Quick update to anyone who has been following this campaign:
My computer hit the end of its life a few weeks back, and apparently overheated to the point that much of its insides melted or suffered heat damage, and with it went practically everything I had saved. Critical, life-important documents were backed-up, fortunately, but nearly everything Pathfinder-related I had on the old machine seems to be lost now.
My bestiary of every custom monster, NPC, and creature with class levels I'd ever made was the biggest loss for me, as much of that stuff existed nowhere else but on my computer, and its destruction leaves me with no option other than to refill that Bestiary by hand. Adventure-related details on the other hand still exist in fragments on the PCs of my players, and we're working on rebuilding what was lost of the upcoming 'played, but not-yet posted' parts of the campaign log through those fragments.
Should be back up and running pretty soon now. I look forward to being back.
Oh man, that sucks. There is some free software out there for recovering hard drive data; if the drive can still spin, you might be able to recover some of the data.
Very sorry to hear that. Sent you a PM. (Yeah, it's kind of silly to publicly post that you sent a "Private" message, but I've left that little envelope beeping at me for days before someone said, "Hey, NH, don't you ever check your messages?")
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It turns out hoping for summer to be a restful season for lots of gaming was foolish of me. My single summer class' professor decided to dump more work on us than I usually do in five classes at once during a normal semester.
But anyways, with that done and my computer repaired, we're back! :D
Part 42: Lawful Good
To say the citizens of Turtleback Ferry were unhappy with the presence of Ogrekin in their town would have been an understatement, and the group faced three distinct reactions upon their return.
Fear was the first issue of course, and a couple of shrill screams or two from children playing near the village’s graveyard—the first main landmark on the way into town from the north road—quickly alerted what must’ve been the entire village to the fact that something out of the ordinary was happening. Some who came to look practically bolted back in the opposite direction as the group’s two large captives came close enough to be seen for what they were, but these only made room for those who responded with anger.
It was a bit of a struggle keeping Turtleback Ferry’s more aggressive villagers from executing the two brothers on the spot, and the fact that Atali and Shalelu had earned themselves a nasty reputation for intimidating a villager just a day earlier certainly didn’t help things, nor did the alarming booming shouts of Rukus and Maulgro when they realized that the mob of little people with knives, pitchforks, and makeshift weapons of various kinds wanted to see the two of them dead. The group only managed to press their advance further into the town thanks to the third reaction of the villagers, and it was those who loudly expressed joy at the thought the ogrekin had come to be executed who ironically delayed the execution of the brothers by helping the heroes organize the mob and move through to the center of town where they could hold a proper ceremony.
Maelin Shreed was the one they turned to once again, and the group found the man torn between his own good intentions and the relatively-unforgiving practices of his religion. To this the matter turned to the hands of Uriel and Zaru, and the two—both of whom had made good impressions on the man the day prior—slowly convinced him that while his church might be in the business of unfair discrimination against large groups because of who they were, and not what they’d done, he was a good person and should consider himself above such terrible practices.
Of course throughout this debate, townsfolk cried for blood, but with the Black Arrows and Kibb, Shalelu, Atali, and Lulu encircling the two Graul brothers, none dared make a move against them, and over time quieted to wait for mayor Shreed to come to a decision. When he finally did, and determined that the brothers would need to stand fair and lawful trial he was initially met with cries of dissent, but perhaps because of the size of the accused men, perhaps because of the large group of adventurers guarding them, or perhaps simply out of respect for their priestly mayor, none took action.
The fire would have destroyed all the evidence of the Graul homestead, unfortunately, and while the testimony of the three rescued Black Arrows would mean something, it would hardly be enough on its own. Mayor Shreed wanted hard evidence, not hearsay, and the fact that most such evidence had burned to the ground was problematic.
That left them with two alternate means, as far as everyone could agree on: magical evidence, most likely divinations that the group lacked access to, and a confession from the brothers themselves. Since nobody in the group was particularly adept at divination, the first option was quickly thrown aside in favour of the second—speaking with Rukus and Maulgro—which was also hardly an appealing prospect.
They knew it wouldn’t exactly be quick and simple, and so Mayor Shreed set about informing the townspeople of the exact details of the upcoming trial, aided by the diplomatic Uriel, who was met with cheers of victory upon informing the townspeople that the half ogres would need to have all their crimes identified if they were to be properly punished as the people wanted, for that was the way of the law, and of the small community’s teachings of Erastil—not Uriel’s own deity, but theirs and Shreed’s—which would surely not favour lynch mobs over properly-handled justice.
Atali was tasked with guarding the ogrekin for now, along with the aid of the ranger Vale, and Jakardros—as the highest ranked Black Arrow available (and possibly as the highest ranking still alive at all)—was tasked with the responsibility of passing judgement. Uriel would defend the two men, and learned schoolteacher Tillia Henkkenson would act as prosecutor against them. All that remained was to gather the necessary divinations or confessions for the trial.
Lulu left such issues to the others, and slipped off to take the skull ferry west out of town. She didn’t go unnoticed, however…
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May I be the first to say, Huzzah!
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Part 42: Long Lives
The witch traveled along the shore of the Willow River, and it wasn’t until she reached the filthy thorp of Bitter Hollow that she stopped to confront the one who was shadowing her, calmly informing Zaru that he needed to turn back and leave her to enter the forest ahead on her own. The vanara protested, of course, but Lulu wouldn’t accept argument, or even debate on the matter, which was unusual for her, and prompted her ally to stop and wonder why.
That the Sanos Forest was old was all the information she gave in response, save for the key addition that even ‘back then’ it had been old. It was enough.
Zaru turned his back and allowed her to go forwards on his own, asking aloud only that she remember to come back to them when she was done. He trusted her well enough to know that she would though. They were her friends in this modern time period.
Lulu was going home, but it was going to be a strange and unfamiliar place to her. Zaru stopped to quickly pray to his god for her journey to be a safe one, and then he turned back towards Turtleback Ferry.
Just as we were really ready to get back into it we lost a player--Zaru's player moved across an ocean, and is no-longer able to game with us--and finding a new fourth member turned out to be rather difficult.
Part 44: From the Forest She Came
The trial of Rukus and Maulgro Graul didn’t go swimmingly for the heroes, and was off to a rough start from the beginning. Tillia Henkkenson was learned enough to present a relatively-sound argument against the ogrekin, and was well-known and liked around Turtleback Ferry.
The fact that Jakardros was judging bought the group some time at the very least, as the ranger’s attitude was not so unfriendly towards the heroes as to condemn them without hesitation as some of the townsfolk might have done.
…But with Lulu conspicuously absent—a fact which Uriel and Atali could scarcely explain—things went badly. The ogrekin were unreliable, and even trying to get them to declare their own innocence was a chore with how distractable and stupid they could be, and without Lulu there the group had no appropriate divinations which might aid their case.
Admittedly they didn’t know if Lulu would have such things either, but the witch had thus-far been their best bet when it came to producing spells which saved the day, her farsightedness on the issue always seeming to ensure that she’d studied the perfect new magic, or purchased the perfect scroll for the job pre-emptively.
It was to the good fortune of the Graul brothers then when Lulu returned from the Sanos forest not alone, but alongside another gnome. As it happened Lulu had not had any access to the sort of magic they’d needed to clear the names of the ogrekin, but she had known she wasn’t the only magical one in the area. Being insultingly referred to as ‘one of those freaks from the forest’ by the irate villager on the day they’d arrived had given her a surprising revelation about just how the region’s geography had changed in the over six-thousand years of her life spent in the First World, and she’d lost her recognition of the forest, which had once been much smaller, and hadn’t always been called the Sanos.
Now she knew it clearly though; this was where she was from. The gnomes of Sanos maintained connections to the First World, and it was in one of those that Lulu had been lost over the years. The gnomes of the forest were her people, in a sense.
…And this one was a very particular gnome by the name of Ignizi Dinnelletter who had strong ties to the Pathfinder Society, and crucially, to its resources. Lulu may have lacked the necessary magic herself, but the other gnome had a scroll or two for it, and seemed relatively enamored with the idea of taking on the Graul boys as assistants. Of course she had assistants already, but the ones the society provided to her were apparently lacking, by Dinnelletter’s standards.
The townspeople were less-than pleased, but the judge Jakardros ruled that there was little that could be done. Divinations didn’t lie as easily as people—or ogrekin—might. The two remaining Grauls were free to go with Ignizi into the Sanos, where the other gnome assured the heroes that some working might be good for them, and the group themselves, as well as the Black Arrows, were free to turn their attention back to Fort Rannick.
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Mystery halfling appears? Yep, our new PC has arrived.
Part 45: Bloodbath
Approaching from the south of the fort revealed a large unbroken gate guarded by several ogres, who fortunately did not spot their stealthy observers, and it was with the rangers’ suggestion that the group thus circled around to the fort’s east gate, which proved to be much less guarded.
The east gate had but a single guard who quickly fell victim to Lulu’s magic, and the rest of the group did what they could to position themselves inconspicuously at that gate—hoping as hard as they could manage that the ogres would be preoccupied with looking outwards and wouldn’t hazard a glance inwards towards their own east gate.
It worked relatively well at first, and Lulu was able to sneak further into the fort’s courtyard, staying low and beneath buildings and approximating from the noise and smell how many ogres were in each one.
It wasn’t until Lulu had come out from underneath the fort’s cookhouse and was halfway through dashing to the space under the ‘new’ barracks that complications arose, and she slid swiftly to a halt halfway to that western building upon catching sight of a halfling woman who’d apparently had the same idea as her of crawling underneath the structures to avoid the attention of the ogres.
