KC's Age of Worms

Game Master Kobold Catgirl

Carina throws her arms up in resignation. "Whatever--it's over and done with now. Let's just get started looking for a replacement..."

She looks out around the town... and sees something that makes her eyes widen.

"...no. Way. Is that...?"

Cuetzpalli?!

Astraden nods assent to Cymria, then shakes her head. "But let's be honest - Manzorian was rude to us, too. He's been rubbing me the wrong way since we got here, especially with the way he took that rod piece. It was a bit far to explain my dislike for Allustan right in front of him, but it was still a conversation between me and Carina. He didn't have to butt in."

The priestess grumbles to herself as she walks, not looking up. But at Carina's prompting, she does so. "- Cuetzpalli?"

Eben follows the others out the door, after offering some brief apologies to Manzorian on the group's behalf. "Sorry, it's just a Diamond Lake/I hate rich people thing she has..." Walking back through the crowd, he happily chimes in on the less tricky topic of finding a replacement. "What about that genie guy in Greyhawk we fought in the arena? He was pretty nice overall..."

And then he notices a familiar face in the crowd. Well, more than a face really. His voice stops in his throat, his eyes go wide, and he does a double take to make sure his eyes aren't deceiving him. And they aren't.

There's no mistaking that particular scrawny, wizened, naked physique, even if it is wearing a pointy wizard's hat.

Ph'rexis.

Having just gotten used to purchasing magical equipment without having to avert his gaze from uncomfortable sights, Eben decides this is not the time and place for a reunion with the mad wizard. He pointedly looks away in another direction, holds a hand up to his face to obscure his visage, and hopes for the best.

"...no. Way. Is that...?"

"Yes, it is, but don't make eye contact or speak too loudly and he might not notice us!" Eben hisses.

Dungeon Kobold wrote:

Cymria follows Astraden out, making sure she finds the exit okay. "Yeah, um, I told you that stuff so you wouldn't stumble on that and put him on edge. Not so you could deliberately try to piss him off. He doesn't like being toyed with. I should have mentioned that." She seems a bit irritated as well. "And as long as I'm being all reprimandish—Allustan's a bad judge of character. You're just an ass. And that's from one ass to another."

They really are too over-protective of such a cowardly bumbler. I guess the truth hurts.

Gark stahp your headcanon is becoming groupfanon.

Cuetzpalli looks different than the last time his companions saw him. He is a little bit taller. His skin looks perfect and radiant. His hair has grown out into a silky black curtain that hangs around his shoulders. He is wearing full plate armor rather than his old breastplate, and he generally exudes a confidence that was never there before, but he is unmistakably still himself. The final oddity is a perfectly formed greatsword of dully gleaming star metal on his back. Tanith recognizes it as looking just like a smaller version of Kelmar, Kord’s personal weapon.

He looks up at sound of his name.

Was Astraden a half-orc when I died? Can’t remember if I should recognize her or not...

She was a (dead) human still, when you died.

Though the two of you did have a Date Night in the afterlife while you were both deceased, so you'd presumably be aware that she was returned to life soon after.

Thanks!

“Astraden!” Cuetzpalli says through a broad grin. He runs towards the half-orc priestess, snatching her up in a Kordsonesque bear-hug. He twirls her around and then sets her back down. “Kord sent me back...he said you guys needed help.”

The bloodrager turns and waves at the others, giving them each a warm smile. “Hi guys!”

Since apparently EVERYONE left, Farrukh comes along rather than stay behind alone with Manzorian.

"Oh yeah! Korush would be great!" he ignores any objections Tanith may raise.

"Why don't we see if we an find him-" he manages before they're ambushed by the undead Cuetzpalli.

"Woah! How did you get here? Like, on the Material Plane, I mean."

"Korush would not be great", Tanith adds as the group departs with the banished Astraden. "I'm sure if we sent Zala-"

The big man stops with the rest of traffic but he's not sure what's happened until Astraden and Farrukh start talking to the mysterious newcomer. After the business with the dopplergangers, Tanith had grown more suspicious of strangers but after a moment the paranoia gives way to his inherent good nature and he charges the reborn Cuetzpalli to grab him in one of his crushing signature hugs. "Cuetzpalli, it's really you!" he nearly shouts with joy. "The Brawler himself sent you back?"

Spotting the mighty greatsword strapped to Cuetzpalli's back, Tanith becomes thoughtful for a moment. "It can't be. Is that... Kelmar? Kord sent you back with his sword?"

“He did send me back! And with his sword, though not how you’re imagining...he stabbed me with Kelmar! It was awesome!”

