Chance Encounter's page

The mists swirl once more, and engulf the scene, and the result of the conflict to come is lost from view.

Somewhere in the background an orchestra is playing a tune which could be taken for the fourth movement of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Mist swirls through ancient ruins of what was once a magnificent castle. There is a remote clatter of hooves on the cobbles of he worn road, and eddies in the mist resolve themselves into a shape.

Low cloud from the storms brewing about the Eyrie swirls across the valley betwixt the adjacent peak and the Eyrie. By the time that it eventually clears, the ladies and their cream-tea are long gone, having relocated to less damp climes.

He could probably ward one lair, but he has multiple lairs.
I'm assuming you have targetting information here, so know which one to go for.
There are many things besides Daelemos lurking in the roots of the mountains, some of them otherwise Nameless.
A handful of these denizens of the depths, spawned in aeons past by the Midgaard Serpent, sense the burning life-beacon of the World Ash and home in on the root, going into a feeding frenzy.

A platoon of treants march in rigid formation across the dream landscape, grumbling something about orcs, before disappearing from view.

Limited though her conventional senses of the natural world may be, Lynora-Jill senses something bad storming across the plains of roleplaying towards the grove long before the others have any inkling.

I was going to offer some assistance, but I think I'll leave you to it now.
Have to go. Back in a couple of hours.
The whir recedes, as whichever dragon it was passes by on the other side of a nearby peak, and heads off into the distance.

The mountains echo with whir of the wings of a rapidly approaching dragon.

The ladies wander the tea-plantation, occasionally pausing to stop and inspect particular bushes and the leaves being grown.
The steward responsible for the plantation follows behind, nervously, aware of the tremendous political power and influence that his mistress wields.
For hundreds - *thousands* in fact some stories say - of years, this valley has remained free from any of the conflicts which typically accompany the shifting borders of local kingdoms.
Even wealthy merchant houses, eager to explore for possible rich mineral veins, have found the doors that their coins can usually open mysteriously kept shut.

In a remote tea plantation, in a deep valley amidst the peaks, the staff and workers are turned out in their best today. The mistress is visiting, to inspect the property, and she has invited one of her aristocratic friends along, too.

A hard-bitten triton responsible for investigating all crimes and suspicious deaths in this part of the city arrives to take stock of the situation at one of the city's boarding houses.
The two combatants are covered with red welts, as if they had been repeatedly stung with jellyfish, and something appears to have been fixed to the face of each, from the bruising, although there are no signs of either jellyfish or whatever may have been clamped to the faces.
The cause of death is obvious. Each has stabbed the other through the heart with what appears to be a yellow rubber duck - and to have used some force to do so.
One of the men serving under the triton has pulled one of the ducks free and squeezes it. The duck emits a mournful squeaky noise.
The diviner can't make head nor tail of this one, the triton's lieutenant reports. He's picking up a strong aura of chaos, but nothing else. Death-speech isn't working, and something tells me that attempts to raise either of these guys isn't likely to go too well, either. Some of the tenants say they saw the two fighting, with some sort of starfish over their faces, and using jellyfish as whips, alongside the ducks.
Why their hands aren't stung to blazes, trying to handle jellyfish like that is a wonder.
The triton inspects the bodies.
Hmm. This one's a lowlife, with markings of one of the city's crime syndicates. The other guy looks pampered, and well kept, as if he's had an easy life, although he seems to have enjoyed physical exercise. Some sort of family signet ring on one finger. Wonder what he was doing here, fighting with a Black Pearl torpedo?
Get these bodies back to the morgue, and get some inquiries under way. If there's aristocracy involved, there's going to be political pressure on us to get answers in this case.

'The Dragon' receives the star from the officials and then, to the surprise of almost everyone in the arena, tosses it casually into the spectators, as if to say that he fought solely for the glory of the contest, and not for any other prize. He bows to all parts of the crowd, raises his sword one last time in salute, then turns and disappears from view.

