Elan

The Balladeer's page

1,215 posts. Alias of Joana.


RSS

1 to 50 of 1,215 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>

The party does their best to stay out of the way as the crew gets the horses stabled and prepares to get underway. Captain Bloodtusk does little more than supervise as the full-blooded coxswain gives orders to seven half-orc sailors; another half-orc with a long braid extending from beneath a battered flat-brimmed sailor hat watches from a door in the bow tower, cleaning his hands with a stained rag.

As soon as the last horse is in place, Captain Bloodtusk impatiently growls, "Make ready to cast off! We've lost enough time waiting on our latest cargo." He gives the group from Trunau an unfriendly look.

At the coxswain's order, four of the sailors troop down the hatch aft of the mast, as the other three work with ropes and poles to push the keelboat away from the shore and out into deeper water. The group feels the current of the Kestrel grab hold of the craft and begin to push it downstream; a moment later, oars extend through the oarports and begin to stroke the water in rhythm with a muffled drumbeat that begins from below the main deck.


Captain Raag Bloodtusk's riverboat is a large modified keelboat with a sturdy wooden hull. Assembled from the scavenged wrecks of several other vessels, it looks ungainly, with a wide forecastle and towerlike structure at the bow and a high aftcastle at the stern. A single mast with a crow's nest thirty feet above rises from the middle of the deck, but a row of oarports on either side shows that the boat is not dependent on the wind alone for propulsion.

The crew is leading the Trunauan horses into an open stable on the main deck fore of the mast where the animals that pull the riverboat upstream when necessary are housed. A jollyboat is stowed aft of the stable. A short flight of stairs leads up the forecastle, while stairs on either side, as well as a hatch aft of the mask, lead belowdecks. Toward the stern, two flights of stairs on either side of a set of double doors lead up to the aftcastle and pilot deck.


Marikel Selentin wrote:
"My apologies, Captain Bloodtusk. Forgive me for being unaware of your formalities. Have you any other rules concerning your boat? Or is this a ship?"

The captain appears to swell slightly with outrage. "This is a keelboat," he explains tightly to Marikel. "Rules is, everyone pitches in and does what needs to be done and we don't end up inside the river or in the gullet of one of those oversized river vultures. If there ain't nothing helpful you can do, you can stay out of the way of those what is and hold your tongue."


"Captain Bloodtusk," the burly half-orc corrects Marikel with a frown, "and my business doesn't stretch to discussing passengers with other passengers. I can take you as far as the Kestrel joins the Esk; from there, Freedom Town is overland."


The party picks up their pace. As they draw nearer, they can see Melira overseeing the transfer of horses on board the ferry along with a burly half-orc.


Stowing the rest of the items for now, the party picks up their pace as they head downstream. As the river bends ahead of them, the monotony of the badlands is broken by the ungainly shape of a keelboat pulled up to the near shore. Figures are leading the Trunau Watch's horses on board.


Mahath:
You recognize the liquid in one of the vials as an oil which, when applied to ammunition, causes it to burn with a magic fire.

oil of flame arrow


The group heads back downriver, Tama and her horse parting from them as they near her farmstead. The party trudges onward, following the riverbank and keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of Melira and the horses.

If those who are able want to give me some Spellcraft rolls, you can try and identify the items while you're walking.


The buckler, vials, and the scroll within the case all react to Mahath's enhanced vision.


As a dwarf, Dorn is bothered by neither the darkness nor the close conditions of the tunnel; the smell, however, is another matter. The drake nest is both damp and dank and reeks of rotting fish and vegetable matter. When he reaches the open cavern, he finds fresh reeds overlaying what must be several seasons'-worth of previous nests, all swimming in several inches of fetid water left from the Kestrel's flood stage last year.

Searching through the muck, Dorn finds the remains of the meals of previous drakes: a buckler, a heavy pick, three sealed vials, a metal scroll-case, a bloodstone, and a miscellany of coins.


A burrow has been dug into the steep slope of the riverbank, clearly the nest into which the drake had been attempting to carry its equine prey.

Going in to search? It will take a light unless Dorn is the one looking.


Tama looks at the group with a new respect in her eyes. "You are indeed mighty warriors, despite the fact that you choose to live behind walls. If ever Trunau needs my bow, I would be proud to fight beside your people and name them my cousins. By the blood we have shed together, it is sworn!"