Lulu attempted to silently pose the question ‘who are you’ to her, hoping that the stranger could read lips, and the halfling noticed, responding in turn, both of them confused and getting more-so as their silent conversation failed to enlighten either one as to who the other was.
It was only after the vain attempt at a silent conversation that Lulu remembered one of her cantrips, which might convey a message at a distance, and she began casting only to be interrupted by a loud and gruff clearing of a throat. Both small women froze at that and turned to see the leader of the guards from the south gate—an ogre with a number of minks dangling from a mangled and mostly-missing lower jaw—leering down at them.
The ogre sneered and made a vague attempt at a joke, implying that they should finish their conversation and of course he and his boys would wait for them, then roared a war cry as both of them bolted in response.
Lulu didn’t get a chance to ask the other woman if she could fly, as the halfling barely gave her a moment’s notice. Just as swiftly as ogres poured into the courtyard did her body contort and expand, growing into a massive lizard covered in spikes and easily twenty feet long from head to tail, dwarfing even the ogres.
The others joined the battle shortly, and though the shapechanged halfling was an enticing target for the ogres, it was not her who suffered, as most of these ogres clustered together and made themselves easy targets for Lulu’s lightning and Atali’s fireballs, or were ripped apart by the massive lizard-halfling’s vicious jaws.
Instead it was Zaru, ducking and weaving through the battlefield, who came face to mink-covered face with the fearsome Minktuck Kreeg, and found that other ogre commanders—the bulbous Jolly Kreeg and bent-kneed Karly-Lop Kreeg—had also come to the battlefield, attracted by the explosions and obvious violence, and were holding his companions away from aiding him.
…Though nearly two-dozen ogres did eventually burn in that battle, including Minktuck, who died on Uriel’s sword, the group found something was amiss when the courtyard fell into uncomfortable silence.
Among the bloody and fallen was their ally, Zaru.
New PC as Zaru leaves us: Nelipot Noot - Female N Halfling Druid 8
Part 46: Passing Torches
Healing magic was of little use with how badly the vanara man had been torn apart by Minktuck Kreeg’s ogre hook, and Zaru clung to life just-barely long enough to pass a kind word to Lulu, thanking her—his first and best friend in Varisia—for the time they’d had together, and encouraging her to keep pushing forwards once he was gone.
Zaru didn’t know whether his task to set right an unknown wrong, given to him by his god, had been completed or not, but Lulu took it upon herself to carry the quest with her, and Zaru passed on with an expression of exhausted contentment.
For the first time since coming together in Sandpoint to fight goblins, the heroes of the Lost Coast found themselves truly short a member, and for the moment it fell to their newcomer to fix that issue. It was fortunate that trust issues were quickly dispelled, as the halfling woman was recognized by Jakardros as being from Turtleback Ferry itself, one Ms. Nelipot Noot, who according to Noot herself, had been leading the ill-fated group who’d gone to check on the Black Arrows after they’d first gone silent.
Most of the rest of those poor villagers had died quickly, at least, and Nelipot had been here ever since, moving stealthily about in Fort Rannick, learning the layout of the place and assessing what sort of enemies she’d face.
She’d expected all the rangers of the Black Arrows to have been dead, and had intended to take on the ogres of the Kreeg family by her lonesome, and so meeting first Lulu, and then the other heroes, as well as the surviving Black Arrows, had thrown the halfling for a loop.
It took some deliberation, which was carried out mostly between Nelipot, Atali, and Jakardros while Uriel and Vale saw to Zaru’s body and Kaven and Kibb awkwardly attempted to console Lulu, but the group eventually came to the conclusion that they and the halfling woman should join forces.
Nelipot was already a relatively skilled druid—enough so that she’d been willing to consider fighting dozens of ogres single-handedly, albeit in a roundabout manner involving hit-and-run tactics—and with her knowledge of the enemy, gleaned from days of spying on the Kreegs in combination with Jakardros and the rangers’ knowledge of the fort itself, and the power of the heroes of the Lost Coast, the group stood a chance.
OMG! Gluttony is back!
And there was much rejoicing!
EDIT: Wow. Caught up now. So awesome! Keep it up, magnificent players!
We face much sadness in that our campaign will complete in perhaps 2 sessions, and we need to find a new AP. But reading others' stories will surely delight us!
Humm... So many good adventures to choose from. Sad to see something come to its end, but it's fun to start something new, too.
I'm holding a similar stance on Nelipot. It was sad to see Zaru go, but I'm optimistic about Neli as a character. The Noot family is a bloodline I originally created with one of my own characters, Halberry Noot, so it's neat that a player--and a new one at that--was interested enough in my own character to want to expand the bloodline with Nelipot.
...I'm fangirling a bit over well-developed and interconnected character backstories bridging gaps between multiple campaigns. Don't mind me.
(Oh, and I feel like your group could probably do Carrion Crown really well, but then again I'm biased towards that AP. It's one of my favourites.)
We're just finishing Carrion Crown as well. March will see us complete two APs with two different groups.
I'm afraid I strongly disliked CC, but I think it was a combination of my character (weapons master fighter. BOOOORING!) and the group (rules arguers instead of roleplayers).
Looks like our next campaign is going to be Wrath of the Righteous. After Raesh's performance in RotRL, everyone wants to be a paladin! Go figure!
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Good paladins are awesome! Sometimes paladin threads just make the whole class seem like a bad idea, but a group inspired by a paladin like Raesh will probably manage to handle the class well.
I doubt you've had time to keep up on our thread, but even the dice are now bowing down to her bad-assitude. A wendigo tried a flyby attack on her friend, and with her declared strike she naturally rolled a triple crit while Smiting Evil.
When even the dice hate your evil outsiders, it's just cool. Or sad. One or the other.
Anyway, sorry to sidetrack your thread. I'm just ridiculously overjoyed to see you back!
Glad to see you're back. And sorry that you lost a player (I guess Skyping your friend in was out of the question? I have one group with everyone but one player on Skype, and a second with one on Skype (and the rest) - though work is making it almost impossible for one of my players to be with us. I'm hoping she doesn't have to drop...) but at least you found a new player to join in. :)
I did Jade Regent with a different group that involved a player on Skype, so I was certainly up to it. It was Zaru's player in this case who felt that playing over Skype wouldn't be the same.
It is... different. If Zaru's player felt Skype wouldn't work though, then that makes sense to have Zaru die.
I have to wonder what that'll do for the Reign of Winter when you eventually restart that - or maybe you'll just relaunch in that case as you're still early in.
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Probably gonna be a relaunch, or possibly a move to a different AP. Wrath of the Righteous is very tempting.
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Part 47: The Shocker Caves
Assaulting the courtyard had dealt heavy damage to the Kreeg population, but the group knew that this batch was organized—their new member Nelipot’s scouting had identified at least two main ogre leaders among the Kreegs holding the fortress; the ‘pappy’ of the ogres, Jaagrath Kreeg, and the powerful sorceress Dorella Kreeg, who seemed to be both Jaargrath’s daughter and wife simultaneously—and would surely have fortified the fortress interior now that they knew the heroes were here.
They would be ready.
…But it wasn’t the ogre leaders that were the true problem. The heroes had expected Xanesha’s sister to be behind the whole mess the moment they’d laid eyes on her note in Magnimar, and Nelipot—a citizen of Turtleback Ferry knowledgeable of the area’s inhabitants—had been more than capable of identifying the supposedly-deceased Lady Lucrecia among the ogres. The halfling woman hadn’t known what to make of that fact, but the group’s suspicions that Lucrecia was likely a Lamia Matriarch like her sister accounted for a fair amount of confusion from the part of the halfling and rangers.
The others failed to notice Kaven’s unease, but the young ranger had no opportunity to sneak away as he yearned to do. With so many eyes around, he knew that that at the very least would surely get him noticed.
And so Kaven was still with the group when they moved on the fortress again, this time aiming themselves towards a well-hidden secret door that Nelipot had noticed built into the cliffside when she’d been beneath the new barracks.
A pair of shocker lizards—interesting creatures, but ones who took Uriel by surprise in delivering a nasty shock to him—greeted the paladin as he moved first into the cavern behind the secret door. It was fortunate that Uriel’s celestial heritage left him somewhat resistant to electricity and that none of the others had moved into the range of the shock when it had been unleashed, and so as the lizards scampered past them, darting down a small tunnel that seemed to descend beneath ground-level, the paladin was only mildly uncomfortable rather than outright hurt.
The combined expertise of those who knew the fortress revealed that the place did indeed have a basement level, albeit a small one, and while they were well aware of the catacombs in which the shocker lizards lived, the rangers hadn’t considered that some connection between the two areas might exist—or in a worst-case scenario might be created by tearing down a wall or two—and could provide a backdoor into the fortress.
Their course seeming clear, the group descended into the warrens of the Shocker Lizards. They found the place crawling with the creatures, and were fortunate to have several rangers and a druid on their side, as they were able to press slowly through the creatures’ homes without provoking any into further attack.
At the very end of their route, the group found that the tunnels met stonework, seeming to brush right up against the fort’s basement level. There, though they lacked Zaru’s keen eye, they were able to locate another secret door with which to enter the fortress!
They didn’t expect they’d face their greatest foe, the Lady Lucrecia, so early in their assault…
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The group leveled up in the Shocker Caves.
Uriel - Male LG Aasimar Paladin (of Iomedae) 2/Bard (Arcane Duelist) 7
Lulu - Female CN Gnomeborn Changeling Witch 9
Atali "Inkskin" Saar - Female CN Human Barbarian (Titan Mauler) 2/Sorcerer (Wildblooded Tattooed Sorcerer, Pit-Touched Bloodline) 7
Nelipot Noot - Female N Halfling Druid 9
Shalelu Andosana - Female CG Elven Fighter 2/Ranger 4
Jakardros Sovark (and Kibb) - Male CG Human Ranger 8
Kaven Windstrike - Male CN Human Ranger 2/Rogue 5
Vale Temeros - Male NG Human Fighter 4/Ranger 2
I had to play all the NPCs myself this time around. It's a lot of folks at once.
