Emboldened knowing that Vako and their healing abilities had his back, Neppka focuses purely on taking down the two goblins attacking him.
Search Posts
Yes, they've said multiple times in the past that they will be upgrading the forums (which probably means replacing them), but none of their language suggests that the forums will go away.
Neppka does his best to ignore the pain, but with a massive blow like that, ignoring the pain is difficult. It sill doesn't stop him from trying to take down the hobgoblin in front of him, though. "Selfish. I could have used that potion after you're dead."
He swings again.
After his second attempt, he backpedals, trying to lure the enemy back to the rest of his allies that are still near the gate.
Neppka draws his bastard sword and screams a battlesquawk before charging. Neppka is able to cross the distance between him and the hobgoblin who fired on him, and he tries to bring his heavy sword down on them.
I think we have to!
There's nothing ambiguous about what's going on to Neppka, so he's ready to defend Sandpoint while its residents are watching! (He'd probably do the same if the townsfolk couldn't see him.) Neppka draws his bastard sword and screams a battlesquawk before charging.
Neppka follows.
"Well, shit," Neppka declares, stunned into inaction for a moment.
Neppka nods at Vako. "Let's head back to Sandpoint, then. We'll report in, and then we'll see about what to do about this crypt." Assuming nobody disagrees, the party heads back to Sandpoint.
Neppka turns to Festus. "I don't think any of us know how to pick that lock. We can try and pry it open, but it looks like that's already been tried. Plus, we don't really know what's down there, nor how large it is. "Why don't you come back to Sandpoint with us. We have something we have to report in, and maybe you can find someone who can tell you more about what's down there, and maybe even someone who can help open it. "There's a guy there, Brodert Quink, who knows lots of things, or he can hopefully point you in the right direction."
"I looked for personal effects like a ring or something similar when we first found him, but I didn't see anything other than the scrolls I gave you and his holy symbol."
"And the only shield we saw was that one," Neppka points to the shield that the spiders were using as bait. Despite his assurance that he had already done so, Neppka helps search the area for the items Festus is asking about.
Neppka nods at Candalreth's summation of his life, and then turns his head so that he includes Festus, Krrys'tall, and Vako. "Ghostly? I don't know. Do we think that was really a ghost? He didn't seem very ghost-like. He just glowed. If he was a ghost, why would he need his own tent? And then he seemed to need Olga for some reason. And he wasn't haunting anything."
Leaning back on his pack near the fire, faced so he can see any threats from the graveyard in the distance, Neppka looks at the minstrel in their company. "So, Candalreth. What's your story? How did you come to be caged in a Varisian camp?"
Neppka agrees to find a place to camp for the night. But... not too close.
I asked someone who posted looking for a game if they wanted to join us BTW. Not sure if they will want to but I sent them the gameplay link so they could read up. Offered them one of these NPCs or making a whole new PC if they wish. Did this person ever get back to you? It's fine if not, I'm just curious.
The quieter Varisian say: "Ja! The Brown Stone, that vhat dwarf mate us searchink for." She motions with his hand a round stone about the size of a grapefruit maybe. "Ve never see dis stone, ja?" Neppka squawks in annoyance. "He didn't make you do anything! He and Olga told you to lock people in cages, and you just decided to blindly follow orders instead of think for yourselves!" Neppka takes a moment to compose himself. He takes a deep breath and starts speaking again. "Whatever. Olga's got a lockbox in her wagon. You can keep it and the harrow cards. We're leaving. "Are you ready to go?" Neppka asks Festus. And then to the other former prisoners, he asks, "Are you all good? We're making our way back to Sandpoint. You're welcome to come with." Neppka is keeping the three vials and the crystal. At some point, he'll ask someone who can tell such things if it's magical. After they leave, he'll give one vial to Vako, another to Krrys'tall, and keep the last for himself.
He finally looks at the papers written in dwarven that Neppka left with him right before the fighting started and looks awestruck as he reads, his face turning ashen pale. "Where did you find these did you say? I must go there at once!" "At a graveyard nearby. We'll take you there; it's on the way back to Sandpoint. "What's going on?"
"Well, dwarves are long-lived, right? If the battle with the elven settlement was 100 years ago, it's possible he'd still be alive, then. "Well, whatever. With nothing else to go on, the best thing to do would be to go back to Sandpoint," Neppka cocks his head in acknowledgement of Vako's suggestion, "and let that innkeeper Ameiko know what happened. That way, if Grimbeard or Olga cause more trouble, then people know about them already." Neppka raises a feathered arm and points at the remaining Varisians. "You guys. You're free to go, or you can just wait here until we go. You locked innocent people in a cage without questioning why. You got what was coming to you." Neppka indicates the dead Varisians. Neppka brings out the big crystal, harrow deck, and vials he found in Olga's tent. He asks Vako, Krrys'tall, and the other former prisoners if they know what any of them are for.
Just to make sure I understand, Festus is saying the glowing dwarf is Malgrath, and the letter is implying that the dead dwarf we found in the cemetery is Grimbeard?
"Right. There's also some interesting stuff in Olga's wagon. A big crystal, a big harrow deck, some maybe-poison, and a lockbox. "I don't think we need to steal their wealth, but I don't want to leave anything dangerous with these guys if they're locking up random travelers." Neppka glares at the closest Varisian as he mentions being locked up.
