Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Aphonion Tales: Ravenskrag and the Shadowline, a preteen D&D game (lightly edited notes, COMPLETED on 1/20/23)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="CPaladin" data-source="post: 8908727" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>Session 55 (November 20, 2022)</p><p></p><p>21 Chund (cont'd)</p><p>The group leaves the prison cell, traveling south perhaps 40 feet, and then turning west in the hope of then going north again. As hoped, the corridor hooks north almost immediately, and then comes to aan end with a door to the west. It is a stone door, a sliding door made of the same stone as the walls. It is locked, or at least does not move when pushed on.</p><p></p><p>They wait and listen at the door, and then at the back of the group, they hear, "what have we here? A dwarf, elves, and humans. You there. Short-stuff. Who are you?"</p><p></p><p>"Runor."</p><p></p><p>"A good name to conjure with."</p><p></p><p>"Spelled exactly how it's spelled."</p><p></p><p>"What are you doing here?"</p><p></p><p>"A better question is what you are doing here?"</p><p></p><p>"We are mercenaries, being paid a great deal to be here."</p><p></p><p>Runor turns around to see who has been addressing him from over his shoulder. He sees three large floating fleshy globes with masses of tentacles hanging down from underneath their bodies.</p><p></p><p>Merreep asks, "If you're mercenaries, who do you work for?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, this high priest fellow, the one who's trying to sacrifice everything to gain control of something that won't be affected by sacrifices, not that we tell him that."</p><p></p><p>One of the others says, "You would think that after sacrificing fifty he would realize it was futile."</p><p></p><p>"I'm not sure it's entirely futile--one of the great elven matrices might be corrupted by enough sacrifices of lesser beings," the biggest one says. "However, I am almost sure my contract says that we are to kill and eat you. The eating part is particularly distressing."</p><p></p><p>Runor nods. "Dwarves are stringy."</p><p></p><p>"You understand what I'm saying! And elves have that unpleasant ancient blood. So the question is: what might you be able to do to persuade us to not kill you and eat you?"</p><p></p><p>Ulgorio says, "How about 250 of those platinum coins?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, for 250 platinum we could avoid you for 30 minutes, and tell you what's behind the door."</p><p></p><p>"Could you tell us how to get to the matrix room?"</p><p></p><p>"Ah, you are not sacrifices, but come to rescue it. For 250 platinum, yes, we could do that."</p><p></p><p>"Can you also tell us how to deal with threats on the way out?"</p><p></p><p>"You could not possibly be foolish enough to come out the way you came in. You will take the apportation pad in the chamber if you rescue it. We can explain how to find that as well."</p><p></p><p>"How can we trust you if we hand over the money?"</p><p></p><p>"Lord Paranswarm would not approve if we broke our word to a priest of the Light. Lord Paranswarm is after all a God of Law."</p><p></p><p>After some discussion, they hand over the bag of platinum, though Runor is concerned that it may not actually be 250 pp--in fact, it is only 150 pp. Fortunately, the mercenary flumphs do not count it at all.</p><p></p><p>"Beyond this door, there is an empty room. First, you must find and open the secret door in the north wall. Then travel along the corridor, ignoring the side passages, until it ends at a large chamber. That room has a fire spray trap in it that covers most of the room, though not the very westernmost section. There is an exit to the west, but you do not want to take that. You must exit to the north. After that, ..." The creatures continue explaining the path to the matrix room for a long time, as well as drawing a map for them to see how they will need to go.</p><p></p><p>"Aleep will feel very bad if we leave behind the giant friends by teleporting out, but there may be no choice."</p><p></p><p>"We did make a promise to them," Runor says. "But we might be able to come back for them or something."</p><p></p><p>With the briefing done, the creatures float away, promising the group half an hour in peace to seek the matrix room.</p><p></p><p>After Runor bangs on the door for a while with his hammer, something snaps, and it slides open. The room is empty except for a dais in front of a banner with a seven pointed star in the southwest corner and a dragon statue in the north.</p><p></p><p>"Aleep wonders if dragon statue is key to open secret door." He begins to fiddle with the dragon statue, and it starts to glow very slightly. Merreep approaches it, and it starts to glow slightly more.