(4) Ren'Shan - Adventures on the Elemental Isle (Inactive)

Game Master mdt

Dunja spins around rapidly, forgetting about the crying spirit for once. "Ek! Do you hear that Kasani? Something is coming!"

Sorry! Hectic day, just now catching up on all my games.

Lingfeng sighs as they are led away by Mai Ling. She looks at Kimiko with tired eyes. "I think that squeezed a few years off of my lifetime," she groans. "Talking to lords is scarier than fighting monsters or bandits any day. But it went well, all things considered, didn't it? And we've got horses and all that good stuff to show for it. After breakfast, let's saddle up and get caught up with Kasani and Dunja. If I spend any more time in this palace I'll start talking proper, and the gods know that would be a real tragedy..."

We can skedaddle along whenever you're ready, Mr. GM sir!

it's not so bad and you did great! But I agree time to move on...

Yanyeeku offers a heavy sigh of relief and nods as he makes his way with the groups preparation to leave...

Need to resolve the Dunja/Kasani issue first, you'll be catching up to them a few hours after wards... or finding their corpses...

Disarm: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (15) + 5 = 20

The plant creature uses Dunja's sudden distraction with the woods to scuttle forward and snatch at the katana, so conveniently put near him when Dunja turns around. Even as she tries to hold onto it, the creature twists it expertly and the sword slips out of it's sheath, leaving Dunja holding onto an empty sheath as the creature trills happily and begins running out of the shrine as hard as it can, running past Dunja and toward the crashing sounds, dragging the much too large sword behind it.

Spinning around at Dunja's warning, Kasani ignores the sounds as the spirit snatches the blade and begins to run off with it. Springing forward to intercept, she tries to wrench the blade free before the spirit can vanish into the woods with it.

Disarm: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22

"Why does it want your sword, Dunja?!"

AoO: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12

Kasani ducks under it's flailing limb as it tries to keep her from the sword, and rips the sword from it's grasp. The creature keens in a loud high pitched way.

There is an answering call from the woods, where the crashing came from, this one much deeper that makes the leaves on the trees vibrate, and a sense of dread come over both Dunja and Kasani.

From the treeline bursts a female form, with glowing yellow eyes. It's hare whips around, snapping off branches and leaves around it like a whirling blade. It's body gives off a faint green glow, illuminating the wooden skin and moss like growths.

It reaches out and rips a chunk out of a tree, making the entire tree shudder. Then it begins to move toward the duo while making sounds of rage.

Will get a map up shortly.

"How should I know!?" calls back Dunja. She rushes to the side of Kasani just as the second spirits charges out of the treeline.

"Oh, it is far too early for this..."

She draws a dagger out from her boot and holds it up with wavering confidence. Without her sword she was woefully inept.

She speaks out of the side of her mouth to Kasani. "The Hanakattā" (indicating the sword) "is forged of living steel drawn from ancient trees native to a certain region. Maybe the forest wants it back?"

The woman gulps hard and tries to address the new, raging spirit in the hopes of avoiding conflict: "Erhm, hello? Can you understand me? My name is Dunja, and this is Kasani. We are simple travelers; we meant no offense by coming here."

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

Kasani looks wide-eyed to Dunja then shakes her head fervently. "I don't know about this... this is looking an awful lot like a time to be running..."

Kasani stands beside Dunja, but her posture is taut and her movements quick and animated. She remains ready to run as fast as she might should the vine-draped woman make any hostile move whatsoever.

Sorry guys, I checked yesterday and didn't see any new entries. I obviously didn't look hard enough, and missed out on a wonderful opportunity to boast of my bowmanship - and to a Lord, no less! Totally gutted :{

Round 1
Init, Dunja: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11
Init, Kasani: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (15) + 3 = 18

Small Creature: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (5) + 8 = 13
Large Creature: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (19) + 6 = 25

Note, Kasani ran out of the shrine to steal back the sword. So she's closer to the creature than Dunja

The large creature plows forward, straight at the smaller creature and Kasani...

Grapple: 1d20 + 10 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 10 + 2 = 28

The creature stops close Kasani and one of the vines on it's head whips down and wraps around the smaller creature, jerking it off the ground and into the air...

...and then dropping it behind it, opposite of Kasani, where it continues keening and trembling.

