It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at home

[Romaru Darkeyes]

Glad you guys are enjoying it.

We have played since and I know RPF is having some issues writing up so I suspect update is incoming soon.

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Well I happen to be really good friend with the GM, and I've become a partial confidant of his, sometimes helping him with ideas or builds.

Don't think that will save your life

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Turns out the only party member with a feather fall ability and a featherfall spell was Cereza. She immediately activates it. On herself.

I believe the sentiment was, "Sucks to be you guys. BYE!"

Though you did miss the part that when Jess latched on I had Cereza roll sense motive to see if she could tell that the crazy looking woman she'd 'literally just met' was not looking to cause her harm. She flubbed.

Jess had no issues with the grapple though - she is stupid strong compared to Cereza who had a 7 in STR.

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Khayren lands softly only taking 20 damage...

According to sources terminal velocity is 20d6 and those cat boots are annoying when you are trying to throw your players out of planes apparently...

...nearby Rose lands so hard she makes a mushroom cloud for 63 damage, and is now stuck half way in the floor at the bottom of a crater.

Rose is at the time wearing full plate equivalent so I likened it to that point in Halo 3 with the Chief tanking falling from orbit. Very cool.

Just as we start off towards the target, Cereza suddenly seases up in fear, what happened to her protodragon? it was chained up in her lap and A quick roll shows it would have taken 65 points of damage if it just fell. Luckily the GM just rules that the chains came off at the same time, but it was still a "oh crud" moment.

That.... was a fudge.... I had said that it was essentially tied up with leather cord in her lap on the plane, but it would have totally crippled her for the upcoming mission and she's still a newer player.

And if she's reading - You get one.....

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When Jess fails to grapple a chicken

Oh yeah... Chickens have stat blocks... I looked them up....

she gets bored enough to use her 60' movement speed to charge to the door on the other side of the compound

This compound is pretty big - about 400 by 400 feet according to the maps. So at this point she's about 13 rounds away to anyone not using Monk movement and Boots of striding and springing... Okay that's assuming one move per round but well out of earshot at least...

Jess makes it to the other door, knocks on it, then idly comments "huh, no-one's there"

The other outer gate...

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Issac quickly following through the freshly made jess shaped hole. The woman is terrified at this point, and dives under a table as the doors break, and a large four-armed gorilla enters the room.

Actually that was Issac making a diplomacy roll to ask her to move. As far as character motivation she was trying desperately to hold this door closed and Issac had to convince her that he could help.

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...enlarged issac...

*chuckle*

...proceeds to flurry of blows...



"omae wa mou shindeiru"

Seriously the thing went down in a single round of combat...

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Seeing the woman is injured, jess decides to try a heal check...

With no ranks, and a heal skill of 2...

...and rolls a 1.

*sigh*

Rose then enters the room to discover jess has pulled this woman's trousers down and is attempting to jam her thumb up her prostate.

See that was you covering... I was going to have her poke the poor woman's eyes out checking for concussion...

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Woman – [turns to group] who are you? [turns to the gorilla] AAAA, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT

It was more like:

Who are you people?
Turns, sees monkey. "The hell is that thing?"
Turns, "Did I leave the stove on?"
Turns, "Argh, where did you come from?"
Turns, "Argh a monkey!!"
Turns, "Where did I put that spoon???"
Turns, "Argh, you scared me! Where did you come from?"

Can't maintain short term memory at all. Can't create new memories so everything disappears as soon as she changes thread.

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I quickly saunter over, explaining I've seen these kinds of traps before. With a quick wave of my hands and a few magic words, I deactivate it before turning to jess and telling her to open the door.

Having no such skill and instead relying entirely on your bluff roll - which I'm happy to say is no where near as broken as Jaune's...

She doesn't believe me for a second and decides to grab a chicken to throw at the door instead.

Urm... Okay...

While she fails grapple rolls against poultry...

Again. Chickens.. Have stat blocks...

Rose decides she rather likes my idea, so she uses a command spell to make jess walk open and open the door.

I gave him a will roll. I don't really subscribe to players eating each other but there were roleplay reasons to allow it and Jess's player went with it so...

Sure enough, the four hidden crossbows take aim and fire, two impacting her in the chest and one is a critical hit and gets her between the eyes.

Jess's response... "Ow..."

At this point she's more than capable of tanking these hits, and the poison on the bolts can't touch her Fort save.

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While this is going on the cook gets a dazed expression on her face and makes her way to another building.

In real time they spent about 10 minutes with Jess's player rolling to punch a building and not taking the hint that it was doing nothing...

she makes her way towards a nice small house surrounded by various plants. The woman just sits at a stool, completely devastated as the full reality of the situation occurs to her.

She is quickly broken out of her stupors by the sound of jess moving her bookcases, trying to see if there is anything hidden behind them.

At least everyone else was trying to be subtle about it...
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT TO MY HOUSE!"
"Duh... Because I'm looking for secret passages"
"Wha?!?!"
"They always put the secret passages behind the bookcases"

This is the final straw, and she just collapses in tears at the sorry state her life has become.

The point at which an NPC has fulfilled their purpose, has exposited everything useful and can now bow out of the spotlight. So she sits in the broken remains of her house weeping...

...Jess dragging a weeping Delbena since she stills wants fresh cooked monkey....

..........
Me as a GM: "WHY!!!!!!"

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While Rose quickly leaves the area, Jess decides to jump on the roof

Jess has a Acrobatics (Jump) score of 28...

I then suggest to her that she should try breaking in through the roof. She agrees and immediately jumps up to do so.

When your toolbox only has a hammer in it - every problem is a nail...

The gas trap is pouring fumes inside the house as well as out, and now she has no way out.

Nope, what happened was that she essentially broke the trap into a permanent on position and the door shut. It wasn't locked... Essentially she hotboxed herself in a stinking cloud trap. With supposedly no way out - she didn't think to jump back out through the roof - I made her roll fortitude rolls.

Her first failed roll made her Nauseated. Still standing in the cloud...

According to the rule - Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.

Doesn't move... I hint to leave the building. Wants to search the building. I say no, you can't do that while you are nauseated. Good 30 seconds of real time go by.

"Roll fortitude"

Her second failed roll - "you are throwing up bodily on everything"

.... Still stands in the smoke... Another 15 or so seconds.

"Roll fortitude"

Third roll failed - I said "you've just collapsed and you are now choking on vomit and gas"

I then start rolling 1d6 off every 10 seconds and telling him "x damage".

She starts taking some major damage so Issac charges in, breaks down the door and pulls her out with only 18hp left.

She started from 80... That's how long it took for someone to step up and rescue the poor dope...

[rebelpyroflame]

Last time the suicide squad showed off their excellent investigation skills by accomplishing nothing except many cases of petty theft. When we left our "heroes" they were completely foiled by a stinking gas trap, considering their options while jess slowly picks herself off the floor after nearly choking to death on the trap.


Session 17, Part 1, choke on it

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We all try to consider the best way of disabling the stinking gas trap preventing us from getting into the miner's office. Rose then comes up with the idea of using dispel magic on it, and sure enough the gas starts to dissipate. I casually mention to Jess that she should open the door now, it's safe don't worry. She gets up groggily from her near brush with death and goes over to the building. Unfortunately for her while the gas outside the building is gone there was still some trapped inside, and a wave of familiar green gas washes over her sending her into a new fit of choking coughs.

The GM has everyone roll survival rolls, and we all realise we are standing downwind of her, so we immediately run to try and find a safer spot. I say we, Cerezra activates one of her witch hexes to fly over the gas cloud. We then independently decide to explore different parts of the compound, and the GM has us roll Initiative, where upon rose succeeds in rolling a second 1 in a row.

Part 2a, a stable relationship.

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Issac makes his way over to a nearby building. He is greeted by a swarm of Flies and the stench of rotting flesh. Once upon a time this was the compound stables, but all of its inhabitants have been slaughtered. Khayren slowly make his way over, while Rose comes over and enters the barn. While she is checking for any kind of poison she notices something else. There's something off about the shadows, there not moving right, it's almost as if there alive. The shadows then start pooling together, and a large shape forms. It's a horse, but one made entirely out of darkness, and it does not look friendly.

Rose quickly identifies it as a greater shadow and takes a step back, bracing her spear at her side in readiness for a charge. Isaac then charges forward, but to his horror finds that his attacks just go streight through it. Khayren, hearing the commotion, charges forward so fast he smacks into the door. As he rights himself, he immediately realises the horrible mistake Isaac has made. Shadows have the ability to summon allies to themselves, and they deal large amounts of ability damage with every attack. Just as he tries to warn Isaac, the shadow horse makes its move, draining 8 points of Str from him.

Just to inform everyone of what is going on Rose decided to re-work her character between sessions. She decided to re-work the original plant domain healer into a plant domain necromancer, complete with channel negative energy and inflict spells. To compensate for lacking spontaneous healing spells she has taken to having a wand of cure moderate wounds in a wrist sheath. This means that she does not have access to regular cure spells or a channel energy that would hurt this creature, just the wand.