At last a fanfare announces the final fight of the day, and six fighters enter the arena, three of them flying.
The fighting is nasty, the fliers who have made it through to the final all being furnished with missiles and/or reach weapons which they can use to harrass those on the ground, and it develops into a 'fliers versus non-fliers' contest.
Soon it is down to two of the fliers - a wiry harpy and a half-fiend, against 'The Dragon'; at which point, The Dragon plucks a scimitar from a fallen fighter, and with blinding speed and breath-taking accuracy sends it spinning end over end into the harpy's breast, taking her from the air.
He smiles in menacing challenge at the half-fiend who opts to drop to the arena floor, seize a shield from another fallen fighter, and to attempt to go hand-to-hand in a brutal final clash.
It is soon over, and The Dragon acknowledges the acclaim of the crowd, before making his way slowly over to the stairs which lead to the officials' stand/box.

After the final bout of the first round, the arena is cleared, then the semifinals get underway.
Most of those participating in the first of the semifinal bouts can fly by natural means, including a half-dragon, two half-fiends, a winged elf, and some sort of 'birdman'. A wheeling aeriel melee develops, with most contestants more concerned about 'not getting eliminated' than in trying to knock out others, given that three will go through to the final.
The second semifinal bout features only one unfortunate flier - a sentient giant eagle - who is promptly ganged up on by the majority of other fighters, most of whom have missile weapons, but who have seen the result of the other semifinal and frankly want to have to deal with as few fliers as possible in the last fight of the day.
After that, they slug it out between them for the last spots. The gladiator 'The Dragon' who seemed rather lazy in the first round, proves much more active in this one, as the shadows lengthen and the afternoon wears away, practically chopping a young treant in two with a barrage of powerful strokes that he deals with his two-handed sword.
At last the list of finalists is settled.

Many of the Gugs fall, and dissolve in a noisome mess of goo. The puddings kill most, but some pass through the boiling water wall once it has been chilled enough. The rusty chains stop trying to slice the puddings and form an inpenetrable web by the cave entrance.

The puddings are too busy with all the fallen gugs to bother about the cave or any attempts to bar them from it of the moment.

Chance Encounter wrote:

Is Little Kiba interested in protesting a decision if there's a formal disqualification of the remaining three (Little Kiba, the Warlord, and the man in grey), or in trying to get back into the fighting somehow?

Only if it's his DQ and if there is a chance to fight again he'll try to argue his case.

The officials decide to disqualify those still standing at the end of Little Kiba's bout (and the gnomes with the hand-crossbows who 'won' another one, plus a lich who won another simply because nobody else had weapons which could harm him) and reorganise the semifinals structure, to two contests, with three survivors from each semifinal to go through to the final.

The black pudding creatures start to eat their way through the gugs from the rear. Given that the gugs are quite large, there is enough eating on two downed gugs to keep practically all the puddings busy, eating, for some minutes.
They're pretty hungry, but the fight may be over, and the gugs have moved on elsewhere by the time that they've finished eating those two, mind you.
Oh, and Aritha is mostly responsible for the existence of these things...

"Thanks for the antidote Knife. Hope we aren't DQ'ed because that fool decided to use smoke-baombs. No offense but thats worse than using poison. Want to get him if we're DQ'ed later?"

Seeing him out's sufficient for me. Make sure that if I can't win, that he's not in a position to do so either were my patron's instructions, and I prefer not to fight if I'm not being paid to do so.

A hungry pack of the black pudding things which have in recent years been sighted in some parts of the Realms of Dreams arrive and tear into the rear of the gugs, teaming up to pull them down and dissolve them into a soup which they can devour. Occasionally one adopts an almost humanoid form, and blows flames at the gugs, before collapsing back down into the shape of a pudding.
If not dealt with, Candle Lighter and Frost are next on the menu after the gugs, of course....

