February 20th

After the battle described last time, Tyrone cut all the stitching holding the dragonflesh golem together. He divided all the bits into two piles, one of good metallic dragons and one of evil chromatic dragons. He took out some oil, covered the metallic dragons with it, and burned them. He then pissed on the chromatic dragons and left them to rot. The party then rested, and on the 11th day of Flamerule (7th month) they went through the secret door.

They found themselves in a jail cell. The cell was open and otherwise empty. In fact, all of the cells were empty and there were no guards. They found the stairs up and discovered a perfectly normal small castle that was completely empty. Dust covered most surfaces. The Drow guards on the wall outside lived in the barracks next door, and it seems as though they never came in here. While searching they felt a tremor. It was not like the castle shook or even the cavern, but the whole world. It only lasted for a minute or so.

They found a secret door behind a bookcase, and it led to stairs going down. They followed that to a room occupied by bronze serpents, which are large constructs. The monk was very clear on the point that the rogue was the one who opened the door. The rogue didn't think he was the sort to open doors, but the monk was convincing. After opening the door, the rogue found himself being constricted and electrocuted by bronze. Eventually the party was victorious after a few of them were squeezed very hard. The monk said he would open the next door, which set off a nasty trap. Suddenly much more injured, they bravely climbed into a Rope Trick of extra-dimensional space to recover from the single battle they'd had since the last one.

While they sat in their hidden place in the room above the broken serpents, the door from farther down opened. An older Drow wizard stepped through. He looked around the room and spoke, "Another group come to steal what is mine. You've made it farther than most, but you will die as they have. Rest well, and come at me when you are ready." He then stepped back and closed the door.

Finding that this Drow wizard, presumably the Marajah, had reset the trap on the door, the rogue disabled it, went down the next long hallway alone, avoided another trap, disarmed the trap on the next door, and called for the rest of the party. They entered the next room together, and they found a surprise.

Expecting this, they found this instead. He was a Rakshasa, who have the ability to change their appearance. Naturally they are humanoid tigers, and they are exceptionally evil. The room smelled of opium and tobacco. He wore black pants with a purple smoking jacket, and he carried a heavy staff. He was clearly ready for them, and not particularly worried. His first action was to nearly disintegrate Eron, but sadly he failed. The party continued to swarm him, and he continued to blast them with Cone of Cold and other spells. It was the rogue who came through as the most effective warrior. Maharajah Liradak Kovida is very difficult to injure with weapons that are not holy and piercing, but the rogue found he could sneak up on him from behind while the others kept him busy. The battle dragged on, with the party barely squeaking by. Finally the Maharajah realized that he might not win, and the wizard had already prevented him from teleporting away. With that in mind, Liradak realized he needed to kill the rogue if he wanted to live, so he disintegrated him. This time he was successful… except he wasn't. Shortly after that, the rest of the party finally killed the vile creature, and Eron wished upon the ring of two wishes that the disintegrate had missed. The warping of time as known only to Eron as the others saw what happened… the disintegrate missed, and Marchosias had never become dust.

After claiming the Staff of Tiger Blood, a nice ring of freedom of movement, gold, a few potions, and some gold, the party remembered why they were here and started searching. They found a door and found some more chambers. On one side were a dozen beautiful women locked behind bars and wearing silver bracelets. Given that they were scantily clad and there was a bed, there was little doubt as to their purpose. On the other side was a raised dais with a golden chest on it. The rogue began doing his work. He found traps on the dais and the chest, disarmed them, and opened the chest. Inside was a pearl. Marchosias very carefully searched for traps. He checked the lining. He checked the base. He determined there was no other trap, and he grabbed the pearl.

That was when he realized the whole setup was a trap. Or, rather, his friends discovered it was a trap when he turned into dust. Again. Except he didn’t. Again. The wizard wished he had not touched the pearl. The rogue should feel loved.

They then turned back to the caged women. They talked to some of them. One was a priestess of Chauntea. At first it appears Liradek had expensive tastes in women, but then they learned it was another decoy. One woman among them was the Pearl of the Maharajah. She did not know that, though. The silver bracelets all had copper spikes on them. That blocked any magical ability. This Pearl, who was known as Kylona, was taken when she was very young, before she knew who she was. As soon as the bracelets were removed, she knew who she was. She glowed with a hint of silver fire. She was grateful, and she kissed each member of the party deeply. She imbued within them an aspect of the Silver Fire of Mystra. She asked that they use their new powers for improving the world. She then took them to Waterdeep as they asked (and the other women back to where they belong) in the blink of an eye, penetrating the wards against teleporting directly into the city. She then set off on her own task of healing the wild and dead magic regions of the world. She was captured as a child when she was vulnerable, but nothing could hurt her now. She moved as through space as ethereal silver fire.