Seeing the opponent's strength against him Isaac goes to run, Rose fires off a charge from the wand and Khayren uses the disrupt undead spell he had prepared to join in on the damage. It's not much all things considered, but it is enough to give Issac covering fire as he runs to safety. Unfortunately, the shadow has other ideas. Despite rose bracing herself for precisely this, the shadow charges straight through her and goes after Khayren and Isaac. Seizing the opportunity rose turns around and uses another wand charge on the shadow as Khayren gets an attack of opportunity as the shadow tries to move past him. This gives Isaac just the chance he needs and, despite being fairly heavily weakened he manages to lay a major smackdown on the shadow, finishing it off.

Part 2b, a matter of delegation

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The rest of us had split off even further. Cereza had uses the rest of here minutes flight to go to a building marked with a pickaxe. she gives the padlock a quick try, but quickly realises that the lock is way too high a quality one, she's going to have to find another means of opening the door.

While this was going on, I decide to go investigate the nearby garden. I the whole thing is overgrown with weeds, and I don't find much but I happen to come across what appears to be a recently filled in hole. Figuring this might be important, I look around for a shovel but can't find any, but I do recall seeing a building with a pickaxe on it so I go to investigate it to see if I can find anything to dig with.

Jess at this point has stopped coughing, but is now sickened for 5 rounds. Unable to figure out a way of curing herself she goes to check on her "floaty friend" Cereza. Upon finding out about the locked door situation, she decides to use her go-to method for any problem, and starts punching the door. I wonder over and see this, and decide, "yeah, these two have it covered" and just wait for them to get the door open.

The thing is that this situation is that our door shenanigans and the horse shadow battle are both taking place at the same time. So, while one group bravely faces a powerful foe on one turn, the next turn is us watching a blood and puke covered nut-job repeatedly punch a door and fail to break it. Cereza is looking through her prepared spells for the day, but can't find any that would be useful in opening the door, or at least without destroying the building at the same time.

This continues for several rounds, and Cereza gets more and more annoyed at me since I'm not doing anything.

Cereza – why aren't you doing anything?

Lloyd – I am, I'm supervising

Cereza – No your not!

Jess – I thought floatly lady was doing that

Lloyd – ok then [turns to jess] you should try harder, to win

Jess – are you going to give me anything to help

Lloyd – yes, my support [claps sarcasticly]

Jess – YAY! [resumes punching]

Lloyd – [turns back to Cereza] see, I'm helping

Just as Isaac punches the horse apart Cereza has finally, had enough. She uses the one spell on her list that might succeed, burning hands. The GM lets her have a spellcraft roll to try and focus the spell solely on the door to burn her way in. Unfortunately, all her years of training didn't include trying to maintain concentration on a tricky spell when a very strong psychopath proudly smacks you on the back and screams in your ear "NICE JOB FLOATY FRIEND". what was a well-focused magic field designed to combust only the wood in the door devolves down to a 15' cone of fire that immediately burns through the doors and sets the building on fire.

Lloyd – [steps back] well you sure showed be [starts clapping sarcasictly] well done

Jess immediately goes to punch the door again, this time succeeding on the burning wood. She manager to avoid getting caught by the flames, but it's clear that many of the supplies inside are now on fire

Lloyd – all I wanted was a darn shovel, nice job

Cereza – I swear I'm not the mad bomber

[Gm breaks down in laughter at that perfectly comedically timed line and delivery]

Part three – theft and discovery's

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With the horse shadow taken care of Isaac wonders out of the barn, coming across us outside a burning building and asks us what the hell is that

Lloyd – I left them alone for 5 minutes...

Meanwhile Rose decides to break open the door at the end of the barn. Khayren walks up to her and asks how she was able to cast cure spells at range back there. After a quick paranoid sense motive from rose (she's parinoid about people finding out she's a necromancer, and she was worried Khayren supects something. Khayren just wanted to know for his own magical studies), she shows Khayren the wrist mounted wand. Khayren points out that isn't it still a touch spell, regardless of it being a wand? Sure enough there is a sudden shifting detectable only by there magical abilities, like a creased over page in the universe is being straightened out, and rose instinctively knows that her wand won't work like it used to any more.

The two then get to work on a plan to open the locked barn doors. Several plans are made and thrown out including doing a jess and going at it with rose's spear, and raising some skeletal horses to rip it open, so Khayren decides to use an acid dart spell on vital points to try and weaken the door, rose quickly joining in with a pitchfork she found in the barn (not wanting to risk her +3 spear with the acid).

Back at the burning tool-shed Cereza dashes inside desperately using her magic to cancel the flames. The Gm actually makes her roll concentration vs Jess. Although some stuff is burned, most of it seems usable, so I wonder in grab a shovel then tell jess "hey crazy girl, I have a hole I need you to fill". Many jokes were made at my expense, but I went on regardless to the garden. Jess quickly pops inside, and uses the fancy lock and 50' of rope to make a weapon. We have yet to see how useful this will be, but with her "lock-flail" she runs after me to the garden. Cereza runs into the shed, quickly establishing this must be where they kept tools and equipment, in particular a set of blacksmithing tools and lots of mining gear. she proceeds to take one of everything, including a pickaxe, sledgehammer, hand hammer, chisels, 50’ rope, climbing spikes and a few knifes.

While Cereza was committing petty theft, Isaac Decides to do some investigating of his own. He quickly goes to check a wagon yard, but quickly gives up when he realises there is nothing there worth much. He then suddenly remembers the miner's office, and quickly heads over there. By now the smoke has cleared up, so he has free rein to investigate. Sure enough, it is the head miners office, and lining the walls are maps of the various dig sites with notes attached. Each one of the mines seems be named after a layer of hell. Dig sites Avernus, Dis and Erebus apparently haven't been mined in some time. Another site Phlegethon started having problems with large, aggressive apes lead by a white furred mutant ape with four arms which lead to the sites closure and subsequent filling. Two other sites, Malebolge and Cocytus, have both had pockets of poisonous vermin appear which have been causing problems. The main thing to note is that the furthest two sites, Stygia and Caina were the last sites being dug at before everyone went missing. We now have a location to travel too.

Pleased with this information, Isaac goes off to see what else he can find. He runs into Cereza as she's leaving the tool-shed, so they go down to the next building together, and are greeted by an entire wall covered in pictures of naked women. Turns out it's the blacksmiths, the tools Cereza has shoved into her bag probably were used here. A quick search provides a few ingots of iron, but to Cereza's irritation there are no blacksmiths amongst the party so she can't turn them into a new sword. It doesn't stop her pocketing them though. The two then split ways, Issac going back to the barn while Cereza goes to raid the rest of the compound.

Part four, hole lot of trouble

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I take jess over to where I found the filled in hole. I turn to her and tell her "now's the time to start digging" and attempt to pass her the shovel. She stonewalls me with cluelessness. It takes a few minutes to actually convince her that her digging is a lot better than me digging as she's stronger than me, so will finish faster, and I'm better at keeping a lookout.

She finally gets in in character, and out of character decides just to go along with it. A hole is quickly dug, and the one thing Lloyd was not expecting to find is down there, another hole. To be more precise, it is an underground tunnel. I send jess down the tunnel to investigate the entrance while I go get the others to help investigate this.

Back at the barn rose, with much effort, finally succeeds as breaking the pitchfork off in the door. it turns out a couple of weeks sitting in filth is pretty good at rotting wooden handles. This is the last straw, and so she and Khayren go at the weakened door and FINALLY break it down. and to their delight it's not for nothing. Inside, along with several sets of riding gear, is a very fancy saddle with gold and silver filigree and an ivory riding horn. They quickly pocket this when Lloyd comes through the door, telling them he's found something they should have a look at.

While I was going to look for the others, Jess gets to investigating the tunnel. Despite being to small to walk through, she still manages to crawl 30' into the tunnel. She quickly realises the tunnel is only 40' long. She also notices moss on the stones, whatever this tunnel was is doesn't seem to have been used in a long time. She crawls back out (thanks to her ridiculous movement speed, she accomplishes this in one turn). When she finally gets out of the hole a sick horror comes over her. While she was distracted, her cook friend disappeared!

As I explain to the others while we walk about finding a hole in a hole we see jess franticly searching the courtyard for clues as to where her personal chef went. We quickly check the garden and the yard but find no trace of her. We decide to go check the maps Issac had grabbed from the office. We find that there are 10 locations on the map for us to explore. The whole area is made surrounding a huge lake simply called blue lake, with the seven mines mentioned before surrounding it. At it's northern edge there is "skito swamp", at it's northwest coast is the "fruit forest". At the furthest part north is Skulltop hill which is about 30 miles from our current location, and just adjacent to these are the mines the crew were working on. Past skulltop are the darklands which are about 20 miles from the hill. We decide to make our way up to mines we had previously identified as the last dig site. Chances are something happened there then it is also linked to the mountain.

While we are planning the trip, jess has some investigating of her own to do. She quickly deduces that she can't have gone back to her living quarters as we would have spotted her, so logically that means the only place she could have gone is back to the kitchen!