</p><p></p><p>Runor notes that there are marks on the floor where it has been shoved to the west. Ulgorio believes that it is glowing because it is psionically active, and likely attuned to elves. He thinks there is a passphrase in Elven.</p><p></p><p>Aleep suggests that they look for whether that is written somewhere in the room. Ulgorio looks around, and finds a glowing sentence written beneath the elven banner. Merreep reads it aloud, in Elven, and the dragon rolls aside, revealing an opening. It said, in translation, "For the defense of the border, open the way."</p><p></p><p>They come to the next room which is where they expect the fire spray trap. They get burned, some for 10, and some for 21.</p><p></p><p>Ulgorio calls out to the door on the north wall to ask it to open. It warns them that there is danger ahead, and then says "Kill them." The door slides open. They can see two clay statues, one a vrock, one something they do not recognize, that start moving. The group rushes across as fast as they can, and exits north while the statues say "Halt. Intruders." The group exits before the statues can reach them. They can hear behind them "Intruders missing. Reset."</p><p></p><p>They enter a room with a crystal altar, with runes on it in elven. It glows slightly. Scattered in front of it are bones, adamantine armor and weapons, and the skeleton of a yuan-ti abomination. The altar is on the east wall. They were warned that none dare touch the altar, and that those who read the runes are cursed to laugh continuously until they die, so they stay well clear of it. They take a short rest to heal up, huddling on the west wall. The door out on the west slides up, which they have not seen before.</p><p></p><p><<What do you seek?>> transmits the door.</p><p></p><p>"The Matrix?" says Runor. "But for the people who made it, not the ones who try to steal it."</p><p></p><p><<Your purposes are pure. Present your blood.>></p><p></p><p>"Is there an opt out?" asks Runor. "I'd rather give you my blood at a later time."</p><p></p><p><<How do we know that you're not one of the invaders? I must see that it is red. We remember.>></p><p></p><p>"What other color would blood be?"</p><p></p><p><<A clear yellow.>></p><p></p><p>"Oh, yeah, that's very weird."</p><p></p><p><<That's true, but we remember.>></p><p></p><p>They each prick a finger and show that they bleed red.</p><p></p><p><<Good luck, my children. We will wait for you.>></p><p></p><p>"We're actually going to go a different way, so we won't be back," says Runor.</p><p></p><p><<Yes, you will go a different way, but we will go with you.>></p><p></p><p>"Ah, that's why the enemy can't compel this one at all," says Aleep. "It's controlled directly by the Matrix--it's really part of the Matrix."</p><p></p><p>The door slides up, and they see a yuan-ti abomination--a huge snake like creature, with arms like a humanoid's-- in the next room, reclining and reading a book. It moves to attack and they rush it.</p><p></p><p>Bartix strikes it for 6 damage. Ulgorio stabs it with his rapier, doing 4 damage. Merreep hits it with her bow, after Hunter's Marking it, dealing 14 damage and 11 damage.</p><p></p><p>The abomination unleashes two scimitar strikes at Bartix and a poison spit at Merreep. Both scimitar strikes miss, but the poison spray hits Merreep and does 27 points of poison damage. "Intruders! Enemies! Die!"</p><p></p><p>Aleep casts Scorching Ray, missing with two bolts and doing 7 points of fire damage with the third.</p><p></p><p>Runor casts Guardian of Faith, placing it directly in front of it.</p><p></p><p>Ashaltir smites it for 17 points of damage.</p><p></p><p>Bartix hits it for 9. Ulgorio misses.</p><p></p><p>Merreep shoots it for 10 and 12. The abomination is now bloodied.</p><p></p><p>The abomination moves forward into the Guardian of Faith, dodging and taking 10 radiant damage. It lashes with two scimitars at Ashaltir, dealing 16 + 12 points of poison, and then spitting at Merreep, dealing 20 points more of poison.</p><p></p><p>Aleep casts magic missile, dealing 13 points of damage.</p><p></p><p>Runor unleashes a 14d6 lightning bolt at it from the crystal greatsword, inflicting 43 points of damage.</p><p></p><p>Ashaltir swings and misses.</p><p></p><p>Bartix hits it again with his longsword, dealing 8 damage. Ulgorio stabs it for 4 damage.</p><p></p><p>Merreep shoots it again, for 12 damage and 9 damage, and then runs around behind it and away.</p><p></p><p>The yuan-ti casts a cone of fear on Aleep, Ashaltir, and Runor. Aleep makes the DC 15 save, Ashaltir fails, and Runor saves. Ashaltir flees in terror, running out of the room and continuing to run. She is almost certainly killed by the clay golemim.</p><p></p><p>They all hear in their mind, <<Master, I've failed you. Come quickly.>></p><p></p><p>Aleep casts a magic missile, dealing 11 points of damage.