Gerald Smithsson's page

"It's better than any of the alternatives...", Gerald mumbled. "But just to be clear, what are these 'consequences'?"

Yeah...

"Muni! You're still alive!", Gerald shouted to the familiar. He rushed over and cast some cantrips to clean up the bird's feathers.
"What happened? Can you remember things? Not just this encounter, but earlier today and yesterday and... well... I don't know how much time I've forgotten."

"It doesn't seem we have much of a choice.", Gerald said.
"But now we have all this fighting behind us, can you please tell us what it is we're supposed to have done? I have no idea what's going on here!"

Gerald, despite his cowardice, might have actually fought on Le'Rose's side if the group had continued attacking after she was rendered incapable of fighting.

So getting her to help acquitting us is what Gerald was pushing for.

Gerald raised an eyebrow.
"If it is justice she serves, allowing us a chance for an actual trial would not break that vow.", Gerald rebutted. "She can not let us escape, I fully understand. But she might be able to accompany us. That way she can see our purpose is just... If we attempt to escape, she does what she needs to."

"And, perhaps more important," Gerald quickly cut in, jumping at a chance for this to end without either cold blooded murder or being on the run from the law, "would you give us this chance to prove our innocence?"

Gerald remained quiet and at a small distance, though close enough to not miss a word.
He was relieved that, in the end, the rest of the group chose the high road and didn't kill a defenseless person, no matter how much trouble she'd put them in.
That relief was short lived though.
He was a person raised believing in 'good', but also believing in justice and the necessity of law, even when it seems inconvenient.
If this person was really sent after them by persons of justice -and they themselves knew nothing of what had happened- subjecting to the law seemed the only right thing to do. Murder wasn't a light accusation, and from what little he knew of this 'LeRose' phenomenon, the figure did seem interested in arresting the convicted and bringing them to justice instead of hunting down bounties and killing them for money.

Reflex: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5

Shocked by the crash and fully expecting to die, Gerald was stunned by the events to really act and landed painfully.
He shook his head to regain focus and saw the strongly built man attacking Le'Rose. "Wait! Don't! He's far too wounded to fight! Maybe we can talk now, explain we're not... whatever he thinks us to be. Maybe he knows what's going on and can give us answers. Find a way out of this mess."

I'll be going on a trip next week and won't have access to the internet. Please GMPC me, or if (one of) the other players feel like temporarily picking up my character, that's good too.

"The scroll!", Gerald snapped toward the passenger. "Use it! Use it now now or give it to me so I can do it! It's supposed to do something against Le'Rose!"

Gerald's curiosity was piqued when the man pulled out a scrollcase and his first instinct was to investigate.
But then, the mention of the funeral woke something within him.
"Funeral? What fu... Wait, I was invited to... Did I go? Why is it so hard to remember?!"
He searched his brain for answers, pushing it as hard as he could to fill the gaps in his memory.

Detect magic + Spellcraft: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (4) + 10 = 14
Will Save: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23

Is my eagle still there, or is it gone? If not, sending it towards Le'Rose, trying to break his concentration.

"Outrunning a giant bird with a carriage seems equally impossible to doing so on foot. Doubly so on this kind of terrain, where we either stick to a road where we can't possibly hide or dive into a ravine.", Gerald muttered.

"Maybe we can just surrender? Maybe we can explain this is all a misunderstanding?", Gerald suggested, almost whimpering. "It doesn't really seem we've been very successful fighting him off, so far."
This Le'Rose character seemed very confident in his ability to defeat them and Gerald was feeling less and less confident in his own ability to prove him wrong. Of course, he didn't know what the others were capable of but from what he'd seen, none of them seemed very certain of themselves.

Perception with bonus: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15

"Where did he...", Gerald asked, currently having several more pressing things on his mind than introductions. Survival probably being the most important of those.

Gerald's spell finished, an eagle appeared in the air above the carriage.
He sent his eagle to pester the black bird their assailant was riding. Hopefully the much smaller bird could outmaneuver its larger opponent long enough to avoid being eaten.

