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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2016-05-09 03:27 pm
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2016-05-09 03:27 pm
Entry tags:
13th Age April 20, 2016
Present:
Virgil the Tiefling Sorcerer. “Amnesiac”. Didn't used to be a tiefling.
Ren the Dwarven Bard: tall for a dwarf, with red skin
Percival the (ancient) Forgeborn Commander, the perfect Dwarven companion bot.
Ewoud Thon, Human Fighter.
Blunder, Human Fighter (NPC)
Rather than wander around on a glacier until we're all snowblind, the group decides to head back in. This time we will try to be quieter.
While Percival is searching the forge room, Virgil notices that there is a long blue streak on Percival's arm. It looks almost like wet paint but … isn't. Go wisdom not as a dump stat! Whatever it is seem to be alive. A mold of some kind, maybe? But fire makes everything better so after castiing “resist heat” energy on Percival, Virgil fires up his burning hands spell.
The good news is, the blue stuff immediately under the heat is reduced to ash. The bad news is, the rest of the blue stuff starts spreading aggressively, apparently feeding on the heat. This is not ideal.
Filing the crap off is not much more successful, although at least it doesn't provoke rapid growth. Rags work... sort of. Ice slows its growth. The least bad solution is to carefully wipe it all off with cloth. Rejecting the idea of trying to use the blue stuff on the dragon, we drop the soiled rags into the forge room refuse chute. Only whenwe hear a splash do we realize we dropped it into warm water. Well, that probably won't come back to haunt us.
Percival's arm looks like something ate the surface layers of his arm. Inspection shows that there are four or five patches of blue stuff near the forge. Whatever it is may prefer wood, but it will definitely will grow on metal.
We hear groans from where the bodies were. At this point the party remembers the vinterelven we tried to defrost. Hrm. Virgil approaches carefully, introduces himself (conveniently, Virgil speaks pretty much very language spoken in the mortal realms and at least one spoken elsewhere), and begins trying to thaw them again. It takes two hours to free and thaw the surviving vinterelven warriors.
Vinterelven can be a prickly lot but by thawing Prince Thavir and his retinue and then feeding them, we have earned the right to be see as guests. Even fellow warriors, of a rather puny sort! Go us!
Thavir and his men arrived … the evidence says fifty to a hundred years ago … to find out why the Stellarium suddenly stop sending messages to the main community of vinterelven. They notice Ewoud looks to them like Strange, ask if he is brother of Strange. Of couse, Ewoud isn't; it is just that all humans look the same to vinterelven and Ewoud and Strange are both human. Thavir and his people knew Strange or of him but have not seen him in many years.
He was a friend of Hengest, who ran the stellarium. The evidence says Hengest is dead. What became of Strange is less clear.
Their castle is far enough over ice we would probably die. Stellarium is a distant outpost. However the next little bit works out, we won't be accompanying the vinterelven.
Thavir is anxious to know if we found a companion of his named Freya. She escaped when the dragon attacked. Unfortunately, the fact that she did not come back with a rescue party suggests her escape was only temporary. Sure enough, we later find her remains under a very large pile of the blue stuff. Poor Freya. In happier news, the magical artifact she was carrying, a tusk-like object, was a lot more resistant to the blue stuff than Freya.
The vinterelven want to go kill the dragon, because tottering off half-starved and half-thawed to fight something that kicked their collective asses when they were in fullfighting shape can only end well. It takes a bit of arguing but in the end we convince them to think about using strategery on the dragon but before that, to get themselves fed.
Getting fed means hunting down something suitably large and meaty for a vinterelven. This turns out to work in favour of Plan Not Obvious Suicide: these guys delight in killing things and killing an elk will do as well as squaring off against the dragon.
There is a slight digression Thavir notices his sword was stolen by dragon. He is angry to have lost itThavir is livid: the sword is an artifact, precious, made of starstone, imbued with strange powersthe . Something about prince's statement bothers Percival but he is not sure what. Virgil has a very similar feeling. Unfortunately neither of them can quite remember whatever it was they are almost remembering.
Since the dragon seems to have pretty thorough about stealing all of its victims' weapons, we hand the vinterelven our spare weapons (a rather sorry collection, because we've never been especially well armed) and let them head out to ambush some unlucky elk.
We use the time to make sure the dragon is asleep, which it is yay, then carefully map out the complex. We take particular note of things like scrolls, tracts, maps and other valuables for later reference. Actual loot loot, gold and such, is probably under the dragon. Best not to take chances.
The vinterelven return with the remains of an elk. Having sated themselves, they prepare to lure the dragon out into the open ice field where surely the fact the dragon can fly fast as fuck and the complete lack of cover for us will in no way shape how the battle plays out. The plan works flawlessly. Well, as far as attracting the attention of the dragon....