Oh, sorry if the poison's still stinging. Here. Have an antidote.
The man in grey passes Little Kiba a small bottle, with a grin.
Don't worry. It's genuine. I'm not about to attempt to kill you in front of all these witnesses, or at least not that way.

An order is given to clear the Arena for the interval before the next fight, and the half-fiend warlord snarls, snaps his bow, tosses it away, and with a glare at the man in grey and Little Kiba stomps out. The giant is being dragged out by a team of grumbling centaurs, and several [called] air-elementals are being sent in to do what they can about lingering patches of smoke.

The warlord emerges from one of the clouds of smoke, looking somewhat concerned. The man with knives emerges from another, looking much more pleased with himself.
He wanders over to Little Kiba to slap him on the back.
Look's like we got him.
Sorry you won't get the chance for your star for your lady-love, but if we all go out DQ'ed here then that half-fiend is going to be one guy who will not be pulling his fly and shoot tactics in the final.

The officials continue to deliberate. One of them signals to the trumpeters, and a fanfare is blown, signalling a temporary halt to the combat currently taking place.

As far as spectators go, they've been watching the man in grey and the half fiend warlord deploy smoke-bombs and nip from area of cover to area of cover, the man with the knives occasionally taking shots at the giant, and the warlord concentrating his fire on the man with knives (and once snapping off a shot in the direction of where he suspected Little Kiba to be).
Little Kiba emerges from the smoke just in time to see the giant, who has several knives sticking out of him, topple over to disappear from sight in the bank of smoke from which Little Kiba emerged. Up in the officials' stand/box, there looks to be some sort of debate going on. There are a number of banks of smoke around the Arena, most of them approximately ten feet or so across, although some are larger where several smoke bombs seem to have been triggered separately.
The smoke of some of the older ones is starting to thin and drift away.
At the moment there aren't any visible clues as to who is in which cloud.
The debate up with the officials is over whether or not to penalise Little Kiba for passivity, I'm afraid. There was the rule about 'playing dead' and the other guys are being careful to occasionally through smoke bombs, run to another cloud, or to take pot-shots at something, to show that they're still active. The officials weren't expecting smoke-bombs when they drew up the rules for the contest, and the antimagic prevents them from determining if someone's active or not when they're in a smoke-cloud, unless they're doing something obvious such as throwing things (or shooting) from out of the cloud.

Elsewhere in the Realms of Dream, a group of [dreamer] travellers are set upon by a pack of things which are part black puddings, part shapeshifters, and part red dragons. The lucky ones wake up, in the world beyond, screaming.

Just as Little Kiba is finding one edge of the smoke, an arrow streaks past the tip of his nose, then he is almost brained as a smoke-bomb comes down practically on top of him, and smoke fills his vision again.
He can hear the increasingly erratic steps of the giant thumping nearer.

Little Kiba can't smell much apart from the engulfing smoke.
However he can hear the 'pfft' of more smoke-bombs being thrown from locations sufficiently different to suggest that at least two people are doing it, the slap of feet on the sand of the arean floor, the occasional clank of armour, the venomous twang and hiss of archery, the whir of knives, the murmurs and shouts of the crowd, the distant click of a metronome, and the roars and staggerings of the giant, who sounds to be taking heavy missile fire.

Sorry about the delay. Shared computer, and someone else urgently needed it.
The giant catches Little Kiba with a blow which half stuns him, but he clings on and manages to scramble up on top of the head.
From on top Little Kiba can see several obscuring clouds of smoke in at least four parts of the arena, some of which are starting to thin, but it is difficult to be certain in the swirling smoke, who is where.
Then the giant throws himself on the ground and proceeds to engage in rolling activity to dislodge and attempt to crush Little Kiba.

To all intents and purposes this fight was supposed to be over in the background, but I rolled on Invisible Castle, and the kind of bad luck hit the warlord equivalent to throwing upwards of a dozen dice in a combat check at a moonbeast in the Arkham Horror and still not being able to take the wretched thing out.... : 1d20=1
From somewhere behind Little Kiba comes the sound of archery, and the dreaded hiss of arrows. Followed by muffled cursing and more 'pffts' of smoke-bombs going off.
Meanwhile, the giant howls in outrage, and desperately smashes at Kiba with his off-hand, slapping him in an effort to dislodge him.