"Get away, how?! Does diving out of a fast moving carriage only to face hordes of undead or dive off a cliff seems a less certain death than dealing with this Le'Rose guy?"

As I said, waiting for next round/concentrating on spellcasting.

-- Not going to say anything, need full round concentration to summon --

The thought did cross my mind; though I can't say more injury sounds very appealing.
Have we been told what kind of road we're on? If we're being dragged along some cliff-side road...
Turn undead while on a fast moving vehicle = good! (Although it does lower the appeal of bailing out of the carriage ourselves ;) )

Divine energy streamed into Gerald's body and brain, taking away much of the sleepiness and luckily also some of the pain.
How long had he been out? Judging from the situation he was still in, it couldn't have been long.
Who had healed him? Did it really matter?
"T-th-thank you.", he managed to say.
They needed help.

A bounty hunter, on a giant flying bird... Hard to reach, but with a man in its back, the mount couldn't be very agile.

The wizard's reached inside his mind for an eagle and started pulling it into reality.

AC 15, HP 8/11
Casting Summon Monster I.
Concentration in case Gerald gets wounded again: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (15) + 6 = 21

I just noticed that somehow my inventory went missing; not that we already had picked up anything...
Can I fix this? (If so, might I ask again what our starting gear rules were? Won't cheat by suddenly taking healing potions.)

Hm, oops, missed that. Must have another game's rules in my mind. *blush*
Summoning is full-round. Would I go to -1 after completing it or when starting (and thus fail)?

Diving for cover on the floor between the benches and casting a protecting barrier proved insufficient to prevent Gerald from being struck again.
Blackness slowly surrounded him... Sleeping, it seemed to Gerald as he closed his eyes, is a much more pleasant thing to do then fighting skeletons. At least the pain would go away.

"By all that's...", Gerald managed to exclaim before diving down on the wooden floor.
Defense. Defense first. Can't cast spells if I'm dead. Need to defend myself!
He cast uttered some arcane words and was suddenly surrounded by a shimmering force field.

Casting Mage Armor
AC is now 15
HP 7/11
Knowledge Religion to identify what's attacking us (and how to beat it): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (19) + 9 = 28
Initiative: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (11) + 9 = 20

No problem.

"Murder? Necromancy? What foul things are...", Gerald cursed examining the direction Izorshi was pointing in.

Casting Detect Magic
Spellcraft: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (15) + 10 = 25

*sigh* Can't edit anything older than a minute or two here...
Really, really sorry for the bad post :(
Blame the pain medication for that.
Is there like a moderator or something to fix crap like that? Can a GM do it?
Well, most of the contents still apply, I guess.

Would seem weird if he'd been awake and just sitting there quietly all the time, so will just have Gerald be the last to wake.

@GM: Any sign of the raven?

Gerald was -of course- the last to regain his senses. But in his defense, the second he came to he understood that he was sitting in a carriage and being driven somewhere. This realization immediately shook him out of his drowsiness.
"...incapacitated and brought here by magic.", he heard a familiar voice next to him, a woman's, and turned to see who it was.
It was the vampire lady he'd so recently met, currently in the process of putting a bloodied knife in her pockets.

Pale by nature, his face drew even whiter when he heard her say this.
"Buy why? I swear I didn't mean you any harm! I only meant to help! Save you from that... You didn't have t... Please! Don't..."
His hands reached for his neck, obviously feeling for bite marks, his eyes full of terror.
"Wait. Please tell me you didn't... I'm not..."

I'll try posting tomorrow or the day after. Still in quite a lot of pain and the meds make focusing and thinking straight a bit difficult.
But to get stuff moving, please GMPC me; I'll catch up as soon as I'm able to.

Heads up: Getting my tonsils removed tomorrow, will be out for a while. Should Gerald get in play, feel free to GMPC.