</p><p></p><p>Runor stabs it with the greatsword, inflicting 16 damage to a creature with 1 hp left.</p><p></p><p>The group dashes through the room, though Aleep grabs the book it was reading.</p><p></p><p>They run through the north door, and push into the matrix room. Aleep readies a fireball to cast as soon as the door to the room opens. Aleep deals 29 damage to the two pureblood yuan-ti, killing them both, and dealing 14 to the yuan-ti priest.</p><p></p><p>As the priest turns towards them in surprise, they see that he has a variety of torture implements, and is standing just in front of a stone sacrificial altar. The yuan-ti really can't see beyond their own construct, so they are sacrificing things to the matrix.</p><p></p><p>They also see a panel set with a large set of crystals, all of which glow softly, to the north, and a line around that at a distance of ten feet with various bones just inside the line including yuan-ti pure-blood bones.</p><p></p><p>Bartix dashes in and attacks it with his sword, dealing 4 damage, and again for 7 damage. Ulgorio rolls a crit, and deals 9 damage. Merreep shoots it with her bow, killing the priest next to its two pureblood servants. The matrix begins flashing with excitement, while red light begins flashing in the air. Merreep slides the whole matrix into the matrix carrier from the Noldor. It glows happily. Meanwhile, the rest of the group smashes through the bricked up doorway to the north. They dash forward and see an apportation pad, like the ones they have seen before, glowing with power.</p><p></p><p>They look at a map of nodes on a teleport network. The map and labels are different from the previous network they've used, although "The City" and "The Overlook" appear on both. They decide to open a portal to "The City." Just as they ask the Matrix to open a portal to the City, the flashing red glow behind them flashes to solid red light, and they can hear footsteps behind them as they teleport out.</p><p></p><p>They reappear in the sand-blown city that they refer to as The Faraway. A guard in armor leaps to his feet in shock, and then recognizes the party. "We've guarded this space were the portal once was for very long time, and now you have come through it. We did not know if anyone would ever use it again--if anyone even could use it again."</p><p></p><p>The Matrix's voice softly says in everyone's mind, "Some of our people survive."</p><p></p><p>They all know that they have triumphed in their quest. With the Matrix, the Faraway will be able to push back the Shadow far enough to allow a connection to the sea, opening a sea route between the other lands of Zest'qua and the Faraway for the first time since the Shadow came. Yet their hearts are heavy. Merreep sits down, cradling her head in her hands, as she accepts that Ashaltir--her sister--is dead and abandoned. Aleep is thinking of the people they promised to bring with them--the people they promised to help escape--who are now left behind. Perhaps some of them will still be able to escape--all hell will break loose in the tower, with the forces of Banahog mounting a full-scale assault while the yuan-ti are disorganized, weakened, and struggling to figure out what has happened. The tower will surely soon be filled with corpses of both froglocks and yuan-ti.</p><p></p><p>Aleep thinks about the danger that would be involved in traveling back to try to recover Ashaltir's body and rescue the allies they promised to bring out with them. They might succeed--by then, the tower might be abandoned completely now that the great prize is gone. But the attempt would also be extremely hazardous, and their allies might all be like Ashaltir. There's no guarantee even the bodies would be recoverable.</p><p></p><p>Aleep holds his hand out, with the ring of limited wishes and says "Aleep wishes that the people Aleep's friends promised to bring out of Shadow and Ashaltir, whether they are alive or dead, appear here immediately by teleportation." He knows that the wish is beyond the power of a limited wish--the mass teleport spell itself is beyond the power of a limited wish, and this is a more powerful effect than a mass teleport. But despite that, Aleep believes that he must try. The ring glows, and then shakes, and then with a flash the room and some of the surrounding rooms are filled with everyone they promised to bring back. Ashaltir's crushed body lies on the floor at Merreep's feet, and Runor immediately begins making preparations to raise Ashaltir. And all three pearls on the ring crumble to dust, followed immediately by the ring itself.</p><p></p><p>[Here ends the adventures of this doughty group of heroes. We presume they continue exploring the network of teleport points, and that they may eventually try to take on the vampire lord, but that will not happen on screen. The players of Ulgorio and Bartix had decided to move on from this group, and so we wrapped up the campaign here, at a satisfying stopping point with the accomplishment of a major goal. The characters just hit 9th level with the XP from this session.