So far this has been the worst day of Delbena's life. Last thing she remembered, everything was fine, she was working with her friends at a mining compound that treated her well and paid the bills. Then she finds she's lost weeks, has no idea if her friends are alive or dead, everything she knew and loved is ruined and she's been dragged along by a nutjob covered in gorilla blood and her own vomit. therefore, her reaction upon seeing said nutjob entering the kitchen again is perfectly understandable. She flips a table over, hides behind it and starts pelting her with plates and anything else she can find. The rest of us hear screaming and smashing sounds, and I elect to go over and see what is happening.

Jess is, of course, completely unperturbed by this. She marches over and "non-lethally" smashes her in the face so hard she's probably in a coma. Just for some clarification, this woman is an NPC with 1HP, she'd die if the wind changed direction, and jess punches with the force of a bowing 747 engine so she's taken at least a dozen times her HP in "non-lethal" damage. jess then slings the cook's unconscious body over her shoulder and goes back out of the window as I approach.

Part five, deception on multiple fronts

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Khayren has had enough of Jess's antics by now. A slight scratch on his right arm activates the tattoo's failsafe, and with a brief tingling sensation jess suddenly feels light headed, and drops to the floor. A quick prompt from the GM reminds me of my natural reaction, and I dive for cover screaming "SNIPER, GET DOWN". (My other natural reaction is to go over and put a bullet right between both of their eyes, get rid of them now before they become a danger to me). Rose goes over to "check” them both. Rather than cast a cure spell, she decides to cast a inflict minor wounds spell to finish off the cook. She then looks up at us and tries to claim she died when she hit the floor, but a combination of Khayren’s spellcraft knowledge and the fact she says this with a HUGE smirk on her face (rolled a 1 on bluff) and none of us believe her.

We were content to leave it at that, until Isaac points out he must tell jess about this. He had decided to take a vow of truth, and part of it means that he can’t conceal things from others unless that information would result in lives being endangered. Rose immediately starts arguing that he has no idea what he saw as he’s not a spellcaster, so he can’t possibly tell jess that he cast an inflict spell while Isaac starts arguing he doesn’t need to be a spellcaster to know what he saw. This goes on for a while:

Lloyd – how much of this is in character, because you just told him “you don’t know that I killed her, you’re not a spellcaster”

Rose then starts trying to work the mercy angle, telling Issac “she was sparing her, she’s the only survivor of this horrible event, she was slowly going deranged, and then she was stuck with jess. I know her, the second she refused to cook the monkey meat she’d of snapped her neck”. I then join in on another angle, telling him “plus she’s unstable, the second she realises what happened she’s snap, try to kill us all, we’d have to put her out of her misery, its only kindness to keep this from her”. The sad thing is all three of us know that we’re spouting crap, yet it is both in character and totally true when you realise it’s jess we’re talking about.

Part five b, Cereza’s kleptomania

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While the rest of us were vitally busy with this part, Cereza went off on her own. First she found the prisoner cells. She has a quick look around and finds some unusual crystal shards in a couple of the cells hidden in the beds. Whatever these shards are, they are ever so slightly affecting her magic, but at this size they really don’t have much potency behind them. However they are valuable, with the few shards she’s found being worth approximately 500Gp in total. She then looted the other two guard towers and took another set of crossbows and bolts from each.

Once she’s done there she makes her way towards another building that turns out to be the guard quarters. Inside she finds 4 spears, 8 longswords, 4 light crossbows and pockets all of them. She then finds a table with a set of cards out. It looks like whoever was here was in the middle of a game before whatever happened, happened. Filing this information away, set gets to work on the guards footlockers. While she can’t open them with a set of keys nearby, she can open them with her thieves tools and she quickly finds between them 850gp in coins, a pair of platinum earrings she immediately wears, a jewelled letter opener, a necklace made of dragon teeth she also wears and a black leather book with gold and silver filigree on the cover.

Finally, having looted the entire complex, she makes her way over to the sound of commotion. She walks into the scene of jess unconscious, the cook looking more dead than she remembered, Rose and Isaac in the middle of a heated argument which the terms “no I didn’t”, “yes you did” is thrown around a lot and Lloyd also shouting at the pair from a nearby tomato bush.

It’s at this point jess finally wakes up, turns to the cook to find her dead. She just shrugs, goes “oh well” and dumbs her body in the hole she dug earlier. About 5-10 minutes of heated debate and that is the reaction we were so afraid of.

As the body hits the floor, we hear a click and two darts jabs into the corpse. Turns out there was a dart trap down there, the GM had rolled for it twice and jess had passed it effortlessly.

We finally decide to use the guardhouse bunks to rest up before heading out the next day to see if we could make it to the dig sites where everyone went missing. Before we sleep rose realises that she can prepare a bunch of restore spells despite being a necromancer. She uses her slots to restore Isaac to full health. Jess also reminds us that it’s still the same player who plays draspher by steals the bedsheets.

Part six, REALLY!

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Just before we left, the GM had a good look at the map. A bunch of us had started labelling things incredibly inappropriately.


We set of in our standard formation. Rogue up fron (Cereza), support in middle (Rose, Isaac and Kharyen) and beaters/ranged at back in case of ambush (Lloyd and jess). Unable to find any other form of transport, and Rose being unwilling to tip her hand regarding the necromancy just yet, we walk down the road to get to the dig sites.

We come across what is clearly some kind of ambush. There are dozens of animal corpses in the road, looks like an entire herd died right there. We roll initiative, and one by one we prepare our weapons:

Lloyd(me) – Can I say something quickly as a swift action?

GM – huh, sure

Lloyd(me) – [turns to jess] jess, would you kindly go punch those thing for us please

Jess – sure!

(I had been talking with jess and discovered the only reason she hadn’t dug the hole willingly was because I hadn’t said “Please”)

Sure enough, Jess charges forwards and punches one of the bodies. What we were expecting were zombies or some other equivalent. What we got were maggots. Thousands of maggots. Thousands of maggots working as one, yes jess had managed to tick off around 4 maggot swarms, and three of them immediately grabbed hold and started eating.

Cereza immediately opens with a volcanic plume, hitting all but one of the targets. Unfortunately, these types of swarms are immune to bludgeoning damage, and so she does more damage to jess than to the swarms. We then find out another ability these swarms possess. When they attack they don’t to HP damage, they do Str and Con damage. Two of them immediately attack, dealing 4 damage to both stats total. Isaac runs towards one of the swarms, but quickly realises the second ability swarms have, immunity to weapon damage. Jess then attempts to escape the swarms, but as she runs towards the others she finds out the final special feature these swarms have. Once they attach to someone, they latch on and don’t let go until the target is dead. Panicking jess samples to cereza in the hopes she can help. Desperately, she tries to tell Cereza to burn them off, unfortunately, she rolls a 1 on the will save to make herself heard.

Cereza, having created a massive plume of fire and ash sees a figure stumble out of her attack. It’s a figure covered in blood, rotting guts, ash and thousands of writhing maggots. As it shambles towards her, it cries out a horrific wailing sound. Jess takes another 3 stat damage, things are not looking good for her. Jess suddenly cries out OOC “I throw the monkey meat”. Sure enough, the maggots much prefer the fresh bloody meat rather than the struggling still living nutjob, and all three fail there will saves and jump on it.

Lloyd – have you been remembering to take of your HP damage?

Jess – what?

Lloyd – From the Con damage, every time you go down a score multiplier you lose a bunch of health remember.

The GM quickly helps him figure out what her new stats are. She initially panics when she gets -6, but fixes her math so she’s at 4 HP left. Jess has gone from current/max of 80/80 to 4/40 in these two rounds. The insanely broken psychopath I had been fearing as I knew what she could do and how tanky she was, taken out by a few maggots.

Kharyen then steps up and uses a fireball spell, killing all but two of the swarms, one of which is sill right next to jess. Cereza tries to kill it with a point blank burning hands but it’s not quite enough, and now the two (currently) squishiest party members are right next to it. Rose shouts out a quick warning about how they are immune to weapon damage, and then realises she has no spells prepared that could help. In the end she uses another charge on her wand of cure moderate wounds to give Jess 15 more health to try and keep her alive, but things don’t look good overall.

We had to call it there. Our GM is on holiday for a week, so the next update might take a little longer.

In the meanwhile check out my new blog https://asylum-miniatures.tumblr.com/. I have uploaded all the parts so far and I will be constantly updating it with other stuff. I am still working on it, but I will be including a full index, timeline, posts chronologially, player profiles, character sheets, miniatures we are using and other miniatures I have painted.