Part 48: Kaven Turns
The lamia matriarch Lucrecia wore no mask like her sister’s—though she seemed to take note of the fact that Lulu now carried that mask with her; tucked under her hood on top of her head, ready to pull down over her face at a moment’s notice—and greeted them in a human form with a smile, which, if anything, only unnerved the large group further.
Lucrecia welcomed those who had clearly come to oppose her with open arms, and smiled as she complemented Kaven on his assistance in helping the ogres take Rannick.
The others were both shocked and enraged at this new detail, especially Kaven’s fellow Black Arrows, and in a panic, the young ranger grabbed hold of Lulu, stammering for the others to keep away, as she was to be his hostage.
From the other side of the room, Lucrecia implored the others to join the treacherous ranger in his ways, commenting that Mokmurian would love to meet them, though they knew not who that was.
The heroes didn’t have time to inquire about this ‘Mokmurian’, either, for it was the newest of the group—Nelipot—who reacted first, calling for the others to not lose sight of the fact that the woman seemed to be a greater foe than Kaven, and summoning a deadly storm of ice centered in the far half of the room, so that it might ravage Lucrecia without touching any of their large group, most of whom were still in the room’s southern half, or as far back as within the passage.
Unfortunately, the druid’s ice storm seemed to warp and bend around the redheaded woman, and the ensuing torrent of precipitation did little aside from throw of Shalelu and Atali’s ability to aim properly.
Lucrecia grinned at the turn of events, growing in size as she assumed her serpentine form, and cast a spell upon herself that seemed to hasten her movements.
At the back-end of the group, Uriel and the two still-allied rangers, as well as Kibb, stepped warily back from Kaven, worried about his threat to Lulu, and realizing that her ability to cast spells while the young ranger had her in such a grapple was going to be limited. They expected—as did Kaven—that she was essentially helpless.
Lulu grunted in annoyance and dug a claw into her captor’s arm.
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Was going to post this one yesterday, lumped together with the previous part, but the writeup of the fight against Lucrecia proved to be exceptionally long.
Nelipot took six points of Wisdom Drain during this fight, meaning she's now at Wis 10 and incapable of casting any of her spells, aside from orisons. None of the party is capable of casting Restoration, so Neli's basically limited to using her wild shape for the rest of the dungeon.
Part 49: Serpentine
Nelipot fared poorly as Lucrecia lunged, dagger in hand, and though the halfling had been given enough time to transform into a serpentine form of her own—flaring the scaled hood of her new emperor cobra shape menacingly—Lucrecia found her mark, and struck her for excessive damage with the keen edge of her magic dagger.
Shalelu shifted back as the druid took the blow, and fired a rapid barrage of arrows at the enemy, though only one arrow struck, for Lucrecia was still within the radius of the downpour wrought by Nelipot’s spell. Atali, seeing this, gave up entirely on firing at the snake woman and summoned the magic of a spell—aiming at Lulu, who was just barely visible to her through the crowd—before drawing her off-hand sword, that she might be fully prepared for melee combat.
At the other end of the crowd, Kaven kept his grip on Lulu, seeing that the threat to her was deterring more powerful enemies. He cried out when she clawed him, but it wasn’t an overly-serious wound, and so he struggled to give the gnomish woman a small stab with his dagger in retribution for it.
Kaven had more trouble than he’d expected, and Lulu’s form seemed to waver and bend out of the blade’s reach when he brought it down on her. Not a moment later, things turned even worse for him, as Atali’s spell reached the witch, spurring her free of the grapple with renewed vigour.
With Atali’s magic on her side Lulu slid out of Kaven’s grip and tumbled swiftly backwards out of his range, snapping her fingers at him as she rolled back to her feet, and sending the young ranger tumbling into a deep sleep. Uriel, relieved to see Lulu safe, hurriedly retrieved a rope from his supplies and tossed it at the feet of Jakardros and Vale, instructing them to tie Kaven up as well as they could manage. He then turned to move into the opening that Shalelu had created when she’d stepped back, though he’d spent enough time on finding the rope that he did not arrive before Lucrecia’s next move.
The snake woman slashed at Nelipot relentlessly, seeming to dull the mind of the transformed halfling as she did so, and it vaguely occurred to Nelipot that her most powerful spells had seemed to have slipped beyond reach with that last strike. Somehow she felt as though the knife blade was making her less capable of handing the mental processes of spellcasting!
The blade wasn’t dulling her knowledge of nature though, and she knew well-enough that the snake woman was to blame, so she redoubled the ferocity of her attack, declaring aloud that she would not allow her enemy to drain her so, and biting into Lucrecia as hard as she could manage, and subjecting the lamia matriarch to the serpentine poison of the emperor cobra’s form!
Lucrecia winced at the transformed halfling’s bite, and cried out at Atali’s massive greataxe slashing through the side of her torso a moment later, but managed to dodge or deflect all of Shalelu’s shots through a combination of the rain of Nelipot’s spell and a pre-emptive defensive spell that Lucrecia herself had cast upon hearing the party’s approach through the caves.
It occurred to Nelipot a moment later that perhaps she’d spoken to quickly in telling the snake woman what she would not be allowed to do, and Lucrecia seemed to seethe in defiance as she cast aside the lesser of her two daggers, aiming an strike powered by arcane magic with the magical one at Atali’s unarmoured form and striking critically at the barbarian’s belly, and simultaneously aimed her now-free left hand towards gripping directly at the druid’s Nelipot’s serpentine neck!
Nelipot cried out in alarm as she realized that the direct contact with the matriarch’s hand was draining her mental faculties far faster than the dagger had been affecting her, but found the pain of Lucrecia’s initial barrage of dagger attacks was subsiding somewhat, as Uriel had placed a hand pulsing with healing magic onto her back.
From behind them all, it was Lulu who then turned her attention directly to the matriarch, and—aiming through the dense crowd—struck the snake woman blind with a spell that Lucrecia just-barely failed to resist. The matriarch panicked as her sight left her, and attacks from Atali a moment later proved difficult to dodge without the aid of her sight, leading to her gaining a number of wounds from the raging barbarian’s blades.
It was all the matriarch could do to leap back, managing to dodge further attacks in doing so thanks to her great skill at mobile combat, and bring images of safety to mind. While she could no longer see any escape route, she knew one was still present, and summoned her magic, teleporting herself out of the small room and to safety.
The heroes were left with little to celebrate over. Lucrecia was blind, and Lulu confessed to have chosen the spell based on the assumption that the ogres were unlikely to have a method of healing the woman, and that Lucrecia herself—as a sorcerous lamia matriarch—was likewise probably incapable of mustering the correct healing magics.
The woman’s mention of ‘Mokmurian’, a name that meant nothing to those who’d been investigating the Kreegs, left almost no doubt that there were larger players still working behind the scenes of the whole affair of Rannick, Turtleback, Magnimar, and Sandpoint. Given time to retreat, Lucrecia would almost certainly reach one of those allies of hers, who would have the resources to heal her blind eyes.
…But with any luck such a journey would take her long and far, and would give the heroes sufficient time to deal with the Kreegs and retake Fort Rannick without further interference.
Have I mentioned lately how much I missed your writings?
Welcome back!
My group is getting ready for this encounter. Though I will admit, things will go a bit differently - I'm giving her the Advanced Template, a couple levels, and some Mythic because the PCs are just... well, sickeningly powerful! (And one level ahead of the game. And have one Mythic Tier each.)
Are they also going along with a large party as a result of lots of NPCs?
...Because this party had enough backup that their modified APL was probably closer to to 11 or 12 than the 9 they are on their own, and CR 10 Lucrecia still gave them a lot of trouble.
She only really suffered in this fight because she rolled a natural 1 on the save against Lulu's Blindness/Deafness spell. The AC drop from being blind was what started allowing them to hit her consistently.
I think Lucrecia's meant to be a recurring opponent at any rate. This cramped room, the fact that she's a solitary caster, and the fact that Fort Rannick is handled when the party is assumed to have backup all make the fight against her a bit easy (the sort of fight a competent villain will retreat from after a few rounds).
...Then again a mythic Lucrecia would be really cool. Got any ideas of which mythic path you're giving her, or is that spoilers? :P
It's not a spoiler at all. Though I'll use the Spoiler Box because the build is big. ;) I went with Guardian for her. Because one of the players is a heavy hitter (Barbarian with high strength, buffs, and two-handed weapons). Also, they all have 1 Mythic Tier, so they're a tad more versatile now. (And I realize I didn't give her the Advanced Template afterall. I just upped her stats.)
XP 19,200
Female Lamia Matriarch Sorcerer 5/Guardian 2
CE Large monstrous humanoid (shapechanger)
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +3
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Defense
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AC 29, touch 14, flat-footed 22 (+6 armor, +1 shield, +5 Dex, -1 size, +8 natural)
hp 214 (12d10+5d6+107)
Fort +13, Ref +15, Will +16
Defensive Abilities hard to kill; Immune mind-affecting effects; SR 19
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Offense
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Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft., swim 40 ft.
