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I learned the hard way that including the campaign name in mine was a really bad idea.
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Round 1:
After freezing up when the demon attacked the tower, Terry is determined it won't happen again. This is it! Now let's see if this works....
Gathering his arcane power, Terry attempts to cast his fist of wind, but the unfamiliar armor binds his arms as he brings them around in a sweep; the spell's energies do not cohere.
If there's one lizard man in the lead and they're moving quickly, Terry will try to knock it down with fist of wind, to slow down the rest.
"That, or those medieval guys who used to do demos at the library. This could hurt more than a padded stick, though." Even though he can move faster than Trent or Reggy, he'll stay with them for now. "Leorn, should we stick together?"
Terry grins as well. "Yeah, I'm generally in good shape that way, but with you two it's usually one or the other--not often that we get both. And Ash just has to heat things up any way she can."
Terry looks askance at Ashley's choice of protective wear (or lack thereof). "Hey, Ash--you sure your magic is tough enough to keep the lizards off of you?"
"Wonderful. How are they at hiding? I mean, they're really big, so they can't be that good at it...can they?"
Terry takes a suit of Moss Woods light armor. Terry nods once, curtly. "Got it." While the group waits, he takes advantage of his pacing to scope out the ground that they'll have to cross from a few different angles. He's particularly looking for any cover, any obstacles, or things like that. "So all we have to do is run 400 feet? Gotta be a catch there somewhere."
Terry is even more unsettled than usual, seemingly unable to stand still. He does a few stretches, making sure that his armor doesn't bind anywhere. "I guess this is it."
Stress test went fine, but two days later someone blew through a red light and totaled my car. Spun it 180°, side air bag deployed (and kept my head from bouncing off the side window, at the expense of torquing my neck the other way), and the paperwork to deal with the accident and buying a replacement car has been kind of ridiculous. At least the other driver was insured.
So far, so good. Stress test tomorrow morning.
Currently only have my phone; I'll post tomorrow if I can. (For some reason people get kind of frantic when you show up at a hospital with blood pressure 170/110 and jaw pain. At least my heart seems to be OK.)
Honestly, I think as long as we have the spell research rules to hand it'll be OK. (OTOH, I'm used to spell research; had a high-level magic-user in a 1e game with upwards of fifty researched spells, IIRC.)
Terry has been quiet most of the time, debating whether or not to wear armor in the mock fight. It'll probably be better for practice, anyway. I wonder if I can train to cast spells better in armor? "Arastil, Dunnely, and Ashal--are there any rules about using our attack magic?"
Be right there. I spent Friday cleaning, cooking, & shopping; Saturday cooking and playing host for about sixty people; and today I was cleaning after the dishwasher broke.
One last mechanics question, then good to go. Do arcane spell failure chances still apply to us when we're in the studded leather armor we got from Leorn and Yalm?
Day 1: Terry already made the INT check for fist of wind, so AIUI he only needs to make the Fort save.
Let me know if that does it. While walking around to see what everyone else is up to after he's done working on the spell, something clicks. Reggie's got the right idea...working on spells puts a strain on your bod, so working cardio is mucho important. Day 2 & 3: If any of the relves are available to help, he'll approach them and ask for some instruction in being harder to hit in a fight.
Day 4: As Reggie did earlier, Terry will work out near the dwarves, performing an exhaustive series of gymnastics moves until he's too worn out to do that safely, then moving on to calisthenics and wind sprints. This would have wiped me out before all that marching....
IIRC, the only material component is a quantity of our element. Also, if I understand Shano right we get (INT bonus) feats over and above the usual class/level feats.
Unless something happens to distract him, Terry's going to get back to work on fist of wind.
As Trent begins to speak, Terry can't keep the worry from his face as he rocks back and forth in place nervously. If they walk, we are so screwed. And I should really research a breeze-conjuring spell to keep the bugs off.... Listening to the responses he calms down visibly, and after they're done moves through the group of various races touching shoulders and shaking hands. He murmurs an aside to Trent, "Well, that went better than I expected. Nice job!"
WOOPS didnt see it lol Not a problem; it wasn't very obvious.
I thought I did. It's behind a spoiler tag.
I know a little bit about it, and could find out more from other folks in the division--one of the principal investigators here is an expert on meltdowns, and we also have the DOE's Radiological Assistance Program on site. They were all involved in recovery and postmortems. AIUI, the bad news is that a few percent of Japan's land area has just enough radioactive cesium* to qualify it as a contamination area under current DOE rules for radiation safety. The good news is that although enough radioactive material has been released to be detectable in the US, there hasn't been enough to be a health issue outside of Japan. (I can tell that because I hear about radiation safety issues from across the Department of Energy's facilities in the US, and no one's been talking about having to adjust for higher backgrounds due to radiation from Fukushima. If there was a lot of radiation, our instruments at Argonne would have detected it--including the hand/shoe portal monitors we use to make sure we're not tracking contamination into places where it shouldn't be.) *I don't know how much is cesium-134 and how much is cesium-137; the reason that makes a difference is that the half-life of Cs-134 is about a tenth that of Cs-137, so the more -134 there is the quicker it'll go away.