Cuetzpalli pulls out Kelmarchen, “This is a piece of Kelmar. A gift to me from the brawler to help us stop the Age of Worms. He said you guys had some loser summoner with you, who abandoned you? I’m sorry that I didn’t agree to come back right away when I died....I needed some time. But it’s amazing what Ysgard can do for ya!”

Carina runs up next to Tanith and joins him in hugging Cuetzpalli.

"I missed you so much, man..." She lets go of him and beams at him.

“I missed you guys too...it’s good to be back. So, what’s going on exactly? Where were you headed just now?”

Astraden hugs Cuetzpalli tightly. She's still processing her disbelief, elation, and surprise when he sets her down and steps off to hug Tanith and Carina. She paws after him, grabbing him by the shoulder. "It's - it's really you? It's a f&@+ing, real, g+! d++n, miracle." She pokes at his armor. "My god, you're real." And then hugs him again.

Tears glistening on her face, but grinning, the priestess steps back. "That's quite a sword. And this is quite a time. We were about to start looking for a replacement in the group - we had a summoner while you were gone, and he just flew the coop. Kord must've been watching us pretty closely."

"In the immediate future, I think we'd better celebrate your return. After that, we're going to an ancient city called Kuluth-Mar, way to the south of here."

Eben says, still looking over at the naked wizard walking along and not noticing who's rushing towards them, "No, that's Ph'rexis, not Cuetzpalli. I don't see how you could mista... HOLY S##* IT'S CUETZPALLI!" Eben does a full hugging leap in the direction of the reborn Olman. (By now, it has to be quite the pigpile.) "I can't believe this! And I'm so so so sorry a guy with my face got you killed!"

“It’s all good,” Cuetzpalli replies to Eben. “That feels like it was a long time ago. It wasn’t your fault anyway. An ancient city, eh? Sounds a bit like old times. Can’t wait o try out this new sword on something that needs killin’.”

"You came back at the perfect time for that", Tanith says with a grin. "Though I suppose with Rodrigo gone we'll have to find our own ride. Maybe Manzorian will cool off in a little bit and we can ask him."

"Here, come on - it's not every day your boyfriend comes back via divine intervention!" Astraden snags Cuetzpalli's arm and pulls him towards the All-Seeing Eye, where she intends to get good and drunk in celebration of his return.

Cymria watches the whole exchange with a bemused half-smile. As Tanith speaks, she clears her throat. "If you guys no longer have anyone who can use those scrolls he gave you, you'll have to ask him to teleport you personally. That'll probably leave the return trip up to your group."

Carina's mood darkens. "Well... that'll need to be addressed, certainly."

"Maybe I can give it a try, if worst comes to worst..."

Cuetzpalli allows Astraden to carry him along. Drank more in Ysgard than I ever did on Oearth, but I still never learned to like it. Guess I'll just have to keep pretending. He remains jovial throughout the evening, drinking conservatively. The olman manages to coax the details of the rest of the groups' adventurers in the time since he'd been gone from them during the reunion. Sometime around midnight, Cuetzpalli empties his third or fourth tankard. "We should get to sleep...I'm itching to get back to adventuring in the morning. From what you guys have told me it sounds like we have little time to spare. Kyuss must be found and stopped before he is able to destroy everything we love. Oh, by the way, I can do some magic now. I can feel Kord's power burning in my blood still. I don't think I'll be able to manage anything too amazing, but I should be able to work some minor spells. The more I think about it, the more it feels like I'm remembering things I never knew. Weird...."

"Whoa, really? Show us!" Astraden says. Her face is pinkish, partly from the drink but mostly from the elation.

"After that you can sleep," she allows.

Cuetzpalli thinks for a moment. "Seems most of the stuff I remember is defensive, or not really appropriate for a bar, unless we want to pay damages. I think I've seen Eben do this one before though," Cuetzpalli says. He waves his fingers through some somatic gestures and mutters a phrase in Old Suel, a moment later several mirror images appear around the bloodrager. He looks tired from the effort of working the spell. "I could probably only manage that once more in a day though. My magical reserves don't seem to be very deep."

Astraden summons a duplicate of her own, who high-fives Cuetzpalli's mirror. "Very cool. And now, as promised, sleep."

As the group trickles upstairs, Astraden pulls Cuetzpalli aside. "So . . . I have a room. And a bed. Will you . . . I mean, not like slang 'sleep,' but actually sleep, with me?"