In Waterdeep, the party sat back and relaxed. No one robbed them. No one came to them needing help. No one bothered them at all… for four days.

Lankyforpot sent them a message that they should go to Myth Drannor as soon as possible. He did not tell them more. The history of Myth Drannor is known by everyone (though perhaps not with exact dates).


The party teleported to the general area outside of Myth Drannor and walked the rest of the way. What they found was rather awful. There was a dark, evil cloud high above the city, dropping some poisonous rain. The elves were sick already. They met with the Coronal, and they eventually learned that an adventuring party had been spotted several days ago in the area of Moander's mound, a small hill underneath which he was buried. Nothing was odd about that until the mound exploded. The dark cloud formed from nasty things coming up from the hole in the ground that is there now. That was the day the party felt the tremor in the world. The elves had sent some Drannor Rangers down into the pit, but they did not come back. The party agreed to go in themselves, which they did the next day. They were met in the morning by the commander of the Drannor Rangers, Delyt Medenixil. Delyt was odd for being a Drow, serving with the elves. There didn't seem to be any question of his loyalty, though. On the way to the pit, passing through the city, many citizens and soldiers had gathered to see who was going in to help them. One elf, though, was surprised to see Marchosias. His name was Creslin Lorta, and he accused Marchosias of killing his brother a few years ago in Waterdeep. He demanded satisfaction, a trial, or something. He was close to losing his sanity. Everyone else was looking at these six as heroes, and one of them killed his brother on the journey here from Evermeet. Finally Creslin agreed to wait for his satisfaction.

Coming to the pit, they found it was over a mile across, and there was a vile stench. Their skin was itchy from the flecks in the air. Their first encounter with some sort of evil trees. The monk and the dark one each killed one of the trees, and because of that they would be haunted by horrible nightmares for many nights. As they journeyed downward, they also discovered they were all susceptible to some sort of disease. The priest was kept very busy healing people as they descended far down below the surface into a warren of smaller tunnels.

They found the bodies of the elven rangers around several dead shambling mounds. The party easily finished off the two shambling mounds that remained, and they journeyed on. Eventually they came to a chamber with a huge stone door in the center. There were some nasty critters standing on the door, so they killed them first before reading the elven script on it. It read "Thirteen hundred forty-five years after the Dales Accord, the blades of the Four sealed the body of the fallen god of corruption. They sacrificed their own lives to ensure the seal would endure. Only their blades together may break the seal."

This chamber contained the clearly blasted and flattened bodies of an adventuring party. It looks like they used magic and force to try to pry open the seal. It must have worked party, but it was the blast that killed them and blew open the hole in the land. Now there was a hairline opening, leaking rot and corruption into the world.

The priest sent a message to Kylona, telling her what happened and asking for help .She responded "Good luck."

Upon returning to Myth Drannor, the party inquired about the Four. They spoke to a wizard who was at the battle. His name was Orsit Salna. He found someone who could heal the rogue and the monk of their nightmares, and then he told them about the four. They were the heroes of the battle, and they presumably sacrificed their lives for victory.

Skeltyonpinter Porell, a gnome. He was a hired guard of a caravan heading from Ashabenford to Hillsfar. When word reached them about the battle, the caravan returned to Ashabenford and he went to Myth Drannor to help. He was the smallest, but definitely the bravest. His sword, cleverly named Skeltysticker, was sent to his home village of Nallink, which was in the mountains just north of Tilver's Gap.

Borguss Rockward, a dwarf.
Gregor Colten, a human.
Vorallin Lasitor, an elf and commander of the Knights of Myth Drannor
(More about these fellows when we come to them)

Eron wanted to try to become a gas and go through the crack in the door. The others realized that if Eron died while they were down there, they would be lost. Instead, they decided (thankfully) to find the four blades, open the gate, and finally destroy whatever remained.

The party teleported to the trail just outside of Nallink and encountered the gnomes. They such a friendly group, all excited to meet strangers. They were building all sorts of things, and they were running a special on triple plows and spatulas. When the situation was explained, they were glad to help. Skeltysticker was in the Great Storage Room of All Awesome Things. Except that it wasn’t. The gnomes Glarpindoris and Yorendollycram finally figured out what must have happened to it. Apparently some years ago the gnomes were trying to build something that would dig tunnels, the Ultrafantastic Automated Tunnel Creator, but one of the connecting rods kept breaking. They may have temporarily borrowed Skeltysticker for testing purposes. The problem was that the test mostly worked, except for a few things. It was designed to dig tunnels up and out of the Underdark, but the gravity sensor was put in upside down. Also, the off switch was in an inaccessible place while it was on. The result was that it just kept digging. They are optimistic it will eventually hit the peanut brittle core of the planet, but until then they have boarded up the wide tunnel to keep the baddies out. It is the 26th day of Flamerule.