Jess's new friends – 5, us four (rose was already her friend),Delbena

Jess’s dead friends – 1, Delbena

Times Jess needed healing – 4.5, the initial fall, taking the crossbow bolts, the gas trap, getting knocked out (.5), the maggots

Times Jess got drilled over (by herself and others) – 15, left to fall at the start, dropped 50’, failed to grapple chickens (.5), lied to about trap fixing, compelled into a trap, fell into poison gas room, tricked into opening poison gas room, made to punch down a door, almost punched fire (.5), told to dig a hole, told to go down a tunnel (I was hoping she’d trigger traps or monsters so we would be safe so it counts), knocked out, lost her cook, told to punch a corpse trap, hit by her ally’s volcanic blast, reminded about HP damage

Lloyds future contracts – 3, the guy who dropped us out without a parachute, the mad bomber and jess

Times Lloyds attempted to/wanted to/ actually screwed the party – 9, grabbing onto Isaac during the fall and he took more damager (.5), left them to face the gorilla by themselves (.5), told jess I had disabled the trap, told jess to punch in the roof, did nothing to help open the door (.5), blamed burning building on the others (.5) told jess to go down the hole, would have shot the cook, wanted to shoot jess and the cook while they were unconscious, told jess to punch the corpse, ran from the battle “to gain distance”

(I was initially trying to play deadshot, but I’ve somehow turned into captain boomerang)

Blatant thefts – 12.5, 4 guard towers, wardens office, staff office medical supplies, staff office personal effects, the vault (.5 we tried but couldn't get in YET), the toolshed, the blacksmiths, the prison cells, the guard quarters, the guards bedsheets.

(I started this one as a joke, dam it Cereza)

Times Khayren has intervened – 2, jess and the cook, the maggot swarms with a fireball

[Celestia]

(I was initially trying to play deadshot, but I’ve somehow turned into captain boomerang)

Somehow, I find this the funniest part of the post.

[rebelpyroflame]

interview tape 33315:

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[knock knock]

1# - come in. Ah Phil, back already I see, take a seat
2# - Thank you guildmaster. I’m here to present the report on the latest investigation
1# - I’m glad to hear that, how goes the mission any good news this time?
2# - well we found the guy behind the arsons at Mogwater, however as far as we can tell he was just another copycat
1# - Well done he may not have been the real mad bomber but he was a big threat I have full confidence that you will match my expectations
2# - I appreciate the trust you have put in us sir but I’m not questioning your decisions but….
1# - something on your mind, you can speak freely to me
2# - very well. Why do we have to bring HIM along? He has been nothing but a detriment
1# - He has more experience with the mad bomber than the rest of you combined. He may be rough around the edges, but he is exactly what you need to keep on track
2# - keep US on track, the man is a psychopath, I don’t know what the Jedi code is but it as sure as the abyss hasn’t got anything to do with subtlety, focus or restraint
1# - yes, that sounds about right, but how many of the six fake mad bombers has he been responsible for killing.
2# - to be fair sir
1# - how many?
2# - all six sir but he didn’t do it with any intent
1# - really? then tell me
2# - it was all in the reports sir
1# - and despite what is in those reports I have left him on your team but let’s pretend I haven’t read the reports tell me everything that has happened and I will explain
2# - As you know sir we were first told to go after the mad bomber of the crater he had been attacking a number of convoys he left no survivors, so we didn’t know who or what we were looking for.
1# - The crater I hate that place the whole town stinks and crime runs rampant it no wonder that Sylvester hid their it’s like a candy shop for him.
2# - what? Not.. not the town he was just called the mad bomber of the crater because he kept making craters. Was there another mad bomber sighting at that town?
1# - oh no no no Sylvester is the guilds accountant he used to live there it’s not important you just brought it to mind
2# - wasn’t that where the librarian used to live thinking about it. I don’t think I’ve seen him in a…
1# - continue with the report Phil
2# - yes sir we got to east-witch and we immediately split up to investigate. And by investigate, I mean HE went to solicit prostitutes
1# - that is rather slanderous to say, you don't know that he was actually
2# - I overheard him tell one woman "once you go small then you've got it all", said same woman said that if I lined her palm with gold then she'd do whatever I wanted with the other
1# - ok, so he was picking up hookers does that have any bearing on the mission
2# - it does when he drags us off to find some gnome. Turns out he'd given one of the girls he had been talking to the clap, and she offered to give him an "over under" if he went out and killed him for her. We get to where his lab was only to find it empty. We begin investigating to discover that the gnome was actually Sivil Blaragarst, a well know black market alchemist notable for suppling most of the local gangs. When Sivil made his way in from a back room to find us he tried to run. I'll give HIM credit, throwing a nearby tanglefoot bag at him to prevent his escape was quick thinking, too bad it was a tangleBURN bag, and the suspect is now on fire
1# - you can hardly blame him for that can you
2# - no, but I can blame him when, after I loudly berated him that we needed him alive for questioning, he decided to put him out by throwing a bookshelf at him. A bookshelf filled with alchemical materials. I should count ourselves lucky that the explosion threw us clear from the building before it collapsed
1# - yet you still marked that mission as a success
2# - Upon further investigating in town with the aid of the local authorities it was discovered that rather than there being one mad bomber, Sivil had been selling "mad bomber kits". These were masks and various fire themed items so people could just pretend to be the mad bomber, commit whatever crime they liked then return to their regular lives safe in the knowledge that the police would just pin it on the bomber and never look for them. That’s why the lab was filled with so much explosives in the first place. They even managed to dig up the body, but were rather annoyed when shortly after the head went missing
1# - I don't see what that has to do with
2# - you will soon
1# - I see so he sorted the situation.
2# - sir weren’t you listing he was disastrous.
1# - sounds to me like he took the lead of the investigation when you had no Leeds, found the target and dealt with him properly, even destroying his lab so that his resources couldn't be used by anyone else, a job well done it seems
2# - I suppose that’s true sir, from a certain point of view
1# - what was the next incident?
2# - well there were reports of multiple robberies of various small establishments by a fire wizard. A little investigating told us it was a wizard named Xander and he had been seen traveling along the coast. We split up in one town to try and find him, but when we met back up we realised HE hadn't come back
1# - "chasing leads" again?
2# - worse. We eventually tracked him down to a strip club bar, where he had successfully managed to get everyone in the establishment into a free for all drinking contest. While we were trying to retrieve him, we realised the guy he was hugging was Xander. He woke up at that moment, panicked at threw a fireball at us point blank. Unfortunately, the fine aged dwarfen brandy they were using for the contest was both extremely flammable and generously spread over every surface.
1# - ah
2# - the whole bar went up, we only just got out in time. There were a lot of casualty's and even more sever burn victims
1# - so swaggy single handily tracked down the culprit and manipulated him into a position where he couldn't use his powers without hurting himself
2# - you are making an awful lot of excuses for his actions
1# - just playing devil's advocate. The next mission had a similar outcome if I remember correctly, right?
2# - Yes sir, we had been sent to hunt down the Sorcerer Herbert Mello. He had recently been noted as barricading himself in his private labs and throwing fireballs at anyone who tried to enter. It was felt that his actions should be investigated considering that he had several notable crimes on his criminal record. It was decided that we should scope out the house and ask for local knowledge on his recent activities before confronting him. I say we decided but as soon as I turn around to inform the others HE had already run off. By the time we found him he had barricaded the only entrance and set the building on fire, claimed it was something his old group did with ice midgets and a Ferris wheel he stopped with one hand or some other such nonsense.
1# - According to your report wasn't he found guilty of growing "hazards and high illegal crops" afterwards. How did you convince everyone he had a pot plantation in the ashes?
2# - The crops weren't marijuana sir, they were a strain of Audrey-2. As you surely know they are extremely vicious carnivorous plants and require large amounts of human flesh and blood to grow. When I confronted HIM about needing evidence before he killed someone, he turned around, broke down his own barricade then charged into the fire. He came out a few minutes later with Mello's severed head in one hand and a bunch of vines in the other, claiming that that was all the evidence we needed. He's just luck that the wizard the town guard sent immediately recognised the vines and connected it to local disappearances
1# - So once again he immediately identified a solution to the problem, took action to eliminate the target and destroyed his resources so they could not be used for evil ends
2# - once again, technically true. After that was "the lady of the flames" incident.
1# - I thought these missions were to track down possible mad bombers?
2# - that was part of the problem. Apparently, she had been planning her grand crusade for some time, getting henchmen, choosing a target, planning her witty one-liners and so on. So, when she finally reveals herself being told "thank the gods, it's not the mad bomber" she understandably did not take it well. She set building on fire, stormed off then tried it again at the next village, only to get the same response
1# - hard to believe it happened twice in a row
2# - harder to believe it happened a dozen times in a row, but that’s apparently, what happened. Fortunately, that meant we had plenty of information about her movements to work off. Looking at the evidence it was pretty clear she had made a base up in the mountains, and there happened to be an old abandoned quarry up there that seemed like a likely location for her base. Sure-enough we EVENTUALLY found her there when we arrived
1# - Eventually, did you have any problems finding it?
2# - no sir, the quarry was accessible by a main road that was still in good condition. The problem was that HE destroyed the carriage and released the horses I rented to take us up. He claimed he didn't want to have to pay for them if we lost them, which we surely would as WE were the untrustworthy ones. What should have taken an hour at most took us three days to climb up the mountain. What's more, HE spent every moment complaining about his short legs and the fact his shoes kept giving him blisters despite the warnings we gave him to take hiking boots
1# - Ok, I understand that it was frustrating, but you shouldn't let yourself get so worked up about a mistake like that
2# - How about when his complaining woke up a Yrthak that was hibernating up there which promptly attacked us. When we moved to engage it, HE refused to help us as it was, and I quote, "Too far away to bother with, you have it covered". After the fight when we asked for assistance in healing the party we discovered that HE had used all of his healing abilities on his blisters while we were fighting. Am I ALLOWED to be frustrated about that?
1# - I understand your angry, so I'll overlook that tone you took with your guildmaster
2# - your right, I apologise sir, just....
1# - you don't have to justify yourself, now tell me what happened when you got to the quarry
2# - Right sir, well when we got there we were fortunate enough to find her in one of the quarry pits addressing her troops. It seemed as if, from what we could hear, that she was trying to motivate her troops after another botched reveal. Once again, we start planning what to do, and HE starts butting in with ideas about charging her head on.
1# - I think I can see where this is going
2# - Well this time none of us were having it. We were tired and irritable from the trip and being forced to deal with his constant antics. This time we flat out challenged him on how he planned to charge someone 200' below him. He proceeded to demonstrate by throwing himself off the ledge face first.
1# - and he survived it?
2# - credit where credit is due, he may be a blood simple psychopath, but at least he can aim right. I think her body helped cushion his fall.
1# - what about her army?
2# - like I said they were demoralised after so many failed attempts at getting recognition. Seeing their leader get turned into a bloodstain, only for a heavenly armoured dwarf to pull himself out of the crater, brush himself off then demand "right, where is that mad bomber, I've got some killing to do" broke what little spirit they had left, and they surrendered immediately
1# - hold I, I thought there were no survivors?
2# - I said they surrendered, I never said HE accepted it.
1# - So despite some poor decisions initially, he came up with a plan to single handily take out the leader and leave her minions in a vulnerable state
2# - yes, seeing your beloved god reduced to paste in a moment would have that effect on you
1# - what happened on the next mission?
2# - We travelled further west investigating rumours that the mad bomber was strong-arming a group of villages there. We found that the "mad bomber" in question was working for a local barbarian warlord called "Grog, leaver of corpses". It took a while but we were able to establish that he came personally to collect protection money once a month to each of the villages. So, find out where his next appearance will be and we spend a week setting up traps for the perfect ambush.
1# - I'm guessing it was anything but
2# - as soon as grog turned up and started his intimidation game HE charges straight at him. Right into a cluster of traps that He himself had helped build and set up. We lost both the element of surprise and a week's work. As for HIM, he ended up impaled on poisoned spikes, covered in tar at the bottom of a 30' hole that was filled with toxic gas while also being simultaneously frozen and on fire
1# - if nothing else you really have to credit his endurance for surviving it
2# - seeing he had been betrayed, grog ordered the village burned to the ground. We had a rough fight on our hands not helped by the fact we needed to defend the villagers. Things came to a head when grog took the mayors family hostage and demanded our surrender for their lives. While we couldn't surrender as he would just kill us and the rest of the village, if we acted to rashly it would certainly cost them their lives
1# - truly a difficult situation for any team to face. What happened?
2# - HE happened sir. Ellias decided to try hitting them both with a blast of water magic to knock them over and disorientate them, hopefully giving us enough time to move in and disable him. Just at that moment he fired the spell, HE managed to get out of the hole, charge forward and punch the mayor's wife in the face.
1# - wait, why did he...
2# - I asked HIM about that later. He said something along the lines of her looking the squishiest, and he wanted to finish off something in one round. This had two effects, firstly the mayor's wife flew 20' so she was out of the spells range, and secondly Ellias lost focus on the spell and ended up firing a far more powerful blast than he had initially intended. The two of them were blasted into a second cluster of traps, and we lost sight of them down a 20' hole filled with rat swarms.
1# - how many traps did you set?
2# - we had a week and nothing better to do, besides isn't it usually better to be overprepared than under? We wrapped up the rest of his minions and later met up with HIM, who was now carrying grogs half eaten headless body around the town, asking if anyone wanted "the most kickass wall-mount this hick town's ever seen"
1# - what about his "mad bomber", you never mentioned what happened about that
2# - turns out grog didn't have one. He'd gotten his hands on a large number of explosives, he was just planning on blowing up villages for intimidation before he got word about what happened in Southwater, and decided to use the incident to his advantage
1# - well it sounds to me like
2# - wait, let me guess [cough] "despite initial setbacks, he acted decisively to foil a tense hostage situation, and singlehandedly fought and defeated a local tyrant and a menace", does that sound about right sir?
1# - actually I was going to say he made a pig's ear of himself but at least he came through, but I think I like your phrasing better.
2# - oh, I see
1# - what about this latest one, I haven't had a chance to read it yet
2# - well sir it was one of our most dangerous missions to date. We had been tasked with tracking down Albas Booster, a known underworld wizard with powerful connections and even more powerful magical knowledge. He had gained fame early in his carrier for escaping custody and slaughtering his way through an independent guild who had apprehended him, despite the heavy use of magic nullifying equipment they were known for.
1# - Sounds familiar
2# - exactly sir, the royal guard believed that he might be the key to figuring out our bombers identity. Either he was the bomber himself, he trained the current bomber, he would prove invaluable in solving how the bomber got past the anti-magic enchantments. He is known to be a complete sadist, torching enemy and ally alike with a variety of horrific methods spell and even curses. There were many stories of him purposely leaving enemy's alive or only knocking them out so he could take them back to his lair and torture them at his leisure. It would be a hard task to take him down, let alone take him alive. We found a source saying he was stockpiling "dragon teeth rubies" down south.
1# - Dragon teeth huh, had he turned his hand to necromancy?
2# - That's what we thought sir. As you well know the rubies got their name from the old legend, the one about planting dragon teeth in the ground would sprout an unstoppable army. The natural magic in the rubies mean that if you use them as the active catalyst in most necromancy spells, the creatures produced are far stronger than usual. When we finally tracked him down and confronted him however, he had found a different use for those natural magics. He had successfully developed a ritual dedicate to Dahak to create what could only be described as "hellfire elementals", a cross of a daemon, a dragon and a fire elemental that were increadably powerful and resliant even in their smallest forms. Turns out he had been using the rubies as fuel to create them, and was beginning to amass an army
1# - well you have to give booster credit, he is both creative and ambitious, only a shame he's using it to such foul ends. What happened this time?
2# - seeing the pattern sir? We manage to get into his lair without his noticing us, and once he leaves we start trying to figure out how to safely disable the ritual site. HE comes up with the idea of "getting rid of those damn rubies, wam-bam problem solved" and proceeds to shove the several minecarts filled with the rubies into the central firepit. The firepit which activated the ritual. Instead of the army of small elementals Albas had been trying to create with them, swaggy had given the materials for a hellfire elemental the size of a mountain, which of course was far, far too powerful for the control runes in the ritual circle to effect
1# - sweet bahamut, how did you survive that?
2# - We didn't, the rest of my team are awaiting resurrection by the clerics as we speak. Albus was killed and we didn't find enough left to attempt a resurrection or a séance. HE and I are the only survivors, and most of the region was burned to a crisp. The only upside is that it couldn't find enough fuel to maintain itself, so it burned out.
1# - Well...
2# - don't you even try it sir.
1# - Well despite all the setbacks you have to admit, he did contribute in a significant way to the ending of these various threats
2# - well yet, but..
1# - I know he is unorthodox, and more than a little unusual in his approaches, but I assure you he is the individual in this guild with the most experience in dealing with the mad bomber. I did not place him on your team lightly, nor am I overlooking his "transgressions". Just trust me when I say I know what I am doing. Take heart Phil, you are surpassing ever expectation of success I had for your team when I assigned him to you.
2# - really, thank you sir
1# - now you take some rest, you've more than earned it. Your teammates should be back up and running by the morning.
2# - Thank you sir