Unstringing her bow, Tama hurries down the slippery slope to check on her injured horse.


Dorn circles around a rock in the riverbank, and the drake takes the opportunity to slap the dwarf with its tail. Dorn responds with a blow from his hammer, which crushes the drake's ribcage. Its jaws loosen their grip on Alicia as it collapses to the ground.

Dorn moves (triggering AoO 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (11) + 12 = 23: hit damage 1d6 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10) & attacks: hit

Combat over


As Alicia is unable to maneuver effectively in her uncomfortable position, the point of her rapier skids harmlessly off the drake's hide.

Alicia attacks: miss

Round 2 init: Alicia, Dorn, river drake, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
mirror image (Mahath}
feather step (Dorn)
bleed 2 (river drake)
flying (Skyreaver)
grappled (Alicia)
flaming sphere (Mahath) (expires round 4)
spiritual weapon (Marikel) {expires round 4)

Map is unchanged


Marikel summons a divine weapon that slashes into the drake before carefully sliding down to less hazardous footing.

Tama releases another arrow which buries itself in the monster's long neck.

Marikel casts a spell & moves to O4
Tama attacks 1d20 + 7 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 7 + 1 + 1 = 28: hit damage 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10

Round 2 init: Alicia, Dorn, river drake, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
mirror image (Mahath}
feather step (Dorn)
bleed 2 (river drake)
flying (Skyreaver)
grappled (Alicia)
flaming sphere (Mahath) (expires round 4)
spiritual weapon (Marikel) {expires round 4)

Updated map link

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


Mahath summons a ball of fire into existence and mentally directs it against the drake's rear flank.

Mahath casts spell & directs spell: River drake Reflex 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (1) + 7 = 8: failure

Round 1 init: Alicia, Dorn, river drake, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
mirror image (Mahath}
feather step (Dorn)
bleed 2 (river drake)
bewildered (river drake)
flying (Skyreaver)
grappled (Alicia)
flaming sphere (Mahath) (expires round 4)

Updated map link

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


His magically-enhanced stride unslowed by the slippery terrain, Dorn charges after Alicia.

Confused and enraged by the sudden attack, the river drake snaps at the fragile creature that hurt it, seizing Alicia in its jaws while it uses its tail to slap at the dwarf beside her.

Skyreaver flies down from the bluff, circling around from the other side to flank the drake. The roc takes a strike from the creature's flailing tail but returns the favor with a savage bite.

Dorn double-moves
River drake full-attacks: bite (Alicia) 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (18) + 12 = 30: hit damage 2d6 + 7 ⇒ (3, 1) + 7 = 11 grab? 1d20 + 18 ⇒ (10) + 18 = 28: success; tail slap (Dorn) 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24: hit damage 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9
Skyreaver moves to D7, provoking AoO from river drake 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (9) + 12 = 21: hit damage 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6 & attacks 1d20 + 8 + 1 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 8 + 1 + 4 = 30 damage 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5

Round 1 init: Alicia, Dorn, river drake, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
mirror image (Mahath}
feather step (Dorn)
bleed 2 (river drake)
bewildered (river drake)
flying (Skyreaver)
grappled (Alicia)

Updated map link

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain. Dorn, by my count, even with longstrider, you can only make it as far as H7 with 60 feet of movement.


Focusing more on reaching the drake quickly than quietly, Alicia charges forward and drives her rapier deep into drakeflesh.

Alicia moves & attacks: hit

Round 1 init: Alicia, Dorn, river drake, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
feather step (Dorn)
bleed 2 (river drake)
bewildered (river drake)

Updated map link

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


Tama looses the arrow on her string, which strikes home in the drake's haunch.

Tama attacks 1d20 + 7 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 7 + 1 + 1 = 16 damage 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

Round 1 init: Alicia, Dorn, river drake, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
feather step (Dorn)

Updated map link

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


Surprise round init: Alicia, Dorn, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
feather step (Dorn)
mirror image (Mahath)

Map is unchanged

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


Surprise round init: Alicia, Dorn, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless[ (all)
longstrider (Dorn)
feather step (Dorn)

Map is unchanged

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


Alicia creeps nearer the dangerous beast.

Surprise round init: Alicia, Dorn, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)

Updated map link

Please note that the path down to the river (from J1 to O4) is difficult terrain.


Tama puts an arrow to the string of her longbow.