I agree with Krrys'tall. We said we'd let them go.
Neppka leaves things where they are in Olga's wagon for the moment. He'll let Vako and Krrys'tall know about them when there's a moment. He goes back to listen to the conversation with the Varisians. When it's over, he'll ask Festus if the papers from the glowing dwarf's tent is written in dwarven and if he can tell him what they say.
Did this exchange with Festus actually get to happen, or was it cut short by the beginning of the battle?You may have given him the writing, but he did not have time to read it yet. And may have forgotten about it in the hullaballoo (just like me). As long as I've handed the scroll over to him and briefly described that we found it on a dwarven corpse in a nearby graveyard (and generally where it is), I don't need to do anything else. I just didn't want any ramifications from it to not happen because I had assumed wrongly about the communication. Thanks!
Did this exchange with Festus actually get to happen, or was it cut short by the beginning of the battle?
I didn't expect that we'd just walk right in to their camp to be captured. :) But yeah, that fight could have gone very differently. I also think that you had dropped enough hints for us to reasonably guess that we weren't in immediate danger from the Varisians.
Neppka grabs the papers, and then searches Olga's tent, if he knows where that is.
While his two companions talk to the Varisians, Neppka wanders over the tent the dwarf came out of and looks inside.
Neppka doesn't sheathe his sword, but his posture visibly relaxes and he stays well away from the Varisian that Krrys'tall is trying to convince to stay.
From over by the cage, Neppka waits to see how Krrys'tall's and the Varisian's conversation goes. he can see at least one other surrendered and incapacitated Varisian, so they have someone who they can ask questions of after things have settled down.
I'm loving how this game is going. I like how you're adapting what's going on to whatever choices we make (or how many PCs we happen to have). I like how you have the NPCs interact with the characters instead of just responding with some predetermined motivation. I also love that my weird bird-man isn't the most unusual PC in the group. :)
I was thinking that we should offer them the chance to surrender and see what happens.
Coming to at the foot of the man who last attacked him, Neppka grabs his sword and quickly rolls to his feet. Feeling his wounds begin to knit together, he is emboldened to swing his sword at his attacker.
He's still feeling pretty woozy, however.
Low level enemies normally do not have attacks of opportunity. We would need knowledge rolls to make sure. DM might throw us a bone, but I would just say to risk it. Okay, thanks. Unless DMDE says something different, that's probably what I'll do when it's Neppka's turn then. Also, do we like the phonetically spelled out speech for Krrys'tall more, or should I revert back to normal spelling? I don't mind it, but I have made a PbP character with a thick accent before where I spell out the words phonetically, and I kinda wish I hadn't. Granted, this is the longest-running PbP I've been in on these boards (8 years!), but I feel like the accent has grown stale, and I sometimes just narrate what he tells the party so that I don't have to think about how the words are spelled phonetically and then second-guess myself that his speech is too hard to read. That advice is just warning that it can be too cumbersome to keep up; I'm not saying that it bothers me.
Apologies for the delay, but can I get a rundown on what actions are available to me while I'm prone? I'm assuming that unless Yellow has Reactive Strike or similar, I can just pick up my dropped weapon and take the Stand action without issue? If so, that would be two actions, correct? That just seems really easy compared to 1E, so I want to make sure.
Neppka shouts in triumph as the cage door opens. Taking in the scene, he sees Melaria standing over a prone Varisian, the crone standing in the open possibly about to cast another spell, and another Varisian trying to batter Candalreth through the cage. Tactically, it might be better to target the enemy spellcaster, but Candalreth doesn't look like he could take another blow. He moves to help out the bard.
I think it's expected that we each move our own token on the map, or specifically ask someone else to do so if we can't.
Neppka begins to fall under the sway of the magical sleep, but as he falls forward, he bonks his head on one of the cage bars before he falls. He shakes his head to wake up, and then tries the keys on the lock of the cage door.
Neppka takes a quick look at the dead man's belt or other obvious place where a key might hang. If he doesn't find anything, he pushes the body away from the cage door. If he does find obvious keys, he grabs them before giving the body a shove.
Using one arm to hold the man's arm against the inside of the cage, Neppka reaches out with his other arm to try and bring the man closer so he can peck at his face with his beak.
If the bandit is still up, Neppka pecks at him again.
If the man is down, Neppka picks up his club.
The Varisian rowdy has to strike between the bars of the cage to get to Neppka. Watching carefully, Neppka waits until his attacker's arm is between the bars before he tries to grab it and pin the arm against the inside of the cage, although it costs him a solid blow to his shoulder to do so.
Neppka moves to the door of the cage, ready to hold it closed or fend off anyone who tries to come in.
Neppka, surprised that he's been allowed to keep any of his possessions, pulls out the scroll from the dwarven corpse they had found and hands it to the dwarf in front of him. He relays the encounter at the graveyard.
I feel like one spellcaster inside the cage isn't going to do much good if we stay inside the cage; they can just stab at us through the bars. If we somehow get out of the cage to fight, it seems like we'll actually be in a worse position than when we had our weapons (and we decided to surrender). I'm not sure how you're seeing that battle play out?
Defeating giant arachnids notwithstanding, his adventuring life isn't starting off with the successes he was expecting, that's for sure. He's not going to make things even worse by abandoning allies.
|