…....

3# - you never had any expectation for their success, yes?
1# - SWEET HOLY, [breath] how long have you been there?
3# - I never left, yes, but answer the question
1# - Well what I said was true, he was the only person in the guild, aside from the team, who could identify him even if he never realised that the rest of the team were the ones responsible for everything. I had to do something to keep him out of the way for the time being, but I never expected anything like this
3# - a masterful plan, yes, show the guilds commitment to finding the mad bomber Draspher, yes, while never actually going near the boy. The sheer size and audacity of the incidents even helps keep that team out of people's thoughts, yes.
1# - yes, but they were only supposed to be small, simple missions. Even if I have been able to spin it in my favour I still never dreamed they'd get into situations like this
3# - it would help, yes, if you ever read any of the reports coming in, yes
1# - What, no, no, I read reports certainly
3# - Horse racing results don't count, yes. Perhaps if you did yes, you would call your premier assassin, master of the serpent blade style, Balthazar Brightshadow, by his correct name, yes?
1# - I knew him when he first came to this guild as an orphan named Phil White, I don't care what he calls himself now he'll always be my little Phil.
3# - yes, well I wouldn't count on 'Phil' being so agreeable, yes, when he figures out what has really happened to all those 'mad bombers' heads
1# - wait what?
4# - Sir, we have an incident!
1# - yes what is it?
4# - One of the members who just returned is attempting to make a chair out of several skulls. he won't stop and several members are finding it highly distressing.

…...