Virgil the Tiefling Sorcerer. “Amnesiac”. Didn't used to be a tiefling.
Ren the Dwarven Bard: tall for a dwarf, with red skin
Percival the (ancient) Forgeborn Commander, the perfect Dwarven companion bot.
Ewoud Thon, Human Fighter.
Blunder, Human Fighter (NPC)
Rather than wander around on a glacier until we're all snowblind, the group decides to head back in. This time we will try to be quieter.
While Percival is searching the forge room, Virgil notices that there is a long blue streak on Percival's arm. It looks almost like wet paint but … isn't. Go wisdom not as a dump stat! Whatever it is seem to be alive. A mold of some kind, maybe? But fire makes everything better so after castiing “resist heat” energy on Percival, Virgil fires up his burning hands spell.
The good news is, the blue stuff immediately under the heat is reduced to ash. The bad news is, the rest of the blue stuff starts spreading aggressively, apparently feeding on the heat. This is not ideal.
Filing the crap off is not much more successful, although at least it doesn't provoke rapid growth. Rags work... sort of. Ice slows its growth. The least bad solution is to carefully wipe it all off with cloth. Rejecting the idea of trying to use the blue stuff on the dragon, we drop the soiled rags into the forge room refuse chute. Only whenwe hear a splash do we realize we dropped it into warm water. Well, that probably won't come back to haunt us.
Percival's arm looks like something ate the surface layers of his arm. Inspection shows that there are four or five patches of blue stuff near the forge. Whatever it is may prefer wood, but it will definitely will grow on metal.
We hear groans from where the bodies were. At this point the party remembers the vinterelven we tried to defrost. Hrm. Virgil approaches carefully, introduces himself (conveniently, Virgil speaks pretty much very language spoken in the mortal realms and at least one spoken elsewhere), and begins trying to thaw them again. It takes two hours to free and thaw the surviving vinterelven warriors.
Vinterelven can be a prickly lot but by thawing Prince Thavir and his retinue and then feeding them, we have earned the right to be see as guests. Even fellow warriors, of a rather puny sort! Go us!
Thavir and his men arrived … the evidence says fifty to a hundred years ago … to find out why the Stellarium suddenly stop sending messages to the main community of vinterelven. They notice Ewoud looks to them like Strange, ask if he is brother of Strange. Of couse, Ewoud isn't; it is just that all humans look the same to vinterelven and Ewoud and Strange are both human. Thavir and his people knew Strange or of him but have not seen him in many years.
He was a friend of Hengest, who ran the stellarium. The evidence says Hengest is dead. What became of Strange is less clear.
Their castle is far enough over ice we would probably die. Stellarium is a distant outpost. However the next little bit works out, we won't be accompanying the vinterelven.
Thavir is anxious to know if we found a companion of his named Freya. She escaped when the dragon attacked. Unfortunately, the fact that she did not come back with a rescue party suggests her escape was only temporary. Sure enough, we later find her remains under a very large pile of the blue stuff. Poor Freya. In happier news, the magical artifact she was carrying, a tusk-like object, was a lot more resistant to the blue stuff than Freya.
The vinterelven want to go kill the dragon, because tottering off half-starved and half-thawed to fight something that kicked their collective asses when they were in fullfighting shape can only end well. It takes a bit of arguing but in the end we convince them to think about using strategery on the dragon but before that, to get themselves fed.
Getting fed means hunting down something suitably large and meaty for a vinterelven. This turns out to work in favour of Plan Not Obvious Suicide: these guys delight in killing things and killing an elk will do as well as squaring off against the dragon.
There is a slight digression Thavir notices his sword was stolen by dragon. He is angry to have lost itThavir is livid: the sword is an artifact, precious, made of starstone, imbued with strange powersthe . Something about prince's statement bothers Percival but he is not sure what. Virgil has a very similar feeling. Unfortunately neither of them can quite remember whatever it was they are almost remembering.
Since the dragon seems to have pretty thorough about stealing all of its victims' weapons, we hand the vinterelven our spare weapons (a rather sorry collection, because we've never been especially well armed) and let them head out to ambush some unlucky elk.
We use the time to make sure the dragon is asleep, which it is yay, then carefully map out the complex. We take particular note of things like scrolls, tracts, maps and other valuables for later reference. Actual loot loot, gold and such, is probably under the dragon. Best not to take chances.
The vinterelven return with the remains of an elk. Having sated themselves, they prepare to lure the dragon out into the open ice field where surely the fact the dragon can fly fast as fuck and the complete lack of cover for us will in no way shape how the battle plays out. The plan works flawlessly. Well, as far as attracting the attention of the dragon....