As the giant is bending down, it makes it somewhat easier for Little Kiba to reach his target, although driving through the blinding, stinging spray of sand makes it difficult to see where he is landing, and he comes down in the wrong spot on the arm for the precise crippling stroke intended. The giant's face is a short way away, however....
Elsewhere in the arena, the 'pfft' of a number of strictly non-magical alchemical smoke-bombs being ignited announces that the half-fiend warlord is finally upto something.

The giant throws a boulder in a hurry at Little Kiba as he comes in, then bends bends and slaps his hand across the arena floor, slamming a spray of sand in Little Kiba's drection as he gets closer.

The giant is about 60 yards away from Little Kiba's starting position, the half-fiend about 48, and the half-fiend 36 from the giant. (Approximately a corners of a right-angle triangle.)
1 yard=3 feet.

Lk shakes his head once from atop his boulder perch. "I didn't enter this tourny to prove myself. I entered because that star-gem belongs to somebody I know. I'll do watever I can to help get it for her." Lk leaps at the man feet first, hoping to throw him off balance, and rolls when he makes contact with the ground, coming to a stop in a defensive stance. He faces the man, ready to strike when he does. "And if you were any good at fighting, you wouldn't need poison to help finish off your opponents!"

The man laughs, but doesn't let up his defense.

Little Kiba wrote:

Pretending to breath heavily, Lk begins to make half-circles while on all foursSorta like Spiderman moving up a wall waiting for the man to amke his move, his mistake, while trying to see what the others in the arena are doing. He senses something wrong up in the stands, but forces himself to ignore it for now.

Lk dodges yet another boulder, but just barely since he is trying to conserve his strength. He quickly climbs his way to the top of the boulder, hoping to get the jump on Mr.Knife while getting a better view of the arena.

Sorry about the delay. Shared computer household.

The man in grey side-steps Little Kiba's leap, and has a chance to slash at Little Kiba's flank, but instead maneuvers for a better position with regard to putting distance between himself and Little Kiba and using him as best he can to block line of sight from the giant and the half-fiend.
The giant is already readying another boulder, and somewhere over in the officials' stand/box some of the men are looking in the direction of the sprawled kobold.

The kobold's hearing is actually quite good, but the footing on the sandy arena floor none too good and it goes sprawling before the boulder. It's difficult for Little Kiba to ascertain if the boulder got a direct hit on the kobold or not as the burning pain of silver and of poison entering his veins hits him as the man with the knives throws two and and in moments has a couple more knives, silver gleaming and the edges covered with something green, readied whilst he takes advantage of Little Kiba's distraction to attack from range.
There was an opportunity to try and talk tactics or make deals with the others before the fight commenced. Ah well. Part of the learning process....

The lists are now closed for those wishing to sign up for bouts.

Chance Encounter wrote:

The punch simply seems to send the kobold into a frenzy, and he comes at Little Kiba in a berserk frenzy, hacking and slashing with the axe.

Meanwhile, the man with the knives has circled around so that Little Kiba and the kobold are between him and the giant, an unpleasant smile on his face.
The giant seems to have decided that its best chance of hitting something is to send a boulder at the 'group' (basically a bigger target to hit), and sends a boulder hurtling through the air, whilst readying the next.
The man with the knives readies a couple of knives whose blades gleam silver and whose edges are coated with something sickly green.
Meanwhile the armoured half-fiend with the glaive stands alone and ignored. The half-fiend warlord is trying to conserve energy adopting a defensive stance, the kobold figured Little Kiba was an easier target than the guy in armour with a reach weapon readied (besides Little Kiba being the closest target to his own size) and the guy with the knives wants as much between himself and the giant as possible until he decides to take the giant down.