1# - I'll be right there. Ok, how did you know he was trying to do that
3# - I read the reports, yes
1# - between you, draspher and "HIM", I don't know which of you is going to kill me first
3# - you love of triple chocolate double cream éclairs will beat all of us to that, yes
1# - …..I expect to to be out of my office when I get back
3# - yes, like you mean you expect Balthazar's team to capture the real mad bomber, yes
1# - one of these days I might just lose my temper with you and just finish you off. There's not a soul alive who would blame or convict me
3# - yes, but then you would have to do your own paperwork, yes?

1# - ….....
3# - ….....

1# - be out of my office when I get back. SWAGGY, WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT DOING STUFF LIKE THAT! THOSE HEADS ARE EVIDENCE, NOT SEATING

[Draspher]

interview tape 42461:

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1# - How many got injured last night.
2# - I don't know the attack was quick last night they were right at the walls without any warning we didn't have any direction.
1# - Where is the captain have we still not heard from her yet?
2# - No about an hour before it started some ninja showed up and dragged her off.
1# - WHAT DO YOU MEAN DRAGGED OFF.
2# - Oh no sorry sir she was just needed for an emergency of some kind but no one has seen her since.
1# - Do you think shes?
2# - No i .. ma.. maybe this is all getting worse.
1# - How many of our guys are infected?
2# - The last count had over a quarter but more people could have been infected last night.
1# - Are any of the family's infected?
2# - I don't think so they are all in the inner areas so they should be safe.
1# - I think its getting worse we are getting reports of them getting smarter.
2# - What do you mean?
1# - Their was a group of adventures who got attacked by some yesterday.
2# - That's not surprising..
1# - With a knife.
2# - What but only use there hands and teeth they are mindless animals that has to be a lie.
1# - I was on the scene of the incident if you heard that wizard you would believe it.
2# - I didn't want to believe it sir but they snuck up on the walls yesterday. I just hope that madam whitewater does something before its to late.
1# - CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY OR IT WILL BE BOTH OUR HEADS.
2# - I'm sorry sir.
1# - Look as long as they are out there and we say in here we will be fine.
2# - They are already inside because we are already...
1# - Shush. Look we can talk about this later just go inside and drink some of the water if we keep doing that we will be fine.
ok.
2# - ok.
1# - I said OK.
2# - OK sir.
1# - Now get going. tut it looks like the idiots from yesterday are back lets see what they want this time.

[rebelpyroflame]

In a change of pace, we decided to go back to our original group and finish off the whitewater compound. We all thought this was going to be a quick, boring session. How naïve we were.

Session 18, Part 1 entrance to paradise

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As we head over we get a bit more backstory about the town. Turns out it used to be a fairly nice place. The spring was open to everyone and was a frequent drop off point for caravans. That is until the whitewater clan arrived. They sealed off the spring in the centre of their compound and charged for the water it provided. Over the years the town has been falling into rack and ruin thanks to this. No-one has been able to do anything about it because the whitewater's also have strong connections to the local branch of the royal family. When this disease started spreading the clan sealed themselves in and refused to sell water to the town anymore.

Draspher quickly double checks that he's not going to get in trouble for being the mad bomber here and the GM confirms that the main reason we were sent here is the fact it's so far away that no-one has herd of his exploits. I then point out that now the mad bomber came to this town and there has been demon summoning seen, thus adding to his reputation.

We approach the guards and sayid quickly pulls out the letter and we are given entrance. We make our way through a grass filled courtyard, and between two trees we are brought into the main visitor lobby. Inside is a wide selection of local delicacies, and six large glass pillars filled with water with a small tap attached. Yurian quickly checks them out, asking the guard we've been left with about them. Apparently, we are free to eat and drink here, and the water is the water straight from the spring that we require. We all go over and help ourselves, some like Yurian attempt to only have a small portion to maintain their manners whiles others like myself just stuff our faces. The water does it's trick, partially curing us and relieving us of our symptoms, for now at least. Ocelot even goes as far as to start filling his water-skin with it in stealthily in front of the guards.

Part two, tense negotiations

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Soon a man wonders up behind Yurian and enquires about how the scorpion is. Turns out he's the Son of the leader of the Whitewater clan, Kardag. Sayid immediately jumps up, rushing over to him and desperately imploring him to listen about the curse, but Karday ignores him, only commenting that "there are guest here, save that talk for later".

Yurian interjects, trying to get him to see reason by explaining about our encounter with the demons, and what is going on with the feast of dust. I helpfully wonder over, complement him on the food before pointing out that even if he doesn't believe in the curse, other do are willing to act upon it. Despite the whole group chipping in it just seems like he doesn't care about the people outside and doesn't believe anything will happen to him inside the walls. He only starts to take notice when Ocelot points out that people were CLAWING there way inside. Something must be wrong as ordinary people would not attempt to do this, there is something else at work here.

After much effort we finally convince him that maybe, just maybe, we should be heard out, so he takes us to see the clan head, his mother. We make our way in and come to a beautiful courtyard, with a large pool of water in the middle surrounded by palm trees. We see an elderly lady in priest type robes. She barely gets up from, what can only be described as a sun lounger, to address us with distain.

Yurian and Sayid quickly begin their explanations of what's going on and why they need her help, but the problem is, she just doesn't care. So, what if this disease is ruining the town, she's safe in her compound, she can quite easily wait it out until all the filth outside is dead, then she can get a far better class of people to move back in to replace them. Although she likes Yurians "honest face" and she's making a little headway, it's an uphill struggle. draspher tries to help with this bit "regardless of this curse exists or not your enemies. They have sent some drunken sailor who seduces sayids son into taking the thing supposedly keeping this curse away and leaving an impressive fake. These actions will only trick those who think this curse is real into taking action against you. Turning the lower class into mindless puppets to throw at you so that, when this chaos has weakened you, your true enemies can strike and take what they can from you". The GM actually gives Yurian a +2 on her rolls for that.

Jaune however immediately recognises the problem, everyone else in the party is treating her like she's a normal, decent human being. I then interject with a different angle, starting a retune with her about how we are both opportunists, and there is the possibility of business here. It's still an uphill struggle, she has a sense motive that’s crazy high, but I eventually get through to her:

Lady whitewater – why should I care what happens to that filth?

Jaune – My lady, there are two kinds of people. You give one a bag of seeds, they will eat there fill and then become hungry. The other will plant those seeds, and with a little work, water, time and patience will grow a crop that will feed themselves, their family and start to build their empire. My lady, that "filth" outside are your seeds.

[GM actually stops, pausing the stroke his chin at this thought]

…..[later on]….

Lady whitewater – why don't I just wait for them to die off and replace them with a far better class of people.

Jaune – even with a better class of people, someone will need to clean up the filth. If you follow my advice, not only will you get the people outside to do it, they will THANK YOU for it

While I am appealing to the purest of all virtues, human greed, Yurian comes up with another idea. She offers to show the lady the demon that we fought and uses a silent image spell to perfectly replicate (choosing not to embellish it as she didn't trust her bluff score). The image of the Anubis demon actually makes her pail, and she comments "this can't be, it's just like in that book". She sends us back to the reception while she and her son discuss this.

While this was going on, Sim decides to do some investigating of her own. She approaches one of the guards and starts asking about the condition of the staff. Turns out about half of the staff have all come down with the disease. Our conversation with the lady turns to the matter of people outside the walls and Sim points out that there no chance she cares about the guard's families at all. Both in and out of character I start cursing sim for ruining my business opportunity by starting a revolution.

Part three, thoughts on theft

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As we get taken back to the reception, the guard accomping us starts asking Sim if she really meant what she said about the whitewater's not caring. I continue to curse Sim's name. He ask if we're infected as well, then explains that the water won't actually cure anyone, but one glass a day "resets" the curses effects to the first day. When you stop drinking the water, it just comes back. Yurian then asks if we can fill our water-skins at the pillars, and the guard explains that while he's not exactly allowed to let us, he really doesn't care.

The GM starts rolling dice, then suddenly facepalms. When questioned he only states that anyone can pull a draspher. We soon see why.

The GM has us roll perception, and when we all fail the guard asks "wasn't there someone else with you". We realise that Sayid is missing. The guards asks us to stay there while he goes looking for him. Sim then hints that one of us should find him and bring him back before the guard catches him:

Sim – shouldn’t we find send a person to find him?
Jaune – your trying to get me in trouble and ruin my business opportunity again you b####
Sim – won’t sayid running around also ruin the future business opitunty
Jaune – well time to go off and find our beloved comrad

What followed left the GM and I completely speechless, as Ocelot starts attempting to figure out how much water he can steal. First, he plans out what containers he has, then he figures out how much storage there is in a bag of holding. Then, after cursing he's the only party member who thought to get one, he realises he has more storage than all the pillars in the room. Then he starts justifying what items in the bag are waterproof or not important if they get wet. He decides to steal two cubic feet from each pillar so they won't notice, but then draspher joins in and points out he could turn the bag invisible so the guard won't notice. He then tops this by saying he could turn Ocelot invisible and send him off to steal from the spring directly. At this point I pipe up with a question of how fast he thinks these taps are, considering there used as over the top water fountains, how he plans to steal 6 15-gallon pillars worth of water while the guard watches before the others arrive. So, he suggests just breaking a hole in the side, with both draspher and Yurian saying they can just use a mending spell on it afterwards. I curse them all for attempting to mess up my business opportunity

In the end he decides to just stick with water-skins. I question if diluting the water over time would give us a longer duration but draspher goes on a whole other tangent. He starts questioning if BREATHING the water would have a different effect to drinking it. He then starts making various plans involving swimming in the tanks, using his new necklace of adaptation to breath the water, then just living in a tank of the stuff. I whole heartily support the idea of putting him in a giant hamster ball filled with the stuff, that way he's cured and the rest of us never have to put up with his nonsense/antics ever again.