Melee +1 dagger +19/+14/+9 (1d4+8/17-20) and
masterwork dagger +19 (1d4+3/17-20)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks bloodline arcana: fey, mythic power (7/day, surge +1d6), wisdom drain
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 12th; concentration +21)
At will—charm monster (DC 22), ventriloquism (DC 20)
12/day—laughing touch
3/day—deep slumber (DC 23), dream, major image (DC 22), mirror image, suggestion (DC 23)
Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 11th; concentration +20):
5th (6/day)—mass inflict light wounds (DC 24), slay living (DC 24)
4th (8/day)—dimension door, divine power, mass reduce person (DC 23)
3rd (8/day)—cure serious wounds, dispel magic [M], haste, prayer
2nd (8/day)—cure moderate wounds, enthrall (DC 21), glitterdust (DC 21), hideous laughter (DC 23), hold person (DC 23), invisibility
1st (9/day)—cure light wounds, divine favor, entangle (DC 20), mage armor [M], magic missile, sanctuary (DC 20)
0 (at will)—bleed (DC 19), dancing lights, daze (DC 21), detect magic, ghost sound (DC 19), mage hand, mending, open/close (DC 19), prestidigitation (DC 19)
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TACTICS
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Before Combat Lucrecia casts mage armor as soon as she becomes aware of trouble in the keep above (or in the shocker lizard caves in area B37).
During Combat Lucrecia assumes her true form on the first round of combat, preferring to fight with her daggers and activating false life on the first round of combat. If faced with overwhelming odds or brought below 80 hit points, she attempts to flee, recover, and then attack the PCs again in an area where she has more room to move around so she can utilize her spells more effectively.
Morale Lucrecia attempts to flee to the Hook Mountain clanhold if brought below 40 hit points—if she escapes, she’ll be encountered at Barl Breakbones’ side in area D9.
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Statistics
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Str 24, Dex 21, Con 21, Int 16, Wis 16, Cha 28
Base Atk +14; CMB +22; CMD 37 (can't be tripped)
Feats Arcane Strike, Arcane Strike [M], Combat Casting, Eschew Materials, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical (dagger), Persuasive, Power Attack, Still Spell, Two-weapon Defense, Two-weapon Fighting
Skills Acrobatics +26 (+30 jump, +30 when jumping), Bluff +33, Climb +15, Craft (tattoo) +15, Diplomacy +11, Intimidate +17, Knowledge (arcana) +23, Knowledge (local) +15, Linguistics +6, Sense Motive +20, Spellcraft +23, Swim +15; Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics, +4 Acrobatics when jumping, +4 Bluff
Languages Abyssal, Common, Draconic, Giant, Sphinx, Sylvan, Thassilonian
SQ amazing initiative, bloodlines (fey), change shape, undersized weapons, woodland stride
Combat Gear wand of scorching ray (22 charges); Other Gear +1 dagger, masterwork dagger, sihedron medallion, gold and pearl ring (worth 300 gp), silver necklace (worth 200 gp)
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Special Abilities
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Absorb Blow (10 damage) (Su) As an immaction, use 1 power when dam to absorb listed amount to gain epic DR and Resist.
Amazing Initiative (1/round) (Ex) As a free action, use 1 power to gain an extra standard action (can't be used to cast a spell).
Arcane Strike As a swift action, add +1 damage, +1 per 5 caster levels and your weapons are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Arcane Strike [Mythic] Arcane strike lasts 1 min. Use 1 power to grant magic weapon special abilities.
Bloodline Arcana: Fey (Ex) +2 to save DCs from spells of the Compulsion subschool.
Change Shape (fixed Medium humanoid form, alter self) (Su) You can change your form.
Climbing (40 feet) You have a Climb speed.
Combat Casting +4 to Concentration checks to cast while on the defensive.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Eschew Materials Cast spells without materials, if component cost is 1 gp or less.
Fey +2 to save DCs from spells of the Compulsion subschool.
Hard to Kill (Ex) Automatically stabilize when dying, and only die at neg Con x 2.
Immunity to Mind-Affecting effects You are immune to Mind-Affecting effects.
Laughing Touch (12/day) (Su) Melee touch attack leaves target able to take only move actions.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Mythic Power (7/day, Surge +1d6) Use this power to perform your mythic abilities.
Power Attack -4/+8 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Quick Recovery (dazed, dazzled, deafened, sickened, stunned) (Ex) Halve duration of listed conditions.
Sihedron Medallion Allows a runelord to scry on you and speak to you.
Spell Resistance (19) You have Spell Resistance.
Still Spell You can cast a spell with no somatic components. +1 Level.
Surge (1d6) (Su) Use 1 power to increase any d20 roll by the listed amount.
Swimming (40 feet) You have a Swim speed.
Two-weapon Defense +1 to AC while wielding 2 weapons. +2 when doing so defensively.
Wand of scorching ray (22 charges) Add this item to create a wand of a chosen spell.
Wisdom Drain (DC 25) (Su) A lamia matriarch drains 1d4 points of Wisdom each time she hits with her melee touch attack. The first time each round that she strikes a foe with a melee weapon, she also drains 1 point of Wisdom. A DC 21 Will save negates the Wisdom drain. Unlike
Woodland Stride (Ex) Move through undergrowth at normal speed.
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After abandoning her pleasure barge Paradise on the evening of the assault on Fort Rannick, Lucrecia made her way north to the keep to seek temporary quarters here. Jaagrath and his ogres recognized the Sihedron medallion she wore and were quick to offer her lodging in the fort while she waited for the rains and coming flood to finish the work she had started in Turtleback Ferry.
Lucrecia prefers to spend her time in her humanoid form: an aristocratic-looking human woman with firered hair and alabaster skin. Her face is pure elegance—high cheekbones, demure but lust-stirring green eyes, and perfectly shaped eyebrows to accent them. Her true form is similar from the waist up, while from the waist down she has the body of an emerald green snake.
Lucrecia greets intruders with open arms and a smile—she has no confusion about the PCs being here to do her harm, but wants to offer them a chance to join her masters before she kills them—going so far as to say “Mokmurian would love to meet you!” If the PCs rebuff her, she shrugs coyly, assumes her true form, and attacks.
If Kaven is still with the PCs, Lucrecia can’t resist twisting her dagger. When he reacts to her presence here with obvious guilt and shock, she sweetly compliments him on a job well done—“These oafish Kreegs would have had quite a lot of trouble taking Rannick without the lovely details you provided us. Well done, my love!” She hopes to see the PCs tear the man apart—party strife does Lucrecia’s cold heart good.
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I'm not sure how large the group will be. It's already sizable, seeing that they have four players and the GMPC as well as two Cohorts. Add in Shalelu, the three Black Arrows, and Orik (who I added to the Black Arrows because it's fun to think his bad luck continued!) and they'd have a lot of trouble going through most areas.
I'm hoping the group thinks of using them as a diversion so they can sneak in the back way. I might even be able to peel out the Cohorts as well.
The group consists of:
Half Orc Barbarian (9) Scholar (he's the damage-dealer with Scholar of the Ancients) with Champion 1
Human Ranger/Transmuter/Eldritch Knight (2/5/2) with Archmage/Champion
Halfling Bard/Cleric (1/8) with Hierophant
Human Imperious Sorceress (cold-theme) (9) with Archmage/Marshal
GMPC Sylph Rogue/Air Wizard/Arcane Trickster (4/3/2) with Trickster
And the Cohorts:
Half-Elf Paladin (7)
Human Ninjamaid (7)
The one to watch is the Sorceress. Seriously. She's the newest player and yet has pulled multiple tricks on me that leave me pleasantly surprised. Her use of Strangling Hair has become a thing of Legend in my game (and I fully expect her to use it on Lucrecia).
Sadly it seems I'll have to delay things by two weeks - my Sunday suddenly got busy, so I'm not sure I can handle the Skype game as well. :/ Ah well...
Nice write up gluttony! It will be interesting to see what happens in your game. During my encounter she drained the magus's wisdom down to 2, leveled the dwarf fighter to unconscious, and killed the ranger before being beat down enough hit points she d-doored upstairs and warned the leader.
They had to retreat for healing and search parties were sent out after them, they were hiding in the raining, wet, woods scared of the patrols lol.
They had to fight her a second time with the leader ogre (forget his name now) and that was a really hard fight and she managed to escape that one as well. They will see her again during the mokmurian encounter in book 4. mwhhaha.
My players hate her so much :P
Nice, a good recurring villain that the players love to hate can be a wonderful asset!
In somewhat-related news, have any other GMs noticed how absolutely abysmal the healing capabilities of Special K's team are? Oh sure, they've got Cure ___ Wounds spells, but I was looking to see who among the enemies could cure Lucrecia's blindness and found out that there are only three enemies in the entire AP capable of something even that simple (well, seven technically, but ultimately they're divided into a mere two groups). Two of them are Seleval and Zaelsar under Jorgenfist (i.e. the only two clerics, in the entire AP who are capable of a Remove Blindness spell and are also located outside of the final dungeon and thus capable of being accessed by most of the enemy) and the other five consist of Most High Ceoptra herself, as well as a quartet of clones of Selecal and Zaelsar who live in the same dungeon as her (i.e. so far along in the AP that you'd have to travel as far as Special K's doorstep to access a Heal or Remove Blindness spell from them)!
...I decided to let the Annis Hag coven at Hook Mountain muster a Remove Blindness through their coven spellcasting and some GM fiat instead.
Well, this has to go in a spoiler, but YES, I've noticed:
So in the Pinnacle of Avarice there are the "thin spots" where PCs can stab Karzoug images with Dominant weapons and give him temporary negative levels.
Well, Karzoug managed to get not one but TWO permanent negative levels from my PCs before the final fight, and the only people in all of Xin-Shalast who can cast a simple Restoration spell are the lamia clerics (already dead. Sorry, Karzoug!)
Seriously?
Ouch.
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A critical hit for max damage from an ogre is painful to someone with d6 hit dice and a racial penalty to Constituion. Fortunately, Lulu lived.