Cuetzpalli raises an eyebrow at first, not expecting such forwardness. Then he shrugs, and grins. "Of course I will. After all the feasting on the other side, I'm not feeling nearly as shy as I used to. Being back in the flesh has reminded me of a man's needs." The bloodrager slaps Astraden's buttocks, and then leaves his hand there, turning the slap into a grab. "Mmmmmm," he grunts, sweeping the cleric off her feet and carrying her to the room. He boots the door open, tosses her on the bed, and then boots it shut again....

He walks to the room with the cleric and strips out of his armor and gear, and plops onto the bed. He tries to make as much room for Astraden as possible. "Thanks for sharing," he says.

I'll leave the rest up your imaginations ;)

Edit:Wow....obviously misread that, lol!

Well, Astraden did say ACTUALLY SLEEP so I'm imagining you two flopping onto the bed and immediately starting to snore loudly.

"It's an interesting life we lead." Farrukh remarks, slightly buzzed and staring at three of his previously dead friends as they head off to bed.

Eben heads off to make one more purchase before leaving Magepoint, then meets back with the others and makes up for lost time at the 'Yay, Cuetz is alive after all!' party. "Worshhh cashe schenario...." he says, around a tankard of some really dark beer, "I can use tha' scroll! I'm... guud with scrolls. All th' magic's in 'em already, all y'gttoo do is make it think y'know what yer doing... mehadhsn! Hepaushf! Ftaghn! Jus' make up some magic words an' say em convincingly... the scrolls know who's boss! And I've never cast a teleport spell myself before. Sounds fun! Whassa wurst can happen!"

Marked off 1000 gp for a page pf spell knoledge of weaponwand. Otherwise good to go.

So I can probably UMD Manzorian's scrolls, but since distance is a factor here, and he mentioned Rodrigo's CL wouldn't be high enough to get us where we're going, I assume these are scribed at higher than minimum caster level. What's the DC we're going to need to beat?

Carina doesn't say much during the party, and drinks a lot less than the rest. She gives Astraden & Cuetzpalli a little smile as they retire to their rooms for the night.

"Worshhh cashe schenario...." he says, around a tankard of some really dark beer, "I can use tha' scroll! I'm... guud with scrolls. All th' magic's in 'em already, all y'gttoo do is make it think y'know what yer doing... mehadhsn! Hepaushf! Ftaghn! Jus' make up some magic words an' say em convincingly... the scrolls know who's boss! And I've never cast a teleport spell myself before. Sounds fun! Whassa wurst can happen!"

"Ah, the last words of countless reckless adventurers..." She giggles and leans into Tanith's chest. She starts dragging a finger across the living tattoo that's made its home on his muscles.

Two scrolls of teleport, CL 18th. So it's DC 38 to use them.

Eeesh. I've only got a +19 modifier, even using APs and buffs that's far from reliable. Okay, we're definitely going to have to have Manzorian send us south. And coming home we'll figure out when we have to. Hey, we could always go pay a visit to Cauldron...

Cool, I'll dust off my shiny Shackled City book...

Hrm. Could we get a scroll of word of recall instead for the trip home? That way there's two of us that can use it should Eben's UMD finger get sprained or something.

Feeling like it's just about that time, Tanith whispers something in Carina's ear and then grins like a fool. "Why don't we see what other forms that new armor of yours can take."

You could, yes. You'd have to hire Agath to make one, which would cost 2850 gp and take three days.

And yes, Agath charges you full price despite you being on a mission of world-shattering import. Agath is That Guy.

Are we paying for the scrolls either way or we only have to pay for the non-wizard scrolls?

How long would the journey take by conventional means? Way too long?

It would be a long trip. Not necessarily "plot-breaking long", but the journey itself might pose some challenges. FAKE EDIT: Okay, doing a very quick estimate, if you just chartered a 3 mph boat or something, we're talking about a month's journey. So not as long as I thought.

Manzorian already gave you those scrolls for free.

ACTUAL EDIT: Here is a crappy but easy-to-load map of Oerth. See the big Azure See around the center bottom? Right southwest of it is the Amedio Jungle. You guys are currently right south of the lake at the very center of the map, the Nyr Dyv. So the journey would involve heading down to the Woolly Bay and chartering a ship to take you way down to the jungle.

That is, of course, only one way to get there.

Tanith will pick up a scroll of word of recall. We just a need a wizard to get us there with one of the scrolls we were given.

Manzorian can teleport you all with a teleportation circle, as Cymria indicated. You'll just have to wait three days for the scroll to be done.

Three days of partying with Cuetzpalli!