While this mensa meeting is going on the guard comes back. Along with a bunch of other guards. Along with Kardag, and his mother Lady whitewater. The guards are also carrying an unconscious Sayid, and the lady angry demands to know what he was doing sneaking round her private chambers. I immediately realise what must have happened. Ever since the sword went missing, Sayid has been desperate to redeem himself. When he heard she had a book with the Anubis demon in it, he must have decided to go find it himself, and got caught.

(Gm later explained that he had gone through sayid's thought process, figured "he has class levels in monk, he can sneak" then proceeded to "roll a draspher" with a critical fail of 1)

Draspher – how dare you accuse lord Dupee of this!
Jaune – It's Dupre you ass

This relates to a question he had for me earlier. He remembered that part of my backstory was that I was of noble blood before the revolution came, and he wondered if it would be a good idea to bring it up at some point to use to our favour. I agreed, but he completely misread when the correct time to use this information was. Now the lady was both ticked and confused, and her massive sense motive refused to listen when I tried to explain.

Part four, negotiations break down

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We all immediately pipe up with ideas/actions. Some of us want to fight, some want to discuss things out, it's a mess, so the GM has us roll initiative. The good news is that I rolled fairly high, so I might be able to sort this out. The bad news is that Sim had a prepared action and cast obscuring mist over the troops. This completely scuppers my plan, as I realise that any hope of negotiating with them won't work if it looks like we took offensive action against them. So, I go with Jaune's all-purpose plan A. I immediately dive to the double doors at one end of the room and try to get them open. To be fair it wasn't quite running away completely. I knew that if we left out of the doors we came in from we'd be outside the compound unable to do anything. My hope was that we could escape the guards for now then try and find out what we could about the priest who went missing/that book she mentioned/raid her vault. The doors are locked though.

The others take various actions in accordance with their own plans. draspher fires a grease spell into the smoke in the hopes of tripping the attackers up in the mist. Yurian still attempts a diplomatic solution, backs away and drops her sickle to the floor while vex moves to the back door and guards it against any incoming threat, and Ocelot decides to shoot out one of the pillars, coating the slick marble floor with water:

Ocelot – that’s how you cast grease
Jaune – hey draspher, do you need a potion of cure light wounds for that burn
Draspher – what burn?
Jaune – [turn to Ocelot] no good, someone’s already cast blank mind on him

Out of the smoke Kardag charges out of mist, taking a swing at sim. He misses, but counters sims attempt at a bull rush. Unable to escape this way, I can read the signs and resign myself to my fate, cast kage bunshin no jutsu and join the others ready for combat. It's at this point that lady whitewater wanders out of the fog as well, completely soaked and thoroughly enraged. She might be old and greedy, but this in no way makes her a pushover, and she demonstrates this by capturing all of the party except Ocelot inside a black tentacles spell, and the initial round of grapple damage puts me at half health and draspher at very low numbers. Yurian then demands that we lay down our arms and surrender, she promices lady Whitewater that this is all a misunderstanding, that we'll go peacefully and we can resolve this. draspher fumbles about and tires to escape his bonds enough to cast a spell, but fails so he stops struggling to show his compliance. Sim backs off from Kardag and in turn Kardag lowers his scimitar. Even Ocelot lowers his gun to show his compliance.

Just at that moment two things happen. The first is that I manage to break the tentacles DC of 28 with a 29 in escape artist. Upon dropping to the floor I go with the patented Joestar family secret technique, Juane variant. I turn invisible and use light steps to run straight past the guards still in the fog bank. Admittedly it could have gone better, I rolled a 3 (still getting a stealth roll of 40 thanks to my invisibility) and so some of the guards realise I am escaping due to the movement of the fog cloud, and the thud as I run straight into a wall, but I still manage to make it down the corridor. The other was vex simply breaking the tentacles hold on her. She then strides over to lady Whitewater, and either she didn't hear or didn't care about what Sim said, as she smashes her in the face with the hilt of her katana. Draspher then successfully argues that the surrendering characters should get a turn as a delayed action. While he fails to do anything again, Ocelot immediately panics and follows his twitchy nature, and unloads into the lady's face for a Crit and a hit for 46 total damage. The combined assault is enough to knock her on her ass unconscious.

Yurian is beside herself in silent rage, refusing to act for the rest of combat and already writing her resignation letter to the guildmaster in her head. The only person more enraged than her is Kardag who does what she can't and swings at the half orc who smacked his mother in the face. It's clear from the get-go that this guys going to be tough to fight considering he rolls a 3 yet manages to get a hit on 24 ac, taking vex down 19 health leaving her on 18 HP left. Ocelot returns the favour, unloading the rest of his clip into him for 25 damage. Another note in our favor is apparently sim is better at the revolution thing than she thought. Two of the guards decide now is the time to turn, charging at Kardag. One of them stumbles into the tenticle field immediately, but the other still makes a swing at his boss, confusing and enraging him even more.

During this draspher is getting depressed. He has virtually no health left, no way he can break out of the tentacles and the damage will probably take him to 0 next round. Vex has a quick think/consultation with someone who knows her sheet better than she does (me) and decides that a channel energy is a pretty poor idea considering that it would heal everyone in the room including the mother we just knocked out, so she uses her swift and standard actions to heal both herself and draspher for 16 and 14 respectively. And it's a very good thing she did heal herself, as Kardag takes another swing at her and crit's, taking her down to exactly 0 disabling her.

Maybe it was the fact lady whitewater was unconscious, maybe it was vex's healing, maybe it was the shock of seeing her take a blow like that, but fate finally decides to throw draspher a bone and he finally gets the dispel magic spell off, successfully dispelling the tentacles. Kardag has been in the game long enough to know when he's beat. He barely wanted to fight in the first place, it's only when they attacked his mother he really got into it. Now she's unconscious and helpless, his guards are turning on him and the enemy have gotten free and are ready to make a counter attack. He surrenders. Draspher returns the favor by healing vex up 8 points, while she heals herself to 25. They all start discussing the best way of securing their new prisoners.

During this, Juane ran off down the corridor. Deciding against going through the doors directly ahead of him sneaks down the corridor. This takes him to the water processing factory, a whole separate encounter that is the final blow for the GM's preparations. He has no idea how to handle any of this story wise, so he calls it there.

Just when I get worried we were getting boring we manage to mess things up again. Now it's a case of the others have kinda-sota overthrown the compound, I'm pretty sure Sayid drowned when Ocelot broke the pillar and he was the only one who knew anything about the Anubis guy. The GM and I are going to figure out how the side story of my running off works before next time.

Lives saved – 5.5, the Girl being mauled by his commander, the crazy homeless person that almost burnt, the nun we healed (.5), the captain, sayid and the kid

Lives killed – 7, the one guy we pulled up to stab, the civilian that got shot (she went at him with a knife), the broken armed escapee that got shot, the city guard (he only had 2 days left till retirement) and the other two guards, sayid drowning in the desert

Vexes Harem – 2.25, the Girl being mauled by her commander, the nun and a librarian who was really a ghoul

Times Drilled over by Draspher – 4, he convinced me there was a dragon in the desert, got me glued to the ground with a crazy infected woman ready to beat me to death and now refuses to heal me, vex healed him instead of attacking which meant the guy got a critical that nearly killed her

Times Draper got drilled over (both his own and others fault) - 32, his adhesive spittle keep breaking (2), I knocked him out (his own fault), he got assaulted by an air elemental and no-one cared, nearly killed by demon breath, his spider webs did nothing (15), the dog that fell to its death, the earth elementals that did nothing (3), the medium earth elemental critical that did nothing, the fireball, the 15' cone that can't go 20', the dragon roar (got the jackals attention) and the squid, Ocelot ruining his grease spell, getting tentacled before he could do anything

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory - 7, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2)

Jaunes buisness ventures screwed – 6, sim starting a revolution, Ocelot and draspher trying to steal water, draspher wanting to swim in it, sim trying to get me to sneak off to find sayid, sayid getting us in trouble, sim ruining any attempt at diplomacy with the fog spell

Organisations overthrown – 2, southwater crime gang and now the whitewater, do we just really hate water?

[rebelpyroflame]

To start off, I will relate what happened in the solo campaign.

Part –1, Jaune makes a friend

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I dash down the corridor but stop myself as I get to the corner. I also use my sleeve of many garments to don a guards uniform, ready to bluff/deceive through anything that I need to. I look around the corner to see what's there before committing myself to running that way. My roll of 2 on perception show me that there are two guards chatting with an unknown third person. They are talking heatedly, asking "her" to stand down, they really don't want to take them down the dungeon by force.