Cflacon, had you (a) not urinated on my yard and (b) mastered the art of the subjunctive, I might have kept your title.

On the drive home, the answer became obvious: potions of gaseous form. Finding those will take WAY less time then a bunch of swords! Obviously we should finish getting the sword we are about to, you know, get. So ideally, cast gaseous form on the way in, and on the way out, but if some of us are dead or disabled, the rest can still use the potions.

Anyway, losing a wish when a celestial monkey could have solved the problem was hella weak. No more touching things!

I found the dragonflesh golem piece separation endearing. That was pretty great.

I went back and forth on "I wish the rogue were a slutty pixie" and "I wish the rogue was a slutty pixie". I went with the latter because the normal use of "wish" is very different from the D&D wish, which forms reality. It struck me as more declarative.

As for peeing in your yard, the only thing I regret is that I didn't have more support with the other letters. Stopping midstream from the C to the K, not gonna lie, that wasn't easy.



But anything is possible with determination!

I would like it noted that had the wizard not somehow brought the rogue back after the second disintegration, he would not have gotten his Silver Fire. I would have felt really bad about that.

I'm a little antsy about that solution, as then we'd be mingling with the noxious godly gases seeping out from the seal, which can only end in tears after Mark decides how that will affect us after we return to solid form. I'm all for finding the swords.


I really do appreciate the wasting of two wishes on the lowly rogue. Then again, you all may still be engaged in battle with the Rakshasa had I not been there, so it seems like a fair trade. I was touched by the wizard's defense of my life against Creslin, even though I'd have an easy time with Creslin, toying with him until I've drained his blood through a thousand pinpricks from my two swords. I need to find a way to lure the wizard away from his goody two-shoes Good alignment, and more toward the side that he was born to be on.

You're only saying that because (A) Clearly the only barrier keeping in some divine power is the actual physical stone (B) If some part of divine power can cross the barrier in a one way direction, clearly gassy 11th level characters can go the other way (C) Ending this campaign would allow me to work on my book and (D) I enjoy fucking with you.


If you recall, near the end of the previous campaign someone challenged Kaliq's right to the throne. The guy was very pompous and was willing to fight Kaliq because he failed to realize there was roughly a 12 level difference between the two. Don't assume a warrior returning from Evermeet to help establish the ancient kingdom of the elves and fight back the Drow is an easy fight. I'm not saying you won't win, just don't assume anything.

It'a always tough to differentiate between acting in character and acting as ME on the forum. The comment was supposed to be more Marchosias and less me. His pomposity tries to offset the fact that he's just a rogue who relies on tactics other than Signy-esque ass-kicking to solve his problems. I'm still formulating some scoundrel-y plans as to how I'm actually going to win this fight.

BUT LOOK OUT, THAT'S NO NORMAL SMALL CASTLE!!



I was a huge fan of the giant castle with nothing at all in it. Though, we should have stolen a chair. Hell, maybe a chair would have provide partial cover versus a ray...



What was hilarious was that, on round 1, they just slither-rattled over and began grappling the rogue. It's like, welcome to midlevel combat, you start this fight in the mouth of a huge bronze serpent!



Strictly speaking, we cuddled back our spells. The serpents were a good fight, I thought. I also got to fireball the monk! Of course he took no damage.



See, I already hated him, and I was asleep for this part.



The surprise was that we need some recurring ability to see through doors or something.




http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/rakshasa.htm

These guys are a decent bit less threatening than under 2nd edition, but they remain very cool. They are natural sorcerors, starting with 7th level spells and advancing from there (they essentially have a level adjustment of +0, which is probably reasonably wrong!).





It occurred to me that I basically took everything he was wearing in any fashion whatsoever, put it on my body, and walked away.



Healthy Wizard. Good grief, I'd be dead a thousand times if I was a nimble, frailer fellow. Though a natural 14 should have saved :P



Cone of Cold rapidly became a geometry puzzle that we weren't very good at.



His rolls would be like 2 3 5 6 6 6.



Obviously you are supposed to have the blessed crossbow bolt. But it occurred to me that a paladin with a rapier could also work.



Mostly this was due to the ring of free action, which prevented us from quickly shutting him up. It would have also helped if any of my offensive rolls were worth shit except for the three rolls I needed to land to actually get the dim anchor on him. It all turned out for the best, however, as I have that ring now, and can probably skimp on some of my "escape from a grapple" spells.



Specifically I tried to save that for the exact round he would realize that, because I didn't have any memorized and he had shrugged off the one from the priest. Alacritous Cogitation saves the day again, however, by becoming a Dimensional Anchor. Roll concealment, roll to hit touch AC something not too bad, and of course, roll spell resistance.