I just sell the things :)
But I do my best to be the honest kind of salesperson and know what's best to advice to which audience. For a while that was the Surface Pro as tablet for graphic/design pro's; I guess now the Cintiq is looking pretty good too. (But we don't sell those! ;p )

Cintiq:
I knew the tech side but hearing the what/why from end users is always valuable. Thanks for the breakdown, makes sense that way.

Back to game:
Can't wait for 'proper' IC to start!

Present.

Shaken and feeling very small indeed, a pale-faced Gerald couldn't bare looking up from his feet, his only reply quietly mumbling "Not a bad idea... Not bad at all."

An empty look in his eyes, he shuffled after Izorshi in a zombie-like state.

I am here, getting better too. Very busy with the holidays though.
Was kinda waiting for something to happen, as I wrote, Gerald's plan was to stay quiet and hope to get tossed back to the normal world. From what he gets, these beings are powerful and knowledeable beyond comprehension, best he can hope for is for them to do what they said they'd do and he's trying his best not to do anything to make them change their mind, so just being quiet and as unnoticeable as possible.

"I don't know if you understood that.", Gerald whispered to the woman beside him, "But in case you didn't: These are the, uhm, very powerful beings that created the lantern and are slightly upset we apparently broke it. But I think they just agreed that just letting us go is the best course of action, for some reason."

He tried to remain as motionless as humanly possible. "So, uhm, I think it's best we just stay quiet and still and hope they don't change their minds."

Is the lantern still there? Does it look the same?

"I... I...", Gerald started, stuttering.
"A... A-Are you okay?"

Shocked and shaken by the events, now he'd started talking, Gerald suddenly found it difficult to stop. "I followed you.
I mean, not you, the man, the one with the lantern. I was supposed to find out how he did it, but I sort of forgot, so I came here to try again. But I had a charm and it snapped and it said there was danger and evil and it looked like he was going to do something to you. And you're not evil, or well, partly maybe, but mostly good and I needed to help but I didn't know how. So I shifted in and ran as quick as I could to get the lantern away from you but then... it was like reality shattered or something, I think the old man's dead, he shattered with it. And the lantern, it's not of this world I think. And you were dying, so I... Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to kiss you, I mean, I didn't! It's not kissing, it's a technique I learnt from a book and I think maybe it got you breathing again and your heart beat..."

He stopped at the realization that he'd touched her chest, too. The shock might have been greater than that of seeing reality shatter.

So far, getting worse. Sorry. Lot of pain, not posting :(

When Gerald first touched the woman, he was incredibly relieved he felt a pulse. So not a vampire or undead!
But that was quickly replaced with worry when the woman started shaking and he felt her pulse grow more faint with every heartbeat.
No! I did not just do all this to have her die now!
Luckily, he'd had some training with healing. It was one of those things he picked up from books mostly, but he'd gotten practice after the locals found out and thought they might as well have one of those wizards do something useful for a change.
This was different though. Driven by necessity and half a gallon of adrenaline in his blood, he remembered his textbooks word by word and his body acted as if in a trance.

Afterwards, he would barely even remember administering CPR. He does, however, remember vigorously hoping she wouldn't bite when his mouth moved closer to hers.

Sorry, fallen sick, might post slower :(

Gerald would have been stunned with the realization that he was responsible for a man's death had this not all happened in such a bizarre and completely surreal situation.
He didn't understand. He'd read about magic, the world, the planes... None of this was supposed to be possible!
He needed to something to know he wasn't just going insane. Maybe he'd hit his head, or simply gotten so afraid that he'd fainted. That made more sense than this. He needed something... real.
The woman, she was real. He'd seen her, heard her.
The apprentice wizard gingerly reached out to touch her arm. "Lady? Are you... okay?"

Awesome, done.