Another attempt to get this post to show up in the thread. Weirdness...

Agreed, weirdness. I've tweaked the first line slightly having used frenzy twice in it, (poor writing technique) but still haven't seen it come up on this thread.

Edited
The punch simply seems to send the kobold into a frenzy, and he comes at Little Kiba in a berserk fury, hacking and slashing with the axe.
Meanwhile, the man with the knives has circled around so that Little Kiba and the kobold are between him and the giant, an unpleasant smile on his face.
The giant seems to have decided that its best chance of hitting something is to send a boulder at the 'group' (basically a bigger target to hit), and sends a boulder hurtling through the air, whilst readying the next.
The man with the knives readies a couple of knives whose blades gleam silver and whose edges are coated with something sickly green.
Meanwhile the armoured half-fiend with the glaive stands alone and ignored. The half-fiend warlord is trying to conserve energy adopting a defensive stance, the kobold figured Little Kiba was an easier target than the guy in armour with a reach weapon readied (besides Little Kiba being the closest target to his own size) and the guy with the knives wants as much between himself and the giant as possible until he decides to take the giant down.

Under directions from the marshals, the gladiators are sent to points equally spaced out around the Arena. The half-fiend readies his glaive, the kobold hefts his axe, the man with knives puts his hands on the hilts of a couple, and the hill giant weighs a small boulder.
Then the trumpets sound again and combat commences.
The half-fiend stands his ground, glaive at the ready, whilst the kobold comes charging in Little Kiba's direction, and the man with the knives after casting an assessing eye over the situation begins to circle around the edge of the combat area, making for Little Kiba and the kobold, whilst keeping a wary eye on the giant.
The giant stays put and scratches his head for a moment, then looks between the stationary half-fiend with the glaive, and the converging others and then begins to heft his first boulder.
Any time a contestant wants to surrender, they can do so by shouting it out in common that they do, at which point the other contestants are supposed to leave them alone, to leave the arena by the exit. The contestant is disqualified from further rounds, and anyone they kill on the way out will be resurrected at their expense.
Anyone who lies down for longer than a count of ten on a metronome in the Arena officials' stand/box is assumed to be dead, unconcious, or to be playing for unfair advantage by pretending to be unconcious for too long, and arena officials will remove them from the fight.
Natural fliers who go above the top of the wall at the bottom of the spectator's stands (thirty-three feet above the floor of the arena) for longer than a count of ten on the metronome are assumed to have surrendered.

The trumpets blare and the next group of fighters start to make their way into the arena. Little Kiba is at the front of this group, separate from the others. Next out are a Hill Giant in crude armour and a sack of throwing rocks, with a winged half-fiend in specially tailored plate armour walking along by his side, apparently trying to persuade the huge oaf of something. Behind them comes a fierce looking kobold in hide armour, and with a dwarven waraxe a size too big for him. Bringing up the rear comes a man dressed in grey with a lot of knives sheathed in various bandoliers about his person.
How exactly is Little Kiba equipped, and what shape is he in, given that antimagic is in effect in the arena, so creatures with magical shapechanging abilities will generally revert to a 'natural' form?

The handlers have cleared the arena, and now the acrobats and musicians start to leave, the next bout coming soon.

Mr. Knives could be a problem if he uses poison, the kobold is small but if he is a high lv Barb he could be a problem. The half-fiend can fly, which is a problem if he uses ranged weapons. The hill giant shouldn't be much of an issue, keen of wit and fast he/she isn't, if Lk can keep dodging it. So Lk will keep an eye on the half-fiend and the knifer.

The man in grey keeps his knives in their bandoliers and sheaths during the preparation time for the fight - apparently he's confident that he has them readied to his satisfaction already. The half fiend wears masterwork plate armour, fashioned to accomodae his wings, and has a spiked chain, glaive, and composite longbow as far as weapons go that Little Kiba can see.