Alicia creeps slowly and quietly down the slide to the level of the river.

Initiative rolls:
Alicia 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (16) + 11 = 27
Dorn 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15
Skyreaver 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10
Mahath 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7
Marikel 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6
Tama 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6
Drake 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (8) + 6 = 14

Surprise round init: Alicia, Dorn, Skyreaver, Mahath, Marikel, Tama

Current effects: mage armor (Mahath)
shield of faith (Marikel)
bless (all)
longstrider (Dorn)

Map


Map

The way down to the river bank is at J-K1.


"It flew this way," Tama explains. "It must have a nest near the river." She jogs on steadily, assuming the others will follow in her wake, for something less than a mile, then slows cautiously. "There," she points. Just upriver, a stretch of riverbank is littered with dead fish and animal bones, a sight reminiscent of the bones outside the abandoned drake's nest where the exchange for Zola Sawyer was carried out, but these carcasses are quite fresh. A similar cavern must be nestled along the river's edge below ground level. It looks as if the group can get down to the beach where a section has collapsed toward the river, creating a sort of rough slide toward the water, though the terrain will be tricky to traverse.


Indeed, as Tama recognizes the group, her grim expression softens toward imperious. "Trunauans! I call on you to discharge your debt to me! My horse was taken by the river drake. Aid me in defeating it, and we may part as equals."


The party sets out again, this time following Melira and her snake, which sometimes slithers on its own through the rocky ground and sometimes is picked up and slung over the Mwangi woman's shoulders. Whatever else Melira may prove to be, she is a good guide. The journey back down out of the foothills is far quicker and easier than the trek the group made on their own the day before; Melira grumbles a bit about the necessity of finding footing for the horses, but she does so, without any of the backtracking that had been necessary yesterday.


The corners of the woman's lips slowly turn up in an icy smirk. "In Trunau, perhaps. There are places where it's common courtesy to respond to direct questions, as well, instead of criticizing another's manners."


"I suppose you'd call me a guide," the woman responds. "I know the badlands and its inhabitants, which ways are safest at which times of the year, and I lead those who must travel to their destinations -- for a price." She tips her head. "The forts you are investigating: I presume this is one of them? Which are the others?"


The woman inside is indeed holding a finely-crafted longbow and looks like she knows how to use it. She is of Mwangi descent and wearing well-worn and practical clothing for a traveler across the badlands under a fine chain shirt. A shortsword is strapped to one side of her belt and a pair of wands to the other. She lowers the point of the arrow slowly as Alicia and Marikel address her but doesn't drop her wariness entirely.

"Recent happenings? No, I haven't been near Trunau in several weeks. I haven't seen anything unusual, but the foothills are always dangerous. Why are you here? Are you travelers? Where are you headed?"


"Trunau?" a woman's voice answers warily from inside. "Well, you don't sound like orcs. Come on in and let me see you ... but I warn you, I've an arrow on the string if you make any funny moves."


Dorn:
With your eyes closed, you see the earth spinning below you. You see the small figures of your party and the horses off to one side as Skyreaver climbs higher above the walls of the old fort. Below, he and you see a fresh campfire on the ground near some kind of lean-to at the rear of the fort near the rising wall of the mountainside behind it, perhaps some sort of stable. A human female in sensible traveling gear peers out from within. She seems to notice Reaver's shadow on the ground and squints up into the sky at the roc.


Alicia inches up to the gap between the fortress wall and the deteriorating gates; however, she can only glimpse a thin slice of the interior of the fortress, and the trail of smoke indicates that the fire is farther back than the area she can see.

You guys do have an aerial point of view available via Skyreaver and Dorn's Improved Empathic Link.


Alicia finds no purchase on the walls, the weathered stone crumbling away beneath her grip whenever she tries to get started.


The fatigue of the long and arduous day has taken its toll on Alicia. Trying to approach silently, she dislodges two or three loose stones which rattle down the slope audibly. Still, whoever is inside the fort is farther away than her own ears and possibly distracted by their own preparations for nightfall; with luck, they won't have been put on guard.

The fort is built of native stone. Some forty feet long and twenty wide, it is little more than a rudimentary defense. The walls are approximately ten feet high. At the front, dilapidated wooden gates hang haphazardly off their hinges, apparently kept upright mostly by leaning against the structure itself. Loose stone is piled in the gaps at the sides, but it appears that scrambling over it is the only mode of entry; the fort is hardly secure, but anything getting in that way will presumably make enough noise that anyone inside will be forewarned.