The fear had fallen from Gerald, his blood was now pure adrenaline. He saw the old man's surprise at suddenly being assaulted by a bird and couldn't help feeling a pinch of pride that at least that part of his plan had worked as he rushed for the lantern, reached for its handle and already prepared to turn about and run back to the door.
He'd just need to look through the hole -didn't need to see much at all, the green glow provided just enough illumination- and he'd vanish out of the cottage, maybe even before the evil man had realized what was happening. Hopefully the door would by him some time Damnit Gerald, why didn't you try jamming the door before you did this! to get some distance between them. Maybe even with some luck, the man would think Gerald a more powerful teleporter, in which case he could have gone anywhere.
Please don't be some kind of 'oh, normal mortals can't touch me' kind of lantern and turn me into a puddle of goo., he thought the second before his hand touched the lantern.

Do something Gerald! Who knows what that thing's doing to her. Just... create a distraction and get that lantern away from the woman!
While concentrating on casting his spell, Gerald was surprised at his own bravery.
I'm really going to do this. I can do this!
An eagle appeared out of thin air at the entrance of the cabin and flew at the old man's face, shrieking loudly.
Almost at the same time, Gerald shifted through the door and appeared on the other side and went straight for the lantern.

Assuming Gerald's somewhat aware of what his summons can do: Could an augmented eagle (Str 14) carry the lantern? If only for a very short duration?

The young wizard rolled and got up to his hands and knees when he suddenly felt weak and needed to concentrate his entire body on not vomiting.
The answers... He could have guessed at the questions, but the answers were worse than he'd feared.
Impossible. That's what it was. And incredibly powerful and dangerous and uncontrollable and so evil just thinking back of the sensation it had given his magical senses made him sick.

Gerald wanted to leave. He was alone, terrified and so completely not suited for this. Why hadn't they sent some powerful evoker or maybe an experienced abjurer or a wise diviner who'd know how to deal with this. Why send an adept wizard to investigate this... whatever this was!
But that was it, wasn't it? The investigation was complete. He'd done what was asked of him, no? He had the answers, or at least was quite certain he had all the answers that could possibly be gotten out of this from someone like him.
He -really- wanted to leave.
But he couldn't... could he?
That woman, she didn't deserve this, whatever it was. She wasn't evil. He had seen it. He'd seen the darkness in her but had also seen how she'd managed to suppress it, willed it out of her being and buried it away as deep as she could. How she'd fought it and had been fighting it for all her life.
Didn't he need to fight too, then? If he didn't, how could he live with himself, knowing he hadn't tried?
But what could he do?
He pushed himself up but still needed to lean against the wall to remain upright, he was dizzy and fought back another attack of nausea.
What can I do?!

Does the door have a lock, is it barred, can Gerald see any of that? How's the man positioned and how/where is the lantern?
How much room, distance to the exit? Does the man appear any stronger, dropping the old man act or does he still seem weak and fragile?

Wow. Okay, the old guy is here and the girl apparently just got here. Looks like I arrived just in time to witness this man in action and see what's going on... Or should I stop this? If she's really infected with a vampire bite or something, curing her is good, right?
But that last bit didn't really sound so good. And didn't that yelp come from here? Whose voice was that? Gods, what should I do?!
Filled with doubt, no small amount of fear and tons of uncertainty, Gerald retreated to the safest option, which was simply following instructions. With trembling hands, he activated the charm he'd been told to use.

Ah, yes. Shrieking. Of course.
Doesn't get much better than this!
Going through a underground tunnel lit with a faint green light after beings of unimaginable power and possibly an undead. How could shrieks in a distance NOT be part of this. Only two things missing now, flittering bats and -
As Gerald thought this, taking a few steps deeper into the tunnel, he walked into a thick spiderweb which stuck to his face and a spider the size of his hand skittered into the shadows.
Okay. Only one thing missing and the story is complete.
...
Oh, and being chased by horrible creatures, of course.

He breathed deeply and slowly exhaled through pouted lips, uttered the words of some spells to protect him, wiped the sticky webbing off of his face and reluctantly went forward.

Mage Armor and Resistance cast.
Thinking on it, this character should really have Expeditious Retreat...