The monk got frustrated very early because his whole trick is a bunch of decently powerful attacks, instead of just one or two big ones.

But MAN if we had had a scroll of some priest buff that aligns weapons. Signy would have chewed this guy up with his piercing chain.



Everyone loves potions!



This guy, by the way, is probably the foulest villain we've come across yet. I mean, he was technically a child molester on top of being a slaver.



It should be assumed that Eron said hello to his family.




I need a conjured umbrella. I think I should get some Minor and Major Creations for the next time it's raining.



This is pretty damned interesting, I'll be honest. This is not a hook I expected.



Our killing blow sheet made quick work of this mystery! Also note that we got the sweetheart deal on limited wish- he blew 300 XP on making our dudes better.

And those trees are seriously scary.



See, if we were all warforged, this would never happen!



It is 100% the correct call to grab potions. Give us a reason in game not to try this- the payout of a shortcut is, as you said, a lot of elves won't die. Our characters have our gut feelings to say, don't do this, and that's it. Gut feelings versus hundreds of innocent lives?



Totally gonna give the spife to Daphne. Every little sister needs a spoon that you have to SUPER careful with, and is ideal for cutting oval shaped pieces of meat.



Your gnome names continue to be good. Hey, have you seen 4th edition gnomes? I would link you to an image, like the one in the 4.0PHB2, but I can't find one. Google images DOES return this however, when you search for D&D gnome:
http://www.white-wolf.com/Retail/Retail ... rceror.jpg

Anyway, the point is, they look like tiny little lithe fey. Basically they were like, well, we can have gnomes, I guess, as long as they are nothing at all like a gnome.



I'm going to really enjoy picking out spells for this one.


I'd like to end with this:
http://partiallyclips.com/2010/02/16/front-desk/

EDIT: Disabling smilies, because it thinks that :P is an open mouth ecstatic fellow, instead of a fucking tongue sticking out. RRrrr. A rant for another day.

You forgot one of my d6s. I was rolling seven of them on each backstab, 4 for the backstab, one for physical damage, one for fire, and one for ice. Truth be told, I might've been more effective than Signy with a Bless Weapon. On the other hand, Marchosias wielding a blessed weapon is a hilarious thought.

Because "crossing through cracks in stone" is not at all the same thing as "crossing weakened barriers of high elven magic forged by the sacrifice of heroes of four good races." You're looking at it like it's merely a physical barrier and that it is slightly open, which explains why tiny little bits are coming through. Try instead considering that it is one hell of a motherfucking magical barrier that, with the aid of some rather foolish adventurers, the divine spark of a powerful fallen god has managed to shove tiny little bits of evil through.

Also consider the risks of taking gaseous form in a place with tiny little magical disease-ridden motes of evil divine magic. I'm sure that wouldn't end in tears.



ROFL.

For all of its smack talk, Signy was not a fan of the tigress' constant running away.

Freaking Sally... "I am so powerful! Hey, wait a tick! These guys can actually lay out some hurt! Ima kite you, Bitches!"

I was a bit frustrated and felt pretty worthless in that fight. The absolute best damage Sunny can do in one hit is 16 so with a damage reduction of 15 per hit it kind of becomes silly. I did hit him once with that bolt for 12 though. Then spent the rest of the time cranking the damn crossbow while you guys whittled him down. I was proud though of my little nimble guy that he took no damage in that fight either. Hurrah for improved evasion and an awesome reflex save.

Well, yeah. You can't always be the most effective. You do pretty well for yourself.


Also, no caster would be stupid enough to let high level, hasted fighters get a full round attack on them. Of course, they wouldn't be stupid enough to forget they know how to tumble either.

Obviously, which is what makes them cowards.

I am really glad as a player that you forgot about tumble. That with the silly freedom of movement ring, would have made for an even more frustrating fight, and Signy probably would have been out another heal potion.

And the smiley selection really sucks in here

The smiley selection is really weird because it will *recognize* some things as smileys that it doesn't have, then put that smiley down in place of the legit one. Dude, don't try! You aren't gonna get it right. Forum knows less smileys than Roxie, whose pinnacle of intellect thus far was finding a way to devour a drumstick and a wing last night while I was asleep. Will it kill her? NO ONE KNOWS

Anyway, on the smiley list, we have . I think this guy looks like he's flat out about to produce one of those alien-stomach things.
There's also two smileys that are just hanging out near the end. When are you like, I *must* have small glasses smiley? WHEW good thing is there too support you, grats! But, will he be able to get into the good graces of ? He'll need a more oval head, less approval, and a goatee. Could be tough! Come back next time, on days of our smileys, when and discover the horrific work of the serial face mutilator, and confront the dead bodies piled in the back- who were and before they were horribly disfigured? And will everyone come to the conclusion that did it because he is the only green one 'round these here parts?