A faint smell of campfire drifts toward the party, and the eagle-eyed dwarf spies a thin smudge of smoke pluming up from inside the walls. It would appear that the fort is not empty.


It's a long and frustrating day for the party, picking their way cautiously through the foothills. They know the general direction the fort must be in, but without first-hand knowledge of the terrain, Dorn leads them part-way up game trails that end up impassable for the horses so they have to double back, or they find their way blocked by a steep spur from the Mindspins or a deep crevasse cut by years' worth of spring snowmelt and must go a long way around.

By the time they finally spy the walls of the abandoned fort, they are deep in shadow as the late-afternoon sun sinks behind the wall of mountains they are skirting on their west. Despite the time and effort they have put forth to get there, they could almost hope to find the fort empty so they can get off their feet and spend the night unmolested before heading back down into more familiar and hospitable tomorrow.


According to Tyari's map, it shouldn't be far to the fort near the source of the Kestrel, but there's no telling how rough the terrain will grow nearer the Mindspins. The group can only hope that they will arrive by nightfall.


The rude farmstead has few of the comforts of home, but it's an improvement over sleeping outside on the ground. Knowing that the bothy is at least occasionally used by enemies, the party takes turns keeping a watch through the night, but the morning sun finds the hut unvisited and the group undisturbed.


Mahath:
You know that the "original inhabitant" of the farmstead would have been the man who traded the glittering rock with Jess Meeson for supplies and who, from all you've heard, gave up on his farming attampt and left the shanty behind some years back. It's most likely that whoever moved in here simply found the house empty.


The interior of the farmstead is definitely too small for a drake to have been inside without leaving behind a trace. It seems more likely that someone who had been in the farmstead was later in the drake's nest, perhaps having snagged a cloak or some other article of clothing against the chest and carried away a loose tack without realizing it.


The rest of the group sees what Alicia saw: a rough, basic farmstead. While little care has been taken to maintain the exterior, the interior appears to be used at least semi-regularly.

Dorn:
That nail-studded chest: something about it seems familiar. After a moment, you retrieve the tack you found in the wyvern's nest from your pack. It looks to be a perfect match for the nails that decorate the chest.


Apart from other subtle signs of recent occupancy, Alicia finds nothing more of interest.


Several of the decorative tacks are missing from the surface of the chest, but that appears to be simply from rough usage and age; Alicia finds no sign of traps.

Inside the chest are moth-eaten and stained blankets, some battered tin tableware, a bucket, a lamp, and a few flasks of oil.


The interior of the crude farmstead is divided into two rooms. This larger one contains a rough table with a handful of three-legged stools scattered around it and a heavy-looking nail-studded chest shoved against one wall. Through a doorway, a narrow bedstead with a limp straw-tick appears to take up most of the space on the smaller side of the partition.

The furniture is battered and dirty but not dusty or long-disused. This could be the farmstead Zola described.


Alicia cautiously approaches the hill. There are clear signs of traffic in the area, a visible path worn toward the door of the farmstead, though nothing necessarily to indicate anyone is presently in residence.

The shanty has no windows, and the door which appears to be the single method of entry is closed.


To get there, the party must cross the gully, leading the horses down into it and then finding a way for them to climb back up the other side. As the group approaches, they can see that the hill is half-collapsed in a pile of rock and glinting stone; from the opposite approach, there is little of note about the hummock. The land around it is reasonably flat and still shows signs of past attempts at cultivation, the soil notably looser and less rocky than the unaltered landscape they have been traveling through. On the far side of the hill, a haphazard shanty still stands, albeit somewhat crookedly, built largely of stone and sod with a few precious timbers strategically placed to keep its roughly rectangular shape.


The party continues up the gully, keeping a wary eye out for both spiders and wasps. Though they pass a few more burrows, the spiders that dug them appear to have abandoned them and are no longer in residence.

After another hour of picking their way over the uneven ground, the afternoon sun picks out a sparkling glint on a hill up ahead -- the hill from which the stone the flood troll carried must have come.


What's left of the spider is a hollowed-out carapace. It would appear that one of the wasps did lay an egg in the spider, and the larva ate its way out of the arachnid when it hatched.

1 to 50 of 1,215 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>