be. That in itself wasn't really surprising. They live along ways away, communication is difficult at best, and they were supposed to be part of a semi-secret underground treasonous revolt type of cabal thing. No, his absence wasn't the really surprise, that was actually kinda expected, but the complete lack of an ambush by Nadja's secret police contacts did go a way towards verifying her status as a possible non-enemy. Not all the way. Could be they didn't have time to plan a decent ambush. Could be they didn't have enough people to reliably capture me. Time will tell.
Copper threatened to burn enough peasants that one eventually talked to her and the witch and told us that Ringer was being held by Martian Extortioners or Exporters... either way, we knew who to knock down next. We blazed a trail (not literally, much to Copper's disappointment) straight through fish-odor-burg to the largest wooden building there. It had a sign on it. I don't know much of the frozen speech, so I assume it was something meant to offend me. It did. We discussed various ways of bringing hell to Fort-fish-bouquet, but decided on practical rather than clever violence. Cat knocked on the door, and when non-water ogre opened it, we knocked on him as well... maybe a bit harder... with a spear and a pair of arrows. Turned out there was another non-water ogre and a Martian in the shack as well. I stepped in to say 'hello,' and got stabbed a couple times for my attempt at being polite. This, plus the sign, and the mere fact that we had to bother ourselves with retrieving this chump finally had me seeing red. I don't remember a lot of what followed, but my boarspear was bloodied a few feet over the crossbar, the ogre was dead, the martian was dead, a very threatening man who was probably faking being tied to a chair was allowed to live while the adjacent wall was sacrificed in his stead, and I had been declared king of fish-town by an authoritative voice that none dared second guess.
We went back to Ringer's place after strategically weakening the martian shack and using it's debris tohide all traces of our assaultbury the fallen with dignity. Ringer had a clever plan. At least clever for someone that got himself tied to a martian's chair. We were going to walk into the city. Not sure why we need Ringer for this. Not sure why we didn't just do that in the first place. He claims we can disarm and disarmour ourselves and hide all of the things that keep us alive in the ice beneath a half-ton of dead fish, the only thing this place does have in abundance while we stroll around beneath the noses of winter wolves acting like people and/or the winter guard or iron guard; whichever the new one is called and likely hates us. Oh, and our witch is still wanted. And again, those noses belong to wolves. Smart, frozen wolves. But it's okay, because we're going to go through a hole in the wall. A secret hole. A hole so secret that it's guarded. From the inside. By wolves.
That evening, you presumably sell some of the random gear you've been hauling about at the fishcamps local market. It is a fairly poor area of town, but rough enough that you are able to find a customer for any serviceable mundane combat gear. Any pricier items (jewels, art objects) you'll have to try to sneak in and sell once you are inside Whitethrone proper.
Early the next morning, you all pack up your gear, wrap it in oilcloth, and stow it in the bottom of Ringeirr's cart. He then proceeds to a nearby storehouse to top it off with ice and fish and leads you towards the walls.