Part 50: Tiny Man Clothes
The heroes had little reward for their defeat of Lucrecia, save for the non-magical dagger she’d tossed aside, and a bound and nervous-looking Kaven Windstrike, whom they had little idea of what to do with. Fortunately they needed not decide right away, as they’d come into Fort Rannick immediately adjacent to the fort’s holding cells.
Vale, who’d done shifts guarding an occasional prisoner or two down here before, was able to dig up some cell keys, and the group opted to toss Kaven in one such cell for now rather than attempt to drag him around the place with them while they fought ogres. Shalelu, though she was reluctant to split off from the main group, was put in charge of guarding him.
The elven woman objected at first, but Uriel stepped aside with her for a moment and explained that he would rather not leave the young ranger in the hands of his fellow Black Arrows, to whom his betrayal was personal. Shalelu was also more agile and stealthy than Jakardros and Vale, and if trouble came to her in the dungeons while they were absent, it was she who had the best chance of slipping away to safety through the caves they’d entered through. With a sigh, the elf agreed that the paladin’s logic was sensible, and so in the basement she stayed, guarding the prisoner. Jakardros opted to leave his faithful firepelt Kibb with her as well, both for the sake of strength in numbers, and because the ranger informed the group that the halls and rooms of Rannick were going to be too cramped for an extremely large group anyways. Kibb was also more than capable of outpacing the lumbering ogres if escape became necessary, and could rely on his speedy sprint to carry him to safety through the caves in lieu of stealth.
The rest of the group moved up into the fort itself, ascending the stairs to the second floor and finding themselves in a long hallway, with stairs leading further up not far away from the landing on which they’d arrived. Assuming the ogre leaders would likely dominate the largest rooms of the place—those on the second floor, according to the rangers—the group opted to move among the first floor’s rooms first, hoping to eliminate threats here so that when they did reach the upper levels, those ogres couldn’t call for aid from below.
Moving from room to room, the heroes faced a terrible slew of horrific ogre antics. An ogre with a face of mangled gore posed a bloody corpse in the infirmary, a ‘poet’ ogre who painted his verses on the walls in blood and gore (Atali and Jakardros were the only two members of the group who could read the language of giants it was written in, and didn’t have any particularly positive reviews for the poetry), and even and entire cadre of ogre grunts, who small Lulu manipulated into fighting each other through her invisible theft of a horsey mask the ogres quarreled over. The only enemy group to give them any trouble on the ground floor (surprisingly) however, consisted of a pair of ogres who’d stuffed themselves into Black Arrow uniforms. The two came running at the sound of the battle for the horsey mask, and lumbered straight into the midst of the heroes’ group, who’d hidden themselves out in the hallway while the other ogres fought among themselves. Though the two stuffed in clothes too small for them had difficulty swinging their weapons properly, they struck still-serpentine Nelipot quite hard, and attracted the quarreling ogres in the other room out to fight as well, one of whom tripped over invisible Lulu on his way, discovering her and nearly caving her head in with a well-placed blow from his club and an overbearing advance that the witch had difficulty backing away from or casting spells effectively within.
By the time the others got to her, Lulu was unconscious and badly bleeding, but not gone the way of Zaru. Atali barreled recklessly into the witch’s large opponent, ignoring the ogre’s attempts at retaliation, and buried her axe in his thick neck. Lulu was brought back to wakefulness by what meager bardic healing magic Uriel could muster, and healed herself further once she was back on her feet, though the damage from the unfortunate blow to her head required the expenditure of most of the healing spells she’d readied that day.
Fortunately, with Lulu healed and the ‘horsey mask’ ogres dead, there were no further enemies remaining on the ground floor, and the leaders above had either ignored the racket of battle, or had opted to wait for the enemies to come to them.
They knew where the stairs were. It was time to meet the ogres’ pappy.
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...Alright, so the fight against Jaagrath took a lot of space to write up. I was considering just putting them all up next week in one big post, but it's probably more fun to post one a day for the next several days, so I'm gonna do that instead.
Part 51: Not All Bark
Ascending the stairs to the second floor of the fort brought the heroes into a hallway of wooden construction in comparison to the stone of the ground floor. It was here, in the first room that they opted to check—the chapel, for it was nearest to the stairs—that they met the large and terrible Jaagrath Kreeg, who smacked aside the druid Nelipot as she lunged for him in serpent form, sending her sprawling into unconsciousness in the first blow of battle, and then lunged for the human Atali, ignoring the efforts of Uriel and Lulu as they cut him and bathed him in arcane fire respectively.
Jakardros and Vale could do little to help the main force in their battle against the Kreeg pappy, for another pair of ogres came smashing through the doors of the tribunal just a short distance down the hall, and the rangers were forced to turn to hold them off.
Lulu cried for Uriel to aid the rangers and leave Jaagrath to herself and Atali, knowing that they needed to get Jakardros and Vale back and fighting alongside them, and realizing that with no healing magic remaining save for her healing hex—which would no longer restore Nelipot that day—they would not endure a prolonged fight against the ogre. Jaagrath struck much harder than they’d expected.
Lulu directed the magic of slumber at the ogre, attempting to subject him to her hex, but failing and only drawing his ire. For a brief moment, Jaagrath turned his attention from Atali, bearing down on the witch with his ogre hook and slashing across her shoulder, leaving her crying out in pain and staggering back as he turned his attention back to Atali herself.
The human barbarian glanced aside at her ally, seeing that Lulu was alive and conscious, if barely, and understanding her next course of action, summoning sorcerous magic in the giant’s language and commanding that he ignore the small ones and fight a proper warrior like herself.
Jaagrath almost smirked at her use of his language, and her brash confidence at standing before him unarmoured and with weapons drawn, and some terrible thoughts of what to do with the woman must have at that moment crossed into the ogre’s mind, though he knew that to disarm and maim her a bit first would be prudent.
Atali and the ogre pappy leapt into battle, the smaller barbarian moving to grapple and restrain the larger so that he might not use his mighty ogre hook weapon against her, and knowing that to limit him in such a way would prolong her survival in the solitary fight, giving Uriel and the rangers enough time to rejoin her in battle and aid her.
Jaagrath took to the grapple eagerly, and lunged with his horrid maw towards Atali’s face, hoping to hear her screams up close and reverberating in his skull as he chewed on her face. Instead the human only snarled, and slammed the tip of her own short sword into the side of his face in return!
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From bad to worse...
Part 52: Not Without Sacrifice
Though the two ogres accosting them in the hall fought surprisingly well for brutes who seemed to have no formal combat training (and who suffered for having to squeeze in the narrow hallways in order to fight side by side), one was eventually cut down by Uriel’s blade as the other bore down on Vale. Jakardros was having trouble shooting past his allies from behind them, and so Vale was suffering in the battle, having been fighting against both ogres himself until Uriel joined him.
Vale was fortunate that Lulu, after having been smacked aside in the battle against Jaagrath, had not been taken down entirely, and the witch, having used magic to take the form of a tiny scarlet spider and escape the fight against Jaagrath unnoticed, descended from above, landing on the ranger’s back and pumping the magic of her healing hex into him, granting the ranger an extra breath with which to weather a smack from the ogre’s club. A moment later it was Lulu’s familiar Pix who scooped her up from the ranger’s back and neutralized the other ogre, blasting him with a spray of colourful rainbow light and stunning him, making him an easy target to cut down.
With that Uriel turned to hurry to Atali’s aid only to return and find both the ogre pappy and the human barbarian badly damaged. Seeing reinforcements had come to his enemy, Jaagrath flung the naked warrior at the paladin, sending them both crashing into the hallway wall opposite the door, and leaving him room to charge past.
Jakardros fired a barrage as the ogre pappy came into the hallway, but the head ranger had taken up a position back by the stairs, and could only prick the formidable ogre rather than bar his path outright as Vale did.
Vale was the unfortunate one in that regard, for unlike Atali he was not restraining the larger ogre, and did not restrict the use of Jaagrath’s main weapon. The ogre suffered an axe from the ranger with a grunt, and struck back hard, slicing into Vale’s face and leaving him a bloody mess against the wall.
The ogre moved on, rushing into the far room to regroup with allies, and the heroes rushed to Vale’s side only to arrive a moment too late. Lulu had moments earlier used up all the healing magic she’d had available to him, and Uriel’s attempt to stabilize the man failed. The ranger died in their arms, their second victim of the Kreegs, after Zaru.
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That most reliable of strategies: "Run like hell".
Part 53: Overwhelmed
Jaagrath himself had been wounded by his battle with Atali and the attacks from the rangers that had followed, and was not yet eager to charge back out into the fray once more, which gave the others a brief moment to recover, though it was indeed only a moment, before Jaagrath sent his favourite son Harlock Kreeg, who the ogres called Hookmaw for his vicious iron jaw, into the hall in his stead, blocking the way while he consumed his healing potions and the sorcerous Dorella cast defensive magic upon herself.
The few seconds it took for Hookmaw to arrive were enough however, and Pix was able to relay to Uriel the specifics of Lulu’s self-polymorph spell, which she could not dismiss on her own. Uriel took the moment to dispel the magic from the witch before turning to face the charging ogre, and then was saved from any attack by that foe when Hookmaw collapsed, asleep and harmless.
From behind them Lulu—newly restored to her gnomish form—panted, but raised her chin defiantly, commenting that in spite of being one good tap away from death, she wasn’t down yet. Atali nodded, acknowledging the witch’s determination before finally breathing a calm breath, her furious rage subsiding, and agreeing that she was in a similar predicament.
Uriel insisted that they would need to stand and fight, pursuing the ogre pappy into the final dead-end room into which he’d fled, where they could end things once and for all, hopefully before anyone else succumbed to the icy grip of death, but Atali shook her head, denying the battle in a rare and lucid moment of tranquility and swinging her cloak back over her shoulders.
