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From humbug Wed May 5 22:05:36 1999
From: humbug
Subject: longer still.
Newsgroups: redbrick.rpg.board
Organization:
Summary:
Keywords:
User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980202 (UNIX) (SunOS/5.7 (i86pc))
Status: RO
Content-Length: 13535
Lines: 243
Okay, here goes.
In combat with strange black-fire guys, not injuring them.
Slate decides it might be a good idea to try to attack with the golden
weapons. Jonas opts to back off, and Nickos elects to cast 'grease' on
the bad guys weapons again. Gandu remains at the back.
Slate successfully grabs the dirk from the ground this round,
but doesn't manage an attack. Nickos' spell is successful, but does not
appear to affect the baddies. Jonas steps back, just as the column of
black fire falls to the ground in the place he was standing, Thrombus'
broken body is deposited on the ground. In the next round Gandu moves
Eltric's body out of the fray, Jonas moves to get Thrombus' sword, but
finds his dead fingers wrapped tightly around it, and Slate attacks with
the golden dirk. The bad guys are backing off for some unknown reason at
this stage, Slate scores a hit in any case, and at the start of the
next round, the bad guys have moved back into the pyramid.
Retreat seems like a good idea at this point. Slate picks up
Thrombus' body, and marches off into the jungle on his own. Jonas, Gandu
and Nickos carry Eltrics body and follow after Slate. Soon Slate is out
of sight, so Nickos runs ahead to point him in the correct direction.
A safe distance from the pyramid later, the party stops to rest.
None of the conscious party members know anything about healing, but to
the layman it looks like Thrombus is in bits, and Eltric might be okay.
During Slate's guard turn that night, he wakes the party to report
that he has sighted one of the bat-like bird creatures, the servants of
the Broken People. Not too concerned, the party remains where they are.
Early that morning, Eltric and Thrombus still unconscious or dead,
a small creature is spotted in the trees. It glides out of the forest,
and lands beside the party. Nickos offers it some berries, but when it
goes near the bodies of Eltric and Thrombus, Slate delivers it a stout
kick.
The creature replies to the kick by complaining, and pointing
out that it was only trying to help the wounded people. Realising that
the creature is intelligent, it is given permission to examine the bodies.
The creature reports that Eltric is unconcious, and should wake in a
while, and that Thrombus is dead.
While the party waits for Eltric to regain consciousness, more
is learned about the small creature. It is a little purple critter, but
its back appears to blend into the forest when it turns around. It has
small claws, and its name is Greebo. Like the party it has accidentally
landed in the jungle through magic, and is trying to get home. Greebo
seems to know a bit about the teleporty magic too. It is genderless too,
but that isn't discussed in detail, because, from out of the jungle
come six zombie like creatures looking intent on killing.
Combat ensues, and the zombie creatures need to take quite
a hammering before they go down. Greebo uses 'burning hands' twice
during the fight to good effect. Jonas takes quite a beating, but
remains standing, and Gandu lands some good blows for a mage. Eltric is
conscious during the fight, but only really manages to roll on the ground.
After the fight Eltric heals Meow and Jonas, and at Slate's insistance the
party move from the scence of combat, hampered by Eltrics post 'being
consumed by black fire' weakness. After a few short miles Eltric collapes
and the party rests for the night.
Little ground is made over the next couple of days, as Eltric is
extremely weak. A couple of days later the party is set upon by another
band of zombies, apparently led by one of the broken people themselves.
The zombies move in to attack, and each of Gandu, Eltric and
Jonas are engaged in combat by one of them. Slate is also attacked by
a zombie, but finds himself being hit by 'magic missiles' as cast by the
'Broken One' standing at the back. Nickos and Greebo and free to take
action. Nickos moves to aid Gandu in combat, and Greebo climbs a nearby
tree. In the next round, Slate is hit by more magic missiles, and the
damage is beginning to take it's toll. Jonas dispatches his opponent
and charges for the magic user. Eltric and Gandu are down to
attacking one zombie at this point too, so Nickos heads for the mage
too.