In between the fights, there are a variety of entertainments. The group currently 'playing' in the Arena, whilst the sand is swept, and bits of broken armour and weapons disposed of by rust-monster handlers, are a group of acrobats wth musical accompaniment from two dwarves playing a series of war-gongs and musically tuned anvils.

Roll up, roll up. Last chance to sign up for the day.
A messenger moves around the streets with a proclamation, announcing the closing of the 'lists' for the tournament.
In the meantime, Little Kiba is scheduled for a group of five, with a Hill Giant, a half-fiend warlord from somewhere or other, a kobold barbarian, and a man dressed in grey who seems to specialise in knife fighting and who has dozens of knives.
Let me know if you want to pay any particular attention to any of these.
The bout which has just ended was won by a man calling himself 'The Dragon' who lurked in the shadowy side of the arena, and brutally bludgeoned to the ground with strokes from his two-handed sword anyone who came within reach with a series of deftly placed blows.

The gladiatoral contest meanwhile is getting underway. The first bout see a half ogre, a team of two elves, a gnoll, an orc, and a human in the armour of a knight all squaring up against one another. The half ogre-goes down first, and is dragged out, unconcious, and then the other three realise they have a problem dealing with a team of two, and combine to take the two elves out, before splitting up to sort out between them who will advance to the next round.
In the end it is the orc, who employs the traditional style of a retiarius who wins through to the next round.

Cardden pulls himself out of the smoking remains of his laboratory, thankful to be alive. His residence is partially demolished, his servants scattered.
He thought that he had bribed the master of these mountains, to leave him alone, and surely no other dragon would have dared to strike at him like that? What was going on?

Humming, Cardden the necromancer turns the handle on a little winch, raising the star out of the laboratory bath of pure liquid evil that he had immersed it in. He inspects it through a hand lens, taps the star with a little hammer, and sighs. His plan to turn it into a seed crystal didn't appear to be working.
Outside night steals gently over the mountain tops.

Little Kiba wrote:

Lk begins to linger behind, staying qi=uiet so nobody will notice. He quickly makes his way to the arena, pulling on gloves, boots, and a hooded cloak a size to big, before he reaches his destination. By the time he gets there though, the clothing fits perfectly, hiding any means to identify him. He begins his search to find the shiny, hoping to 'sniff' it out before it changes hands.

After a few minutes, Lk catches the scent of something that reminds him of pure air, soft breezes, and storms. He follows the scent trail quickly, locating the person who has it easily. His voice deeper and more wolfish, "Excuse me, but you wouldn't happen to a star-like gem would you? It belongs to somebody I... like very much. If I can't have it freely, perhaps we can settle this in the arena? Surly some one of your stature wouldn't refuse a challenge from one of my size."

Nobody can tell this is Lk, he has be come an expert at concealing his hybrid form, so right now Devlyn, Kiba, and a god would be able to tell who he is.

The man in question is a large, burly, grim-faced man, dressed in studded leather armour, with a short-sword at his belt and accompanied by a couple of men in robes covered with arcane sigils.

One of the trio haggles with the merchant whilst the other two survey the scene, presumably on the lookout for pickpockets or other trouble. Eventually payment seems to be agreed, one of the ones comes off lookout and produces a collapsible hoop of some sort and proceeds to drop it over the head of each of four of the halflings in turn, each of the halflings in question vanishing as the hoop passes over them to clatter to the floor.
In the meantime, a small velvet bag is produced by the one who was haggling, and the trader tip a couple of large and beautiful rubies from it, which he passes to the merchant, causing the latter's face to light up with greed.
The hoop is effectively a one-way gate which sends 'purchases' to a nearby safehouse, from whence they can be organised to be shipped home via one of the few gates to the Realm of Dreams currently remaining open; it isn't actually a gate to Leng or Dream itself.

Passing through the market, Allura catches sight of a group of three vaguely sinister figures with turbans and wearing black up ahead, inspecting the wares of a merchant who specialises in halflings.