Then the creature turns yellow eyes on Kasani and roars at her in an inarticulate manner.

Whip: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (1) + 6 = 7
Slam: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16

The vine whips over Kasani's head, but the tree trunk in it's hand slams into her chest...

Damage: 1d8 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 5 = 8

Free trip: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8

Kasani is rocked on her feet, but isn't knocked down.

Kasani, Small, Dunja

"Yup! Yup! Definitely time to run!" Kasani, Dunja's sword still in hand, bolts to the west, running quick as she might.

Withdraw action to avoid an AoO, stayed 15ft away from the dryad to stay out of what I'm presuming is 10ft reach

Before I adjudicate that, give me a perception roll

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 4 = 11

Round 1

Negotiations have failed and it was time to go. Dunja waves her hand and casts a spell in the hopes of delaying the spirits for a moment and then follows after Kasani.

Dunja: Standard Action to cast Sleep (DC 13) targeted on Larger spirit. Move Action to follow Kasani.

AoO, Kasani: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (20) + 6 = 26
AoO, Kasani, Confirm: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (4) + 6 = 10
Damage: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3

Free Grab: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (2) + 10 = 12

Kasani withdraws, not realizing the vines have a longer reach than the club, and is nearly grabbed by one as it whips out and opens up a slice along her arm. She manages to writhe out of the vine's embrace however.

The small creature keens and races after Kasani, and attempts to disarm the katana from her grasp. You may make an AoO if you wish, although I believe the only readied weapon you have is the katana itself, which you are not trained in? Which would be a -4

Disarm: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24

The spirit manages Unless attacked with an AoO to wrest the sword from Kasani's grasp, and trills a happy trill.

What's this little bugger's movement speed? Holy cow!

"Let us go already!" Kasani slashes wildly with the unfamiliar blade as the smaller spirit dashes toward her, her wounds and confusion adding a shrill and harsh tone to her shout.

Katana (AoO): 1d20 + 6 - 4 ⇒ (16) + 6 - 4 = 18for: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12

30 ft, but it charged, so attack at end of movement, used a Disarm in place of the attack

Instead of grabbing the sword, the sword slashes the small spirit who goes down in a heap.

The larger creature screams in rage when it sees the smaller spirit go down.

Oh, and the spell seems to have no effect on the creature. Sorry, thought I posted that earlier.

"Oh, now it's really mad." moans Dunja as the smaller spirit falls. "I don't think she'll be letting us get away now."

Kasani you're a Samurai right? You should be proficient with the Katana.

Oh! You're right! I'd completely missed that =)

As the GM, I will alert you right now, your only chance is to run. Not withdraw, run flat out. Without the smaller creature, you cannot stop this thing. I don't feel it's out of place to say it, given how powerful it looks, your characters would feel a large sense of impossibility fairly glowing off the creature. Basically, both characters suddenly have a mental image of a mother bear who's very very very angry.

Round 2
Init, Dunja: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17
Init, Kasani: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9

Large Creature: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (13) + 6 = 19

The creature cries out in rage again, and moves toward Kasani, or the small broken creature that lays so still on the roadway... sap pooling around it.

Dunja, do you have any spells available to you at all right now? A quick cure light wounds on the little fellah and then we can run for all we're worth!

Kasani tugs at Dunja's arm waves at Dunja as the angered vine-lady charges forward. "Run, Dunja! I hit it with the flat of the blade but I don't think she realizes that! Run! RUN!"

editted after map clarifications =)
(can't check the map at the office, alas)

You do realize that Kasani and Dunja are on opposite sides of the 'mother' creature? Right? (See map)

I moved last round right? It looks like I'm in the same spot according to the map. It may be my fault for forgetting to update the map

Yeah, unless you move yourself, I don't know where you moved. :) You had 60 ft of movement...

Round 2

"Alright!" shouts Dunja as she books it. Doesn't matter where, as long as it's away from the spirit.

Dunja: Double Move action away. If it provokes an AoO I'll use an immediate action to cast Stone Shield.

Casting Defensively: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17

Just to confirm things you know Dunja, you saw it have a 15 ft reach, and you saw Kasani narrowly escape being grabbed when she ran past it. Are you sure you want to chance an AoO?

Sorry, no. My mistake. I want to use the specific withdraw action moving double my speed. Still casting Stone Shield if things go wrong which'll pump my AC up to 20 for a round.