</p><p></p><p>We may return to them at some point in the future, more likely for one-offs than for sustained campaigns, but we'll see. In the meantime, the players of Merreep and Runor, along with me playing a different quasi-PC/quasi-NPC, have begun a new campaign with some new players and the same DM, on a different continent of the world. I'll start that storyhour next week, and I'll drop a link in this thread.]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8908727, member: 7030144"] Session 55 (November 20, 2022) 21 Chund (cont'd) The group leaves the prison cell, traveling south perhaps 40 feet, and then turning west in the hope of then going north again. As hoped, the corridor hooks north almost immediately, and then comes to aan end with a door to the west. It is a stone door, a sliding door made of the same stone as the walls. It is locked, or at least does not move when pushed on. They wait and listen at the door, and then at the back of the group, they hear, "what have we here? A dwarf, elves, and humans. You there. Short-stuff. Who are you?" "Runor." "A good name to conjure with." "Spelled exactly how it's spelled." "What are you doing here?" "A better question is what you are doing here?" "We are mercenaries, being paid a great deal to be here." Runor turns around to see who has been addressing him from over his shoulder. He sees three large floating fleshy globes with masses of tentacles hanging down from underneath their bodies. Merreep asks, "If you're mercenaries, who do you work for?" "Oh, this high priest fellow, the one who's trying to sacrifice everything to gain control of something that won't be affected by sacrifices, not that we tell him that." One of the others says, "You would think that after sacrificing fifty he would realize it was futile." "I'm not sure it's entirely futile--one of the great elven matrices might be corrupted by enough sacrifices of lesser beings," the biggest one says. "However, I am almost sure my contract says that we are to kill and eat you. The eating part is particularly distressing." Runor nods. "Dwarves are stringy." "You understand what I'm saying! And elves have that unpleasant ancient blood. So the question is: what might you be able to do to persuade us to not kill you and eat you?" Ulgorio says, "How about 250 of those platinum coins?" "Yes, for 250 platinum we could avoid you for 30 minutes, and tell you what's behind the door." "Could you tell us how to get to the matrix room?" "Ah, you are not sacrifices, but come to rescue it. For 250 platinum, yes, we could do that." "Can you also tell us how to deal with threats on the way out?" "You could not possibly be foolish enough to come out the way you came in. You will take the apportation pad in the chamber if you rescue it. We can explain how to find that as well." "How can we trust you if we hand over the money?" "Lord Paranswarm would not approve if we broke our word to a priest of the Light. Lord Paranswarm is after all a God of Law." After some discussion, they hand over the bag of platinum, though Runor is concerned that it may not actually be 250 pp--in fact, it is only 150 pp. Fortunately, the mercenary flumphs do not count it at all. "Beyond this door, there is an empty room. First, you must find and open the secret door in the north wall. Then travel along the corridor, ignoring the side passages, until it ends at a large chamber. That room has a fire spray trap in it that covers most of the room, though not the very westernmost section. There is an exit to the west, but you do not want to take that. You must exit to the north. After that, ..." The creatures continue explaining the path to the matrix room for a long time, as well as drawing a map for them to see how they will need to go. "Aleep will feel very bad if we leave behind the giant friends by teleporting out, but there may be no choice." "We did make a promise to them," Runor says. "But we might be able to come back for them or something." With the briefing done, the creatures float away, promising the group half an hour in peace to seek the matrix room. After Runor bangs on the door for a while with his hammer, something snaps, and it slides open. The room is empty except for a dais in front of a banner with a seven pointed star in the southwest corner and a dragon statue in the north. "Aleep wonders if dragon statue is key to open secret door." He begins to fiddle with the dragon statue, and it starts to glow very slightly. Merreep approaches it, and it starts to glow slightly more. Runor notes that there are marks on the floor where it has been shoved to the west. Ulgorio believes that it is glowing because it is psionically active, and