Trent: Terry pauses, standing uncharacteristically still while looking back at the nascent water sorcerer, considering. He starts to say something, about to jerk his head to one side, then turns it into a shrug as his shoulders slump. "You're right. I have to believe that Yalm thought we really could beat Xivasar, though, or he wouldn't have brought us here...that'll have to be good enough for now." He chuckles. "You know what'd be funny? If this turned out to be like _The Matrix_...you know, when the Oracle tells Neo he isn't The One, but that's so he can become The One? We can ask Yalm about that...if we see him again."
Out on the road now, only access via phone. I'll post in more detail tomorrow.
Still here, ready to go. Trent, I actually kind of fell into the safety/QA/etc. job--spent a few years as a bench chemist after I got my undergrad degree in chemistry, then went to grad school in materials science/metallurgy and got a postdoc at Argonne doing low-friction film development. A lot of internal upheavals later, I ended up supporting R&D instead of doing it myself. Less prestige, but also less late nights.
I handle quality assurance, environmental compliance, and laboratory safety for the Nuclear Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory. It's generally a fun job, and if I am lucky there won't be any emergencies while we're shut down.
What are you looking to go into in university? My last day of work for the year is Thursday, and then the place is closed until 1/3. Looking forward to sleeping in....
Sorry, missed that for some reason, thought I was caught up, and was waiting for someone else to post. I'll blame it on the holiday week :-S.
Despite his skepticism at the appearance of the food, Terry will join the others who are already eating. In between mouthfuls, he'll try to strike up a conversation with the others. "So, you all probably know already that we're not from Kellmanor. Yalm only showed us a little bit of the land when he talked to us about coming here--what are things like where the relves and delves live? How do you generally get along with each other, and with the humans, melves, lizard men, and welves? Are there any other kinds of people we haven't met yet?" I'm guessing from what the shaman said that there isn't a lot of interracial cooperation here...let's see if I can find out more about that.
Terry raises an eyebrow at Reginald. "The Earth sorcerer asks how? Work on your elemental manipulation, and by the time we find the thing you can turn it inside out. Me and Trent, we can erode it, and--" He grins. "--get Ashley mad enough, and she'll melt it."
No problem. 'Tis the season, and all that. Good luck!
As Terry leaves with Trent and Reg, he'll motion them close. "We better not tell Leorn about what Savelok said--you know, about Yalm lying to us. At least, not until he's healthy."
I did--before Reg, in fact. (It was a little post, though.) ETA: Re posting from smartphones, the Android keyboard puts square brackets several layers deep; makes it really tedious to insert markups.
Shano, et al, I'm going to be at an SF con this weekend, and I don't feel like paying the hotel $10/day for internet access. So I'll only be able to read posts and make simple ones through my phone. I'll be back Sunday night, though.
Ashley's right. We're free...free to fail, but that'll make our success all the sweeter. "There is one thing. Our guide Leorn got really sick, but Reg was able to bring a healer. Kershak told me to ask you what we should do if something like that happens again."
Terry listens intently to Savelok, not only what's addressed directly to him, but what the shaman has to say to his fellow sorcerers. He's thinking about that and misses Savelok's next statement at first. Yalm lied to us about the prophecy? He duped us into his world to fight by telling we were destined to succeed...oh, fsck. No more script immunity for us! But we have power of our own, that'll have to be enough. Terry sits, mouth agape, at the shaman's revelations. When Savelok pauses after asking his question, it takes Terry a moment to realize that he was expected to say something. His mind awhirl with thoughts, he replies, "If we don't get more power, we die. We're stuck in Kellmanor without Yalm. Nowhere to run that Xivasar won't eventually get to. Even if Yalm lied about the prophecy Drethrum is still after us. And just because we were duped into coming here doesn't mean we shouldn't fight Xivasar. "I'm not going to speak for Ashley, Reg, and Trent, but I'll work on getting more power, so I can take the fight to Xivasar. I won't let Yalm's lie poison what I think of Kellmanor. This is a great place, and it's worth fighting for."
Speaking Lizardish with a cup of tea? Oh, now that's weird. Helpful, though. "Hey, thanks for that tea! It was really hard to deal with only talking through Kershak. So what I was doing before, I was studying to become a...it's hard to say what. You know how there are people who try to break into places and steal valuable things? Well, I wanted to find out how they do that, so I could come up with ways to stop them."
As the group is escorted higher and higher into the canopy, Terry rubbernecks like a tourist, especially when crossing the walkways. Man, I'd love to do some climbing around here! The views are *excellent*! At Savelok's invitation Terry sits down, then accepts the tea with a short nod of thanks to the smaller lizard who served it and to the shaman. While Ashley talks, he sips his tea and watches her. After she finishes, he looks at Savelok and says, "I'm Terry, and I've become connected to elemental Air." He takes another sip of tea. "From my life in the world where we came from, I also know many mundane ways to get past obstacles--climbing, picking locks, and the like. Leorn, our guide, has been showing me other things that those ways can be used for." He sits back and looks at whoever speaks next, continuing to sip at his tea.
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