Withdraw only affects the single square you are leaving. Is where you are on the map now where you were running to, or where you were running from? If to, you can't avoid an AoO. If running from (using your previous round run to get there before the creature moved) then you can use the withdraw, but you need to put yourself where you plan on ending this turn. It's very confusing when you don't move your icon. May I suggest in the future to put a line on the map indicating path and starting/ending position? It will make my life easier, and speed up the game to avoid these discussions of what you're doing? :)

So I moved myself for my movement from the previous round. It was my mistake not moving it. I will be taking my withdraw action from my current position on the map.

I want to run to the west but there's only 30 ft of map left, I don't know where I'd put my token if I moved 60.

Hoping the creature will either pursue her since she still has Dunja's sword or stop to tend to the spirit, Kasani heeds her own advice and sprints to the northwest as fast as she can.

Run @ 4x speed (120ft total)

Showing a fine grasp of the old Ranger adage that you don't need to outrun the hungry bear, just your slowest companion, Kasani takes off at high speed and leaves Dunja behind rapidly.

Dunja races away, leaving the angry plant creature to gather up the smaller creature with it's vines. It stops long enough to check the creature to see that it's alive, if wounded, and then begins chasing the two again.

Kasani rapidly outpaces her slower companion, although even the slower Dunja is able to run away faster than the large plant creature.

Eventually it turns back, although the duo hear loud noises and crashing sounds in the distance for a couple of hours before things quiet down again.

-------------------------

The group coming from the lord's area, toward the morning of their second day of travel, come up on a destroyed road-side shrine. Something shattered it's stones, smashed it's wooden structures, and strew about equipment and cloth.

perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (9) + 10 = 19

"This looks like something unpleasant happened here... I wonder what?"

She dismounts (if we are mounted that is) and walks over to the nearest plants and asks them what happened to the shrine here and when...

Mikobito 'plant whisperer' ability

Perception: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (2) + 13 = 15 dang!

"Well, something wasn't happy. Best not stay too long."

Zamu moves to walk past, warily keeping an eye out in case whatever caused the destruction comes back.

Kimiko looks over the clearing very carefully, seeking signs of who was here and where they went.

perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (19) + 10 = 29
survival to track: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

Kimiko finds two sets of tracks heading off to the west, in the direction the group was traveling anyway. There's also some odd looking tracks that don't look like anything Kimiko has seen before. They are all over the shrine, and look to be heading back into the woods to the north (they also came out of the woods from the north).

Sorry folks, massive connectivity issues, apologies for the slow posts.

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9

Yanyeeku looks about slightly stunned by the chaos but otherwise doesn't see anything of interest. As Kimiko seems to be involved in a communing of sorts the kitsune looks over at Zamu with an lopsided smile and then whispers at Kimiko, So uh...what's going on here?

Zamu, seeing Kimiko is not following him, turns round and hisses,

"Come on, let's get out of here before whatever destroyed the Shrine comes back"

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22

Lingfeng continues to look over the wreckage as Kimiko talks to the plants, and a realization strikes her. "Um, isn't this Dunja and Kasani's stuff?" she asks, though she already knows the answer. She points it out to the rest of them. "Kimiko, what's the plant have to say about this? Did something attack out friends?"

Kimiko comes out of her reverie of the conversation with the plants to look at Lingfeng curiously, then casts about at the sight of the scattered belongings in the clearing with a new light on things...

"Oh my... there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding here... the plants said the humans here were murderers and one had a sword that sang to them, a sword that could cure a plant spirit they call the Tainted Mother if used in the hands of a lesser spirit, but the holder of the sword fled the area... if we could find Kasani and Dunja and get their side of the tale, perhaps we can make more sense of it, maybe help them cure their Tainted MOther... "

Kimiko looks concerned, shakes her head sadly and slowly. "Whatever happened here, I'm sure it was bad, otherwise Kasani and Dunja would not have abandoned their things. I hope they are okay."

Elsewhere...

Kasani lies on her back, breathing heavily with her arms splayed out above her head in exhaustion. Slowly, she turns to Dunja lying in the grass beside her and she offers a tired, yet manic smile.

"Let's- <huff> not ever- <huff> have to- <pant> do that- <huff> again!"