As the team figures out they will need to wait three days before heading off, Cuetzpalli decides that one party is enough. He explores the city on the day after the reunion, inviting Astraden to go with him if she wants. The second day he spends doing Kordian rights and exercises, and trying to show Tanith the wrestling moves that Kord had done on him. He has plenty of tales of battle from Ysgard to share with the Kordson as well. The last day he is awake early and anxious to get going. He meets the group at breakfast. "Can one of you loan me some money? I want to buy a scroll of fly in case we run into anything that I can't reach while we're out in the field, but I'm kinda broke. I'll pay you back as soon as we get our first haul, promise."

It might be considered rude, but since Manzorian gave us "aid" we can't even use, we should sell the Teleport scroll(s?) to buy the other ones we need.

"Why don't we see what other forms that new armor of yours can take."

Carina adopts a faux-serious look as she settles herself into Tanith's lap. She leans up to whisper a reply in his ear.

"Sounds like fun, darling." She punctuates it with a quick nip of his ear and a smirk.

You know, I remember being an innocent, shy girl. Now look at me.

"Wow, your god put you back on earth without even a copper in your pocket? So rude!" Eben says while handing Cuetzpalli a purse of coin, then wincing a little as he does so. "Ow. That's weird. I don't think I had these blisters on my fingers last night..."

Deducting, what, that's 375 gp, right?

It might be considered rude, but since Manzorian gave us "aid" we can't even use, we should sell the Teleport scroll(s?) to buy the other ones we need.

He's probably going to wonder what happened to them if you come back asking for a teleport and can't produce either. :P

"Nobody could use them so we bought scrolls they could like Word of Recall instead"

"What, you lost your summoner already? I knew I should have recruited that genie's team instead..."

But I kid. Fair enough.

Maybe Carina can use the wand of borrow skill to give us some extra tries, if Eben rolls a 1. As a nifty bonus she's actually got a high enough Int that she doesn't need to emulate it. And a slightly higher CL and Wis than Eben? Which means less chance of a mishap.

After we level I am definitely going to take Leadership and try to bring on Eligos as a cohort. Our mage lack has gone too far.

Astraden nestles herself around Cuetzpalli. "It feels like yesterday that we buried you. I'm so glad you're back," she murmurs as they drift off.

She spends the three days loitering around Magepoint with Cuetzpalli and the others, and also working up her courage. When the group finally ventures back over to the Manzion, she goes in ahead of the others. "Manzorian, I want to apologize for my words the other day. I won't lie and say I think Allustan is a good man, but I regret offending you."

Manzorian looks up at Astraden.

He waves a hand, and a dark bottle marked "In-Tenser Rum" appears in it. He gets up, pours it into a pair of glasses, and hands one over.

"It's...a sore point," he mutters. "As I'm quite sure you've guessed. Tenser was a good teacher, but after the Circle was betrayed...I was a rather poor substitute. Or perhaps I was just too honest. I must confess, since Tenser's death, I've had some trouble looking at things optimistically.

"Ultimately, Allustan's ties to his brother outweighed any ties to the Circle or to me." He throws back the glass, drinking it down very quickly. "I don't like being mocked in my own home. But it would have stood had there not been some truth in what you said. I moved on after the betrayal. Learned to deal with just...never trusting much of anyone. I don't think Allustan ever did."

His uncharacteristically short sentences carry a clip to the end of them. Astraden gets the sense he doesn't talk about this very often.

He straightens and sets the glass and bottle aside. "I accept your apology."

"Wow, your god put you back on earth without even a copper in your pocket? So rude!" Eben says while handing Cuetzpalli a purse of coin, then wincing a little as he does so. "Ow. That's weird. I don't think I had these blisters on my fingers last night..."

Deducting, what, that's 375 gp, right?

"Thanks, Eben! Yeah he did actually. I had to sell my old gear to buy most of the stuff I have now...the only thing he gave me is this sword." Which is totally okay if you're listening up there. Don't expect you to bankroll me, K. "He probably has more important things to do than think about money. Anyway, I'd better go grab that scroll, I'll meet you guys at Manzorian's."

Cuet goes to buy a scroll of fly and then is ready to teleport.

Astraden accepts the drink, staring down into it. "Olidammara encourages spontaneity. But he does encourage consideration of how a joke will be received. I did not do so."

"I never really trusted anyone in my band, back when we hunted the hills. It's lonely. But first thing I did when I got out of that situation, was find new folks to trust. It takes effort, and probably a bit of shared spilled blood. But it's worth it." The priestess downs the glass as her companions trickle in, straightening her back.

"Y'all ready to go down south?" she asks her friends.

"Let's get going before this conversation gets any more uncomfortable."