At the beginning of the next round, opponent dead, Slate
charges for the magic user, and at the same time Greebo leaps
heroically out of his tree towards the magic user also. The 'Broken One'
is heard to chant, and two magic missiles surge forth from his hands,
the first catches Slate mid charge and sends him to the ground. The
second hits Greebo in mid-air, and he falls to the ground looking in a
mess.
Before Nickos and Jonas reach the 'Broken One' he has cast yet
another spell, 'light', but it is miscast, and instead of blinding
Jonas, it just causes Slate's body to harmlessly glow.
Eltric and Gandu in the meantime have finished off their zombie, and
Eltric is heading for the wounded, and Gandu heading to attack the
mage from the rear. As Jonas reaches the mage, the mage takes out a
small gem, utters a phrase, and suddenly there are two of him. Gandu
spots that he is now heading for two enemies and stops, deciding to use
a spell to invoke a wild surge, and hopefully cast 'magic missile' in
the next round.
As the next round begins Nickos casts 'grease' beneath the now
two mages, one falls, the other saves, and moves from the greased area.
Next Gandu begins his spellcasting, and disappears. That's wild magic
for you. The standing mage now casts another spell, and also disappears,
leaving Jonas swinging into empty air. In the next round Nickos is
hampered in his attack by his own grease spell, and so cancels it, and
Greebo and Slate are back on their feet, thanks to Eltric, ready to
attack. As Jonas and Slate head for the remaining mage he casts a spell
and a large ball of rolling fire blocks their path, Jonas takes damage,
Nickos and Slate save, and Nickos and Greebo head round the trees to
attack the mage from the rear.
The mage is pretty much surrounded at this point, and after
taking a little damage is ironically killed by his own spell as he
rolls it back and forth past himself trying to hurt the party.
As the party searches the mage's body, Gandu speaks and reveals that
he is not gone, just invisible. The body contains some spell components,
a clear gem, and a blank book. (It is later learned that the duplication
process doesn't work on magic, and hence the duplicate of a magic gem
is piece of cut glass, and the duplicate of a spell book, a book of
blank pages.)
Licking their wounds, the party heads onwards. Eltric is still
far from being at full health, and the progress is slow. Two strange
denizens of the river are sighted as the group presses on, the first
being some sort of wispy-ghost boat, which ignores us, the second being
a kind of five-headed river dragon, which Greebo spots, but only reports
as such untill we are well up the trail, safe away from it.
Everyone is well and truly sick of the jungle, and wondering
will it ever end when... yet another jungle creature attacks the party.
This time it's a nine foot tall creature, with fur, clawed hands, and
a very large beak. Luckily enough, the party are not surprised, and
are in good position to fight it. The two fighters (Jonas and Slate)
along with Nickos are in front, with Eltric standing behind ready to heal.
Jonas and Slate hack away, but all Nickos can manage is to twist his
ankle and break his staff.
From behind Greebo casts 'burning hands' doing more damage than
usual to the fur-bearing beast. Gandu too attacks, popping back into
normal sight as he casts 'magic missile'. Soon enough the beast is
dead, and the group trudge on. A fork in the river is reached, but
the party head on the way they were going. Several days pass without
incident, and, just as Eltric is starting to feel like himself again,
the group realises that the jungle is starting to thin out.
By the end of that day the plains are, at last, reached.
Food enough for a couple of days is gathered from the edge of
the jungle, and the party continue to head along the river, with
nowhere better to go than the mountains in the distance. Food is indeed
scarce along the way, compared to the jungle, but Slate has the
constitution of several oxen, and lends his iron-rations to the party's
needs.
Failing to bring down a buffalo from the herd that is spotted, food is
again looking short until hill country is reached, and Gandu can gather
enough for the party. Another pyramid is found along the river, Greebo
reporting that it had been used recently, but the group continue
towards the mountains. The mountains are duly reached without incident,
and the group begin to walk along the base of the mountains, looking
for signs of settlement or a pass.