Jaagrath fought like Atali herself did, the barbarian commented, but he was larger and stronger and better at it. With Atali fatigued, Lulu inches from death, Nelipot unconscious, Jakardros skilled at ranged combat, not melee, and Vale dead, only Uriel could truly stand against the ogre.
Uriel would die, Atali commented bluntly, and then the rest of them would as well. Only Lulu, who could fly and was still conscious enough to do so, stood any chance of escape, but even so there was a risk of the sorcerous ogre accompanying Jaagrath simply blasting her out of the sky before she could get clear.
Dismayed, Jakardros asked what could be done, and Atali smiled knowingly. She knew her own weakness, and so she knew how to fight a fellow barbarian in turn. With a glance to the far door Atali noted the ogre pappy cast aside his final potion and suggested that it was time they turned, ran, and led the ogre on a merry chase.
Uriel protested at the thought of abandoning their unconscious ally Nelipot, but Lulu cut in, warily watching the far door as she commented that while she couldn’t muster enough magic to teleport them all, she could bring herself and Nelipot down to where Shalelu hopefully still waited in the dungeon, and could then have the fresh and nearly uninjured elf meet them at the landing on the main floor to join in the battle, but added that if there was to be any hope of getting down there for such a fight that they needed to start running immediately.
Reluctantly, Uriel nodded and gestured for the others to hurry to the stairs, Jakardros leading the way—for he was uninjured and could handle any lesser ogres in their path if they’d missed any—and Atali following him, with Uriel himself guarding the rear of the pack.
Jaagrath roared in fury at the sight of his enemies turning to flee, and barked for Dorella to stop them. Lulu didn’t flinch at that, and instead merely raised her hand in anticipation of the sorceress’ next move, seeming to catch Dorella’s lightning bolt spell in her palm and force it backwards, countering it with an identical spell of her own and smashing both of their lightning spells to bits before Dorella’s could strike any of Lulu’s fleering allies. Jaagrath seethed at this, and charged past his wife, aiming a death blow at the small witch.
Jaagrath’s ogre hook thwacked uselessly into the floor, seeming to move straight through Lulu as her form wavered like mist, and his second strike at her as she rounded the corner back into the chapel where Nelipot had fallen was deflected by the cover provided to Lulu by the doorframe.
The witch made it safely into the chapel and brought forth the magic of her spell just as the ogre pappy moved to pursue and kill her, and before he could, the spell took hold. Both Lulu and Nelipot were whisked magically to safety.
Jaagrath ground his teeth and snarled for Dorella to join him as he turned his attention back to the stairs. The others hadn’t fled by way of any fancy magics, and he knew well enough that he could catch the fragile heroes on foot.
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This... is... just... awesome!!!!
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Stopping to do some roleplay while everyone else is in the middle of a fight? Well, Lulu did only have 1 hp left, so I suppose she's got an excuse.
Part 54: Lulu’s Musings
Lulu reappeared with a gasp of relief alongside unconscious Nelipot in the fort’s dungeon, startling Shalelu and Kibb there, and she quickly panted out details of the situation, hurrying the elven ranger and big cat on their way to assist the others and offering to take up watching Kaven herself. Almost as an afterthought, she remembered to warn Shalelu of the sorceress’ lightning spell, and Shalelu nodded in understanding, casting a spell upon herself to resist electricity before bounding up the stairs.
Lulu sighed and relaxed for a moment, having no more healing magic for herself, but knowing that she couldn’t risk going up to join the others as close to death as she was.
For a moment she resigned herself to having done all she could, and began to muse aloud whether fleeing was the wisest course of action. She didn’t want to leave her friends behind, but knew that they ran the risk of losing the entire group in this endeavor. Simply dying alongside them would serve no more purpose than escaping and improving her magic.
For a moment Lulu considered that if it came to it, she might escape and strive to hurriedly learn the magic necessary to raise the dead. She wasn’t too far off from being able to cast the spell, after all, and if she could learn it in a week or so she might get back to retake Rannick, perhaps with the aid of hired mercenaries or a friend or two from Sandpoint, and do so fast enough as to be able to raise any fallen allies.
The witch was interrupted by the voice of Kaven, who asked from his cell in the next room how it felt to weigh the risk of her own life against the lives of her allies. Lulu pondered the thought silently for a moment before moving to the prison block to speak with him directly.
Was it really the same situation? Lulu posed the question to Kaven calmly as she sat down on the floor, leaning tiredly against the bars of the cell opposite the one the young ranger was in. Had he gone to all lengths that he was capable of to save the Black Arrows? Had he aided Lucrecia knowing that his allies might die for it, but put forth all effort to revive them in such a case?
The ranger somberly averted his gaze and Lulu sighed. She didn’t really blame him, she commented. Death was a scary thing, and she’d lost her closest friend to it less than twenty four hours ago. For Kaven to attempt to escape it was understandable enough, and Lulu confessed she was of similar morals to the man. Even she hardly considered herself a hero, much less a good person like Zaru or brave Uriel was.
Kaven glanced back up, asking her if that was truly the case, whether they could really use her help at all. What the others could really use in this hour of need was a hero, and he’d already heard the witch send Shalelu up to them shortly after she’d arrived. He implored her to set him free, that they might escape back through the shocker caves together. He even offered to carry Nelipot, who’d he’d heard Lulu comment was unconscious.
The others had their hero now. They didn’t need Lulu, right?
Lulu’s eyes widened at that, and she broke out in a massive grin that did little but confuse the ranger. No, she commented, they had one hero coming to them, but that didn’t invalidate her. They needed her as much as she needed them.
Kaven stammered for Lulu to wait as she leapt to her feet. She would die if she ascended back to the main floor to fight the ogres, and if all of them died there would be nobody here to set him free. The ogres would find and slaughter him in terrible ways!
Lulu shook her head and gave the ranger a capricious smile. She knew better than to try and be a hero herself, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t send another one.
The witch raised her hands high, chanting the incantation of her most powerful summoning spell, which until that moment she’d not thought to consider as an option, and Kaven’s eyes widened at the being that appeared. Lulu, for her part didn’t blink, and instead conveyed one simple request.
Her friends were surely just upstairs and locked in combat by now. Lulu begged her new champion to help them.
OMG!!!! You can't stop there! Did someone take a Planar Ally spell?
You are EEEEEEVIL, Gluttony!
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:P
Lulu's a 9th level Witch. Only way for a witch to even get Planar Ally is with the Spirits Patron, and that's a 16th level patron spell.
...Personally I think it should be greater planar ally that gets granted by Spirits at 16th, since that's in-keeping with patrons normally granting a spell one level after the witch unlocks the requisite spell level, but Spirits isn't Lulu's patron anyways. Her patron is Deception.
What she cast was actually...
THANK YOU!!!
Too bad she's not LG...
It would be amusing to see what 1d3 Hound Archons would do -- they look weak on paper, but against evil creatures that don't have evil-aligned weapons I've watched them wreak some major havoc. And they're fast.
Technically the summon monster spells don't have alignment restrictions for arcane casters. The spell gets alignment tags based on what you summon, but those don't actually do anything as far as I know.
A divine caster who was CN like Lulu couldn't use a lawful summon, but I'm pretty sure a witch could, if she wanted to.
There's no decent chaotic neutral summons anyways. Just entropic animals, which are a bit boring.
Heh. The priestess in my own Runelords game has Mighty Summons (the non-cohorts have one Mythic Tier) so she can put epic damage resistance 5 with regular wolves. And her priesthood has a dog-theme so once she gets Monster Summoning IV she'll be going with Hound Archons. =^-^=
Admittedly I'd been boosting the power of their foes anyway so it won't help TOO much. Heh heh heh.
Gotta wonder if Lulu summoned a Babau, a Bearded Devil, or a Bralani.
...Or something from the Summon Monster IV list. There's always the possibility she went for 1d3 and got unlucky after all.
(But you'll just have to wait to find out. :3 )
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Part 55: Retaking Rannick
The group led by Jakardros hit the bottom of the stairs at top speed and made a sharp turn to the right, aiming for the front doors of the fortress. They hoped to keep ahead of Jaagrath as long as possible and force him to deplete the energies of his rage, but found the fortress doors were blocked on the outside by the piles of corpses of the ogres they’d slain in the courtyard, which had been stacked in front of the door to hold it shut—one last spiteful lash at them from Lucrecia before she’d made her escape towards Hook Mountain with the lone ogre who’d been stationed outside serving as her eyes, though they didn’t know that yet—and the group realized they were trapped after their first few slams against the door failed to open it and free them.
Momentarily the group considered fleeing further to the south tower that was down the hall, hoping to lose the ogre pappy by moving through an escape path too awkward and narrow for him to follow through. They were too slow for it though, and with a bellow, Jaagrath rounded the corner to face them. It was all Uriel could manage to leap to the head of the group, his sword alight with holy smiting magic, and hope that a defensive stance could hold the ogre. Jakardros and Atali, both weary but determined to live, staggered back behind the paladin’s defenses, staying far back enough as to keep the ogre from simply reaching over Uriel’s head while they unloaded every shred of offense they could still muster, loosing arrows and rays of scorching magical fires respectively upon the Kreeg pappy.
Jaagrath was not alone however, and the sorceress Dorella moved to fight from behind him just as Jakardros and Atali fought behind Uriel, and subjected the three heroes to a mind-boggling enchantment spell. Uriel and Atali gritted their teeth and resisted this magic, but Jakardros was not so willful, and succumbed to the confusing stupor, seeming to become bewildered as to who he was fighting, and turning his bow on Atali at the worst of possible times.