likely attuned to elves. He thinks there is a passphrase in Elven. Aleep suggests that they look for whether that is written somewhere in the room. Ulgorio looks around, and finds a glowing sentence written beneath the elven banner. Merreep reads it aloud, in Elven, and the dragon rolls aside, revealing an opening. It said, in translation, "For the defense of the border, open the way." They come to the next room which is where they expect the fire spray trap. They get burned, some for 10, and some for 21. Ulgorio calls out to the door on the north wall to ask it to open. It warns them that there is danger ahead, and then says "Kill them." The door slides open. They can see two clay statues, one a vrock, one something they do not recognize, that start moving. The group rushes across as fast as they can, and exits north while the statues say "Halt. Intruders." The group exits before the statues can reach them. They can hear behind them "Intruders missing. Reset." They enter a room with a crystal altar, with runes on it in elven. It glows slightly. Scattered in front of it are bones, adamantine armor and weapons, and the skeleton of a yuan-ti abomination. The altar is on the east wall. They were warned that none dare touch the altar, and that those who read the runes are cursed to laugh continuously until they die, so they stay well clear of it. They take a short rest to heal up, huddling on the west wall. The door out on the west slides up, which they have not seen before. <<What do you seek?>> transmits the door. "The Matrix?" says Runor. "But for the people who made it, not the ones who try to steal it." <<Your purposes are pure. Present your blood.>> "Is there an opt out?" asks Runor. "I'd rather give you my blood at a later time." <<How do we know that you're not one of the invaders? I must see that it is red. We remember.>> "What other color would blood be?" <<A clear yellow.>> "Oh, yeah, that's very weird." <<That's true, but we remember.>> They each prick a finger and show that they bleed red. <<Good luck, my children. We will wait for you.>> "We're actually going to go a different way, so we won't be back," says Runor. <<Yes, you will go a different way, but we will go with you.>> "Ah, that's why the enemy can't compel this one at all," says Aleep. "It's controlled directly by the Matrix--it's really part of the Matrix." The door slides up, and they see a yuan-ti abomination--a huge snake like creature, with arms like a humanoid's-- in the next room, reclining and reading a book. It moves to attack and they rush it. Bartix strikes it for 6 damage. Ulgorio stabs it with his rapier, doing 4 damage. Merreep hits it with her bow, after Hunter's Marking it, dealing 14 damage and 11 damage. The abomination unleashes two scimitar strikes at Bartix and a poison spit at Merreep. Both scimitar strikes miss, but the poison spray hits Merreep and does 27 points of poison damage. "Intruders! Enemies! Die!" Aleep casts Scorching Ray, missing with two bolts and doing 7 points of fire damage with the third. Runor casts Guardian of Faith, placing it directly in front of it. Ashaltir smites it for 17 points of damage. Bartix hits it for 9. Ulgorio misses. Merreep shoots it for 10 and 12. The abomination is now bloodied. The abomination moves forward into the Guardian of Faith, dodging and taking 10 radiant damage. It lashes with two scimitars at Ashaltir, dealing 16 + 12 points of poison, and then spitting at Merreep, dealing 20 points more of poison. Aleep casts magic missile, dealing 13 points of damage. Runor unleashes a 14d6 lightning bolt at it from the crystal greatsword, inflicting 43 points of damage. Ashaltir swings and misses. Bartix hits it again with his longsword, dealing 8 damage. Ulgorio stabs it for 4 damage. Merreep shoots it again, for 12 damage and 9 damage, and then runs around behind it and away. The yuan-ti casts a cone of fear on Aleep, Ashaltir, and Runor. Aleep makes the DC 15 save, Ashaltir fails, and Runor saves. Ashaltir flees in terror, running out of the room and continuing to run. She is almost certainly killed by the clay golemim. They all hear in their mind, <<Master, I've failed you. Come quickly.