Slate spots something, and the party work it's way up to a cave.
There are torches, and other signs of use, and the party press inwards,
Slate in the lead. An indoor version of one of the pyramids is arrived
at, and Greebo begins to look for a means of using it.
As Nickos turns one of the carvings on the wall, a zombie
creature suddenly appears in the room. After Slate and Jonas hack the
zombie into little bits Greebo announces that he thinks he knows how
to work it. He must drink the green potion that the party found in
the other pyramid, and then step into the star in the middle of the room.
Not wishing to risk his life, it is decided that Greebo be
allowed use the duplication gem in our posession, and after uttering
the phrase, there are two Greebos in the room. One of them drinks the
potion, and steps into the green light in the middle of the room.
Reporting through his other self, Greebo relays the fact that it worked,
and we all go through, finding ourselves in a similar room.
Heading off down the only corridor leading from the room, the
party encounter several turn-offs, but keep on going straight, until,
yes, more zombies are encountered.
Most of the party are in a single file corridor, with Nickos in the lead
and Jonas at the rear being the only one not in the corridor as such,
standing at the crossroads of another corridor. Seeing as only one
zombie can attack him at at time, Nickos concentrates on defence, and
most of the battle occurs at the other end of the corridor.
At this point zombies are only coming from one of the three
possible directions at the other end of the corridor, and Slate, Jonas
and Gandu position themselves so as that any creatures wishing to attack
one of them will have to stand in the middle the crossroads, in the the
middle of all three of them. This only works for one round however,
as all three corridors begin to fill with zombies, other smaller undead,
and 'Broken People' leading them.
Slate and Jonas fall back, killing the zombies in front of them as they
do, so as that only Slate can be attacked at that end of the corridor.
Eltric, in the meantime has cast his communication spell, but all the
'Broken People' are saying at the moment is surrender or die.
Surrender sounds like a good idea, but the fighters keep on hacking at
whatever is in front of them, not wishing to stop and get hit themselves.
As the corridors begin to fill with enemies, even apparently
including a smaller version of the 'Rancor' like creature from the
jungle, things, surprisingly aren't going too bad. Jonas has
equipped himself with Slate's crossbow, intending to fire over the
head of the dwarf, the enemies appear to be squabbling with each other,
although they are enraged when one of the group takes an oath in the name
of a god not familiar to them (The group is in battle with it's proposed
religious converts). At the other end, Eltric has successfully turned
the undead who were blocking the corridor at that end, perhaps freeing a
way out.
At that point however, the battle is lost. One of the enemy
mages manages to get to the front, and before Slate can hit him, all
but Eltric and Nickos are asleep on the ground. At this point the
surrender option is taken. Eltric and Nickos are led off and
questioned, but most of what they have to say (coming from another
planet, having different beliefs) is dismissed. The Charonti (Broken
People) believe that the group are not beast-men (Of the Clans), but
that is about all they will believe. A meeting with one of the higher
ranking Charonti is arranged, and Eltric and Nickos are led to the
room where the others await. All are posessionless barring clothes.
Soon later a guard arrives and points to the group, then the
door with his sword. Nickos steps forward, and Eltric steps after but
his way is barred, and the guard leads Nickos off.
Nickos is led to the Jurist, who, after casting a spell of his
own, begins talking to Nickos in the common language. After more
questioning, most if not all of the answers to which are disbelieved,
despite being true, the Jurist announces that the group are to be
banised from the Charonti, posessions intact, barring items that
belong to the Charonti. He also adds, that should any member of the party
ever step foot on any Charonti architecture again, Nickos shall drop down
dead, being the one who spoke for the party on this occasion.
With a wave of his hand his decision is carried out, and the
group find themselves back together, at the foot of the mountains.
Nickos explains what has transpired, and it dawns on the group that
their quest has gotten a little bit harder.
Well, that took a while.
humbug.
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