The barbarian realized what was happened at the last moment, but had sheathed her weapons for the sake of spellcasting, knowing that unless she was enraged, she wasn’t much use in melee combat, and thus had no weapon with which to strike out at the ranger and snap his bow. Instead she could merely cry out in alarm as the confused man fired a volley of arrows straight into her chest, and she collapsed unconscious from it.
Uriel screamed in a panic as Atali fell behind him, and he knocked Jaagrath’s swinging hook aside, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to run to the woman’s side. He knew he had no healing magic left in him anyways, having expended it all as the group had moved through the fort and fought ogre after hard-hitting ogre. All he could muster that would be useful at the moment was a dispelling spell, but such a thing would be impossible so long as he was holding fast against Jaagrath. He knew he could do no good for her by running to Atali’s side, and could only pray to Iomedae that the woman was strong and stubborn enough to cling to life rather than bleed out.
He lunged, forgoing defense. If they were going to live to see another day, he knew that he had to kill the ogre pappy now, he likewise knew that if Jaagrath had been injured enough by Atali to warrant retreating and drinking potions back when they’d been fighting him upstairs, that he must likewise be furiously fighting on his last legs just as they were!
Uriel’s allies had urged caution. Now they were unconscious, incoherent, on not present at all. It was his battle with Xanesha all over again, and this time it was time to act as a paladin.
Uriel held his ground, refusing to concede even an inch to the ogres, and smote with all his might!
…The sorceress was not so damaged as her husband, however, and while Uriel cut into Jaagrath successfully, she stayed uninjured behind him, calling forth the magic of a spell that made the paladin’s eyes widen in terror. He recognized it as one which would render him unconscious through means of a deep slumber, and one which would spell doom for all of them if she cast it!
Dorella never managed it, and cried out in surprise as an arrow slammed into her shoulder from the side, having come from the direction she and Jaagrath had chased the heroes from. It had sent her staggering, clearly having been deliberately fired to coincide with the timing of her spellcasting, and had disrupted her spell as a result!
The ogress barely had time to turn and comprehend her new enemy when another was suddenly upon her, lunging with a flash of brilliant orange among black fur and biting into her, sending her staggering further, though she managed to avoid tripping.
Jakardros momentarily came to his senses at the sight of the sorceress’ assailant, and called his animal companion’s name joyfully, firing a barrage of arrows into Jaagrath as he did. Uriel in turn made a further connection, realizing that if Kibb had come to battle, then the arrow which had disrupted the battle could only have been Shalelu.
Uriel called the elf’s name in thanks over the clash of steel as Jaagrath’s sword dug into his armour, and Shalelu responded with a profession affirmative, informing him that she’d handle the sorceress if he could manage the chieftain.
Both ogres balked at this insinuation, and Dorella thought to fire a blast of lightning at the elf in retaliation. The elf was nimble, however, and dodged most of the blast, and what she couldn’t avoid was resisted by her defensive magic thanks to Lulu’s prior warning. Uriel in turn defied Jaagrath’s expectations, sweeping his sword upwards and catching the ogre on the chin.
At first the blow seemed to do little to the overbearing onslaught of the ogre, and he caught Uriel in the chest with his hook, slamming him into the wall where the palaidn collapsed with a wheeze, just barely retaining the energy to keep his eyes open. Then however, all of Jaagrath’s wounds seemed to catch up with him at once, and the weary paladin could only slump to the ground with a sigh of relief as the ogre fell over, dead. It was what they’d been counting on, admittedly; Atali had nearly suffered the same fate and died of fatigue back at Thistletop, but unlike Jaagrath, had managed to furiously cling to life even after she should have died long enough for an ally to reach her with healing magic.
Here though, they’d almost lost hope of that plan succeeding. Jaagrath’s reserves of furious rage had seemed endless.
Uriel glanced to Jakardros, who beat himself over the head with his own bow in his state of confusion, and recognized that they couldn’t afford for the ranger to mistakenly fire at one of them again. Wearily, the paladin raised a hand to bring forth his final spell of the day, and dispelled the enchantment on the man.
He blacked out from the effort, and could just barely manage to breathe a word of good luck to the ranger, hoping that when he woke next it would be here, in a retaken Fort Rannick surrounded by living friends and allies.
…It was in fact but a short half-minute later that the surprised paladin awoke, and the sounds of battle still raged as Kibb gnawed the ogress and Shalelu fired another arrow to interrupt one of her spells.
Uriel raised his head in confusion, having thought that his allies had all depleted their healing spells as he had. Jakardros was standing protectively over him, bow trained on the ogress, keeping her pinned in the hallway corner with only a too-tight passage behind her, but it didn’t seem to have been him who’d restored Uriel to consciousness.
He looked to his right, and saw an unfamiliar elf, a man with long and silvery hair and eyes that swirled with a rainbow of colours. After a moment he realized who, or rather what his rescuer was, and his jaw dropped. This was a true celestial being, a Bralani Azata, kneeling here beside him!
The Azata inquired as to whether he could stand and Uriel nodded vigorously, feeling as though whatever magic he’d used to heal him had cured the most serious of his many wounds. Atali on the other hand still appeared to be unmoving on the ground, and Uriel glanced between her and the outsider worriedly.
The Azata followed Uriel’s gaze and informed him that he’d not tended to Atali yet, and would do so immediately, moving quickly to her side. Healing magic pulsed forth to his palm, and he glanced back at the paladin with a smile, commenting that Uriel certainly had a dedicated friend, for the small one who’d summoned him downstairs had denied healing for herself—in spite of looking as though she was on the verge of death—and instead insisted that he save all such spells for her allies up here. It was because of that selflessness that he’d had enough healing magic for both Uriel and Atali!
The barbarian woman’s eyes opened groggily and Uriel rushed to her side while their celestial saviour rose to his feet and drew a weapon, turning his attention to the ogress for what few seconds remained of Lulu’s summoning spell.
Atali, injured as she was, for she’d been far past the point of unconscious and has thus had more damage needing to be healed than Uriel, brushed the paladin’s concerns aside and glanced at the battlefield. Jaagrath was down, and she could see both Jakardros and Kibb fighting the lady ogre, as well as the occasional arrow coming into view from around the corner, being fired by someone over there. Shalelu, maybe? Then there was some white-haired elf she didn’t recognize, but he seemed like he was fighting on their side at least.
She didn’t see any other corpses than Jaagrath. That was good. A moment after coming to that conclusion however, the mystery elf raised a hand to fire one last bolt of magical lightning at their enemy, and then seemed to vanish on the spot!
The ogress looked hurt, and her eyes drifted over in their direction, perhaps judging whether she could get out the front door. Ultimately such a ploy would do her no good, but Dorella didn’t know that, and seemed to be considering it. Uriel rose quickly to stand against her, and Dorella called forth the magic to run all of them in the front hall—Jakardros, Uriel, and Atali herself—through with lightning!
The barbarian grunted and raised a hand to call her own magic faster than the ogre sorceress could manage, and fired two rays of magical fire straight at her, sending her toppling and ultimately collapsing in defeat. Atali sighed with relief as the woman hit the floor, and passed out once more herself.
They’d won. She could afford to rest now, right?
*happy dance* Bralani are cool. =^-^= And that was an epic battle.
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Yay! "Shiro's Angels" to save the day! Or at least one of them...
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Part 56: What She Did
Though the heroes didn’t have the time or energy to scour the entire fortress before their rest, they did find a single healing potion in the ogre sorceress Dorella’s possession, which they carefully administered to sleeping Nelipot, so that she would not spend the night as a bloody mess (or at least would be less of a bloody mess).
The druid was thankful for the potion’s effects when it brought her back to consciousness, but noted that the matriarch Lucrecia had done a number on her mental faculties, and that she lacked the magic to undo it. At best she was able to call forth her weakest orison spells, creating clean water for them to drink before resting.
Shalelu took watch overnight, since she was almost entirely uninjured, and spent the hours strolling through the quiet halls as the others recovered in the fort’s five guest rooms—enough for Lulu, Uriel, Nelipot, Atali, and Jakardros to each have one to themselves—and occasionally checked up on Atali, who was in the worst condition of any of them.
In the morning she had news. Kaven was gone from his cell! Uriel was the first to hear of it and immediately set about examining the dungeons for signs of how the ranger might have forced his way out, and inquiring as to whether Jakardros could find a trail of where exactly Kaven had gotten to.
He’d gone through the shocker caves, the older ranger ascertained, but with the excessive heavy rain that had been getting worse and worse the past few days, he expected that tracking Kaven through the Hook Mountain Region would be difficult.
Uriel went to find Lulu at that, and found the witch in her room, observing the silver mirror they’d last seen her use back in Magnimar, and the paladin inquired as to whether she was scrying. Lulu affirmed that in fact she’d been doing so for nearly ten minutes at that point, having been using the dagger Lucrecia had discarded when she’d drained Nelipot as a scrying focus to help pierce any mental defenses of the matriarch.
Uriel was distracted for a moment by this fact, and asked if the witch had learned anything useful, to which Lulu affirmed, commenting that their enemy appeared to have retreated towards Hook Mountain and regrouped with her allies there. Lulu had a fair bit of information regarding those allies of Lucrecia’s, but such a thing could wait until Atali and Nelipot were present to hear it as well. With the information she had, they could teleport themselves right to the lamia matriarch’s side at the heart of the ogre clanhold at a moment’s notice, she commented, and Lulu had readied a teleportation spell that morning for such a purpose just in case.
Uriel shook his head at that. They’d been able to heal themselves up from the beating they’d taken from storming the fort yesterday, but doing so had required essentially everyone who was capable of healing magic to expend it all first thing in the morning. They were in no position to charge headlong into another significant fight, at least until tomorrow.