>> Aleep casts a magic missile, dealing 11 points of damage. Runor stabs it with the greatsword, inflicting 16 damage to a creature with 1 hp left. The group dashes through the room, though Aleep grabs the book it was reading. They run through the north door, and push into the matrix room. Aleep readies a fireball to cast as soon as the door to the room opens. Aleep deals 29 damage to the two pureblood yuan-ti, killing them both, and dealing 14 to the yuan-ti priest. As the priest turns towards them in surprise, they see that he has a variety of torture implements, and is standing just in front of a stone sacrificial altar. The yuan-ti really can't see beyond their own construct, so they are sacrificing things to the matrix. They also see a panel set with a large set of crystals, all of which glow softly, to the north, and a line around that at a distance of ten feet with various bones just inside the line including yuan-ti pure-blood bones. Bartix dashes in and attacks it with his sword, dealing 4 damage, and again for 7 damage. Ulgorio rolls a crit, and deals 9 damage. Merreep shoots it with her bow, killing the priest next to its two pureblood servants. The matrix begins flashing with excitement, while red light begins flashing in the air. Merreep slides the whole matrix into the matrix carrier from the Noldor. It glows happily. Meanwhile, the rest of the group smashes through the bricked up doorway to the north. They dash forward and see an apportation pad, like the ones they have seen before, glowing with power. They look at a map of nodes on a teleport network. The map and labels are different from the previous network they've used, although "The City" and "The Overlook" appear on both. They decide to open a portal to "The City." Just as they ask the Matrix to open a portal to the City, the flashing red glow behind them flashes to solid red light, and they can hear footsteps behind them as they teleport out. They reappear in the sand-blown city that they refer to as The Faraway. A guard in armor leaps to his feet in shock, and then recognizes the party. "We've guarded this space were the portal once was for very long time, and now you have come through it. We did not know if anyone would ever use it again--if anyone even could use it again." The Matrix's voice softly says in everyone's mind, "Some of our people survive." They all know that they have triumphed in their quest. With the Matrix, the Faraway will be able to push back the Shadow far enough to allow a connection to the sea, opening a sea route between the other lands of Zest'qua and the Faraway for the first time since the Shadow came. Yet their hearts are heavy. Merreep sits down, cradling her head in her hands, as she accepts that Ashaltir--her sister--is dead and abandoned. Aleep is thinking of the people they promised to bring with them--the people they promised to help escape--who are now left behind. Perhaps some of them will still be able to escape--all hell will break loose in the tower, with the forces of Banahog mounting a full-scale assault while the yuan-ti are disorganized, weakened, and struggling to figure out what has happened. The tower will surely soon be filled with corpses of both froglocks and yuan-ti. Aleep thinks about the danger that would be involved in traveling back to try to recover Ashaltir's body and rescue the allies they promised to bring out with them. They might succeed--by then, the tower might be abandoned completely now that the great prize is gone. But the attempt would also be extremely hazardous, and their allies might all be like Ashaltir. There's no guarantee even the bodies would be recoverable. Aleep holds his hand out, with the ring of limited wishes and says "Aleep wishes that the people Aleep's friends promised to bring out of Shadow and Ashaltir, whether they are alive or dead, appear here immediately by teleportation." He knows that the wish is beyond the power of a limited wish--the mass teleport spell itself is beyond the power of a limited wish, and this is a more powerful effect than a mass teleport. But despite that, Aleep believes that he must try. The ring glows, and then shakes, and then with a flash the room and some of the surrounding rooms are filled with everyone they promised to bring back. Ashaltir's crushed body lies on the floor at Merreep's feet, and Runor immediately begins making preparations to raise Ashaltir. And all three pearls on the ring crumble to dust, followed immediately by the ring itself. [Here ends the adventures of this doughty group of heroes. We presume they continue exploring the network of teleport points, and that they may eventually try to take on the vampire lord, but that will not happen on screen. The players of Ulgorio and Bartix had decided to move on from this group, and so we wrapped up the campaign here, at a satisfying stopping point with the accomplishment of a major goal. The characters just hit 9th level with the XP from this session. We may return to them at some point in the future, more likely for one-offs than for sustained campaigns, but we'll see. In the meantime, the players of Merreep and Runor, along with me playing a different quasi-PC/quasi-NPC, have begun a new campaign with some new players and the same DM, on a different continent of the world. I'll start that storyhour next week, and I'll drop a link in this thread.] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Aphonion Tales: Ravenskrag and the Shadowline, a preteen D&D game (lightly edited notes, COMPLETED on 1/20/23)
Top