Instead he asked hopefully whether Lulu had prepared a second scrying spell, explaining that Kaven had somehow escaped, and that if they could scry on him with Lulu’s magic, perhaps her teleportation could be put to use in recapturing him.
Lulu shook her head however, explaining that while she had indeed readied the magic for the purpose of scrying a second time that day, she would not cast it for the sake of locating and hunting down Kaven. She’d released him after sending her summoned celestial to aid the others in battle the previous evening, and to undo that action and recapture him now would mean such a move would have been entirely pointless on her part.
Uriel was understandably horrified at Lulu’s casual admittance of what she’d done, and quickly set about verbally reprimanding her, speaking of the consequences of what she’d done by letting someone like Kaven loose. Lulu waited quietly until he was finished before simply shaking her head in response, commenting that the situation differed between Uriel and most people.
When a normal person needed to atone for a misdeed, there was no special magic that they needed to make use of, unlike a paladin’s atonement, and that standards were lower. Kaven didn’t need to be held to the standards of a paladin, he just needed to be not-terrible. Lulu’s standards.
Uriel was quick to point out that such a judgement wasn’t Lulu’s to make, and Lulu shrugged. She’d known what judgement anyone else would have made of the man, given the opportunity, and suggested that to condemn Kaven for one mistake—even one extremely grave mistake as this—was to deny him the opportunity to try and be better. She’d let him free without asking Uriel so that the paladin wouldn’t have to choose between denying justice to someone who deserved it, or denying redemption to someone who might still earn it.
Uriel ended the argument in a huff. He was having difficulty coming up with an argument to the fact that Lulu had done what she had as a means of allowing him to avoid conflict with his paladin code even if it had meant going morally against him herself, and could think of no other option in regards to Kaven if Lulu—the only one among them who could scry and teleport—would refuse to use her magic for that purpose. Instead he stormed off, muttering something about going to find Atali.
More cheers! You're an excellent storyteller, Gluttony.
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Two Questions:
1. Am I right in assuming playing a RotRL campaign is a rite of passage for Pathfinder Players?
2. If so, I am interested in playing an online one with somebody-preferably Gluttony.
Thanks ^_^
Dunno if it's a rite of passage. If so, I took way too long to get around to running it. I spend a lot more time messing about with my own campaign setting than running published adventures, to be honest.
(As for online: I probably shouldn't be starting up another campaign right now. Already have several going at once. :P)
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Lulu's first major use of the Teleport spell rolls a nasty mishap, and leads off-target to the Mushfens, instead of the intended destination of Magnimar.
Part 57: The Lady’s Light
Atali could only shrug at Lulu’s explanation of events, commenting that the witch made a good argument, but that if Uriel was going to be upset about it, it would be best to give him a bit of time to clear his head.
To that end, the group would be heading back to Magnimar, or rather, half of them would while the other half dealt with the beginning of Rannick’s restoration. Lulu was a necessary member of the city group for her ability to teleport, and Uriel had asked Atali to go with her and check on Lord-Mayor Grobaras in his stead while Nelipot and Uriel himself did what work they could at Rannick and Turtleback Ferry.
Something went wrong, however, and though Lulu had a good memory of the Inn that they’d stayed in in Magnimar’s Underbridge for quite a while when they were hunting down Xanesha and the Brothers of the Seven, some stray thought threw her off at the last moment, and the teleportation spell scrambled, ripping the witch and barbarian apart quite painfully and then dumping them unceremoniously in an unfamiliar swamp.
The two took to the air to get their bearings and were met with an unexpected sight; a woman in flowing robes with one breast bared, holding a staff aloft. Neither one recognized the landmark at a glance, but the sight of the coast, and the assumption that Lulu’s teleport spell had (hopefully) dropped them off somewhere in Varisia was enough for the two women to decide on a heading, aiming themselves along the west coast, since it was closer than the south one, and hoping that they weren’t on some uninhabited island in the Varisian Gulf. Assuming they were on the mainland, the coast would eventually lead to a coastal city, after all, and from there they could get their bearings.
The two flew as far as Lulu’s flight spells could take them and then walked the rest of the day, disappointed that Lulu hadn’t thought to ready any magic that could summon mounts, though considering they’d teleported here, it was understandable that she hadn’t expected to need such spells. By sunset they’d still not reached a city, and so they established a camp on the beach, and divided a watch between Lulu, Pix, and Atali.
The night was mostly uneventful, and it was not until they’d all woken, as the sun was rising, that the heroes were thrown into action by an attacker from beneath the waves; a particularly advanced an deadly-looking version of an oceanic brute that Lulu recognized as being called a Karkinoi, who’d likely come to snatch up two unwary beachside travelers.
Atali was quickest to take action, and deigned to wait before letting her rage overwhelm her, instead opting to fire a pair of devastating rays of fire at their assailant, one of which was particularly devastating, and struck a critical blow to one of the monster’s beady black eyes, scorching the eye to the point of uselessness. Lulu on the other hand, being somewhat more cautious, opted to conjure magic armor around Atali before backing off further away from the short, leaving her barbarian ally to handle the aquatic monster’s melee attacks while Lulu herself stayed at range.
The monster charged and struck at Atali, only for its claw to deflect uselessly off of the mage armor that Lulu had conjured, and the barbarian woman grinned, shifting forwards in the sand to close what remained of the distance between her and her opponent, clicking one heel against the other as she did so to acquire a momentary burst of speed, and allowing herself a brief surge of anger as she swung her blades.
Her sword connected once; her axe twice. The crustacean monster staggered back and burbled in alarm. Clearly the human woman wasn’t as helpless as he’d expected.
Before the monster could flee however, it toppled, felled by the sheer overwhelming noise of a sound inaudible to all but itself; a spell from Lulu that brought down the monster in spite of its admirable fortitude resisting it.
Atali spared Lulu a questioning glance, and the witch replied that one less oceanic raider in the waters would likely be a small blessing to costal civilizations, and with a nod the barbarian woman agreed and finished off their now-unconscious attacker.
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Ran a one-shot of the Midnight Mirror module this weekend rather than another bout of Runelords, so no update this week.
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Having Yap recognize Lulu was a tough decision, but ultimately I think it was a good one, especially considering Lulu is from the general area of the Sanos Forest. Yap's appearance comes across as a bit more natural when someone knows who he is than when he's a stranger, I think.
Part 58: A Desperate Plea
Lulu and Atali’s time in Magnimar was brief. They’d already taken longer than they’d planned by the time they arrived in the city, due to the off-target teleport spell of the previous day, and so they’d had to make their business of buying scrolls and equipment that couldn’t be obtained in Turtleback Ferry as brief as possible. Ultimately Lulu handled most of their shopping while Atali made her way towards Defiant’s Garden to speak with the lord-mayor.
Lord-mayor Grobaras was initially relieved to learn that it was just the barbarian woman from the Sodden Lands who’d come to speak to him, and that the paladin Uriel was not present. He paled a bit when Atali made it clear that she knew of Uriel’s order to the man to lessen his greedy tendencies, but ultimately—in spite of the mayor’s heavy sweating—Atali wasn’t perceptive enough to notice anything amiss about his still far-from-virtuous personality. She was, however, able to convince the man to send an extra platoon of trained men and women up from Magnimar to Turtleback to replace the fallen Black Arrows and re-staff Rannick.
Lulu was able to carry four people including herself, the witch had explained to Atali when outlining the specifics of her teleport spell, with the possibility that she might be able to increase her maximum load in the future. With that in mind, while most of the reinforcements for Fort Rannick would have to make the slow journey along the Yondabakari, Lulu could teleport at least two members of the reinforcements back along with her and Atali.
…Back in the Hook Mountain Region, Uriel and Nelipot worked with Jakardros, as well as with some assistance from villagers of Turtleback Ferry, on cleaning, rebuilding, and fortifying Rannick. It was difficult and sweaty work, but the seemingly endless rain helped them keep somewhat cool, and Nelipot’s still-addled spellcasting abilities were fortunately not particularly hindering her assistance at manual labour. Most-often, the halfling woman served as a go-between to speak with the villagers, who she knew best due to being a fellow citizen of Turtleback Ferry, or simply shifted into the form of a large beast to help pull supplies to the others while they worked.
On their second day however, they noticed that Lulu and Atali who were supposed to return early in the morning, were not yet back. Of course those at Rannick had no way of knowing the difficulties the two had experienced with Lulu’s teleport spell, and had no idea where the women were, aside from that the assumption that hopefully they’d made it to Magnimar, and something there had been delaying them.
Their first visitor that day was not the other half of their group, as they’d expected, but an unannounced little fey man who looked to be in shambles, and fired through a high-pitched and rapid speech without so much as a single gasp for breath until reaching the end of it, after which he burst into tears.
Uriel, Nelipot, and Jakardros exchanged confused glances, having only grasped the bare-minimum of what the pixie had even asked of them. He’d mentioned a mistress they didn’t know, and a human lover that they supposedly did know—that he called them friends of, even—and a land sickening, and a place called Whitewillow, but the pixie was too distraught to provide them with much more information than that.
The loud crack of a spell interrupted the pixie’s blubbering and the debate between the other three of whether to help the fey when they didn’t even know what he was asking for help with, and to the delight of those who’d been wondering where the Magnimar half of their group had gotten to, Lulu and Atali—as well as a pair of young guards from Magnimar who were holding most of their heavy supplies—appeared before them through the magic of Lulu’s teleportation.
…The first to react, however, was not one of the adventurers, but rather the pixie himself, who squeaked out Lulu’s name in gleeful surprise and practically leapt forwards, breaking into another rapid-fire speech, this time in Sylvan!