Intrigued, I sneak closer. I see two of the guards accosting a well-dressed woman. She replies to them that she doesn't care about her mother being overthrown. Personally, she's been waiting for her to screw up and step out of line for a while. She's the one that’s been running this place for all this time, and now maybe she can get some actual work done once she's in charge. If they stand with her then they will be rewarded, but should they stand against her she will make them regret it. I sneak closer with a stealth roll of 56 the guards none of them have any idea I'm there.

She also points out that she's the one with the power here, it her that been running and repairing the water pump, they can't get rid of her or else everyone goes thirsty. I decide this is the moment take advantage of the situation. I sneak back to the corridor, drop the invisibility and casually walk behind the guards. They suddenly turn to me, confused what's going on, but they carry on accosting the lady. I turn to look at her, and ask "my lady, what's going on?". She calmly explains that the guards want to take her, her mother and her brother to the prisons. I ask if she needs assistance, and when the guards turn incredulous at me, wondering who's side I'm even on, I thrown the palmed shuriken at both of them before turning invisible and sidestepping. While the first guard takes both for 11 and 18 damage, the second was more suspicious of me and managed to block the incoming projectiles.

The lady it seems can handle herself just fine, pulling out a rapier, jumping on a water tank and gives the first guard a stab in the back to match the shuriken in his face. The second guards get angry at this, throwing down a thunderstone that deafened me and the first guard, who glares angrily at him. He then turns back to the lady and manages to get a hit on her legs. The woman then jumps up to the highest point on the system and begins making the hand motions of casting a spell. Moving off I draw my weapon and down a potion for 4hp (I really need to invest in stronger potions) while I plan my next move. I then notice two unusual figures at one end of the hall. I recognise them as golems, but they seem different to the usual golems you normally see.

My thoughts are cut off when I spot an opening. The first guard has moved to the bottom of the device and is now attempting to slash at the lady's legs again. So, I move behind the guy and finish him off with a single stroke, then (still fearing the fact the other guard could take me out in one hit probably) I turn invisible again. Sure enough, the remaining guard runs up to have a swing at me but fails to hit me. He soon has other problems to worry about though, as the two golems start moving towards us. The lady jumps behind them as they approach, clearly using them as cover/bodyguards.

The guard goes to attack the first golem, and I can finally get a good look at them. They look more mechanical than regular golems, and the presence of exposed gears and such suggest there more homebrew than they usually are. The guard makes a good hit on it, but it almost looks like nothing happened to it with as little effect it has on it. Meanwhile the other one makes its way around the machine, somehow still tracking my movements even though I'm invisible. I decide to try and show my alliance to the lady by taking out the guard, so I position myself in such a way to use the 10' reach end of my weapon to hit him. Unfortunately, the second clockwork does not care, hitting me for 15 damages, leaving me 9hp left. I think that was the first the GM realised just how low my health actually was, and just how frail I am in comparison to the rest of the party.

The guard, ticked off he took a metal chain to the head but unable to do anything about it, gives his golem another swing and this time the blow looks like it does damage. In return, the golem first breaks his sword, then when he tries to stab it with the broken blade, cuts him in half. I go with my usual plan, run from the golem and try and get the lady to call them off. Unfortunately, I can't hear her response, I'm deaf from that thunderstone. However, the golems do stop advancing, so I think I was successful. So, we wait a little while until my hearing comes back.

We get to talking. I explain how I'm part of a team sent by the guild that Sayid contacted for help regarding the disease. We had come to the compound to negotiate for help regarding what we had found when all this started, now my friends have been captured and I snuck off to find help/break them out later. I find out she's Ezrisha Whitewater, daughter of the other Lady Whitewater and the brains behind this operation. She's the one who keeps the business running, and the only person who knows how to fix/maintain the pump. While she knows that her mother and brother have probably been captured by the guards, frankly she doesn't care, now she can just get on with fixing the problems going on without her mother getting in the way of things.

I also find out some other problems. Mainly that when the guard threw the thunderstone he was signalling for help:
Jaune – oh, so that’s why he threw that, I thought he was just being a d### because he couldn't see me
Ezrisha – well that was probably a part of it as well
Jaune – so he was just being a d###?
Ezrisha – no it was probably both
Jaune – being a d###, gotcha
Turns out that spell she cast earlier was a force wall to keep anyone else from getting in. The bad news is that now we can't get out, and she's not going to drop the wall until it expires as she doesn't have another one prepared. What's more, she's unwilling to abandon her home there are no allies we can call upon to help us even if we could get out. The town guards are just general militia that work for them because they're paid, not from any real loyalties, while the compound guards are tougher mercenaries that were brought in to protect the compound, so getting the town guard probably wouldn't do much regardless.

Personally, she doesn't even think there is much need to leave. This is the pump room, the only place they can get water in large quantities. Sooner or later they will have to negotiate with her to get access to it, not to mention she's the only one who can keep it running. My enquiries also tell that, although yes, the pump and the spring outside have the same source, there is no way for me to crawl through it and come out there. Injured, I ask if she has any kind of potion on her, when the wall comes down I'd rather be at full health if I could help it. She doesn't have anything that could help unfortunately, so I strike upon the idea of searching the guards, that Throws the GM off, but he lets me search and I get a note later about what I had found. The lady looks over at me as I search:
Jaune – hey, I'm an adventure, it's what I do
Ezrisha – they tried to kill me, go right ahead I don't care
Jaune - oh, in that case [start kicking a guards body]
Ezrisha – ?
Jaune – wanna go? It's fun
Ezrisha – you know what, you’re a weird one. I like you

After this Ezrisha finally comes up with a plan. She pull out of her cleavage a jewelled scarab beetle:
Jaune – I'm guessing that’s more than a fancy bit of jewellery
She explains that she makes clockworks, the two golems are hers and so is this. I express genuine admiration for her talents at making something so small and precise. She can have the beetle record a message, fly through a hole in the roof thatching and contact one of my party members for help. I tell her to send the following message to Yurian, the blonde oracle:
Have mode contact with reasonable with reasonable Whitewater. We are both trapped in water pump room. Guards seem to have had an uprising. Sim, did you **** this up for me? Chance this can still be resolved peacefully. Yurian I am trusting you on this

We sent the beetle off and left it there.

Session 19, Part 1, a bird in need

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With the Whitewaters' being dragged off the others start to take check of their situation. Sayid is dead, he was unconscious, tied up and when ocelot broke the pillar he drowned unable to save himself. while this is both a horrific tragedy and the loss of the one person who knew what was going on, his death is mostly just glossed over by us. There was a brief talk about trying to reincarnate him, and whether that would work but we have more pressing matters to deal with.

A couple of the others hear some cries in the distance. Cries that sound like they belong to a very large bird. Sim immediately panics and runs to save it, Yurian following behind (less to save the bird and more to storm out, still enraged at our actions) with the others following after them. They get out to the oasis courtyard to find Dwain getting attacked by two guards, fumbles desperately hanging on his back and all three combatants looking bloodied and ragged. Ocelot immediately goes over while Yuiran glares daggers in his back even as she heals herself 25 damage. He quickly tries to explain, "no he's with us" but this argument for peace is immediately followed up by Dwain ripping one of the guards guts out. Seeing that peace negotiations have broken down, he pulls out his revolver and drops the second guard with two caps in the head.

The others unwind at this point. Vex decides to take a refreshing drink from the freshly bloodied oasis, Yuiran, still seething in rage, decides to examine the water, try and research its properties. Sim and draspher start healing up Dwain and realise he's pretty close to death, that fight must have been going on for a while. During this Sim finds something in his mouth, and a quick examination gives her the impression it's for Yurian. She quickly takes it over, and they discuss it in secret. The group then splits up again. Which is to say Yurian and Sim mount Dwain and fly off over the oasis without a word. The others, unsure if there ever coming back due to Yurians' anger decide to check in with the guards.

Part 2a, check-up
Ocelot, Vex and draspher head back into the pillar room, and find two guard standing over 5 other guards. It seems that there's been some internal fighting in the guards, but which side won, and are they friendly?

Vex is the one to realise the standing guards are the ones we talked too previously. With that tension resolved, they went over to talk. Ocelot quickly starts asking about locating me (Jaune) and the lady Whitewaters' quarters, he needs to find information hidden amongst her personal belongings. The guards wonder why need needs to look through an old woman's privates, but they don't have time to ponder that. They explain that there was a minor civil war in the guards, between those who served the Whitewaters' loyally and those whom had had enough of their callous attitudes. Although the revolutionists have won, there still their friends/comrades and they really don't want people dying over this. The five on the ground are not in the best of shape, and they really could do with a hand before they lose them. Ocelot is the only one there with ranks in heal, so he goes around doing his best to fix up the guards. It's touch and go with a few of them, but they are stabilised for the time being.

Part 2b, breakdown

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As they fly over the oasis, the topic comes up what's happened to fumbles, who draspher never retrieved from Dwain. draspher points out he could use his connection to fumbles to track him down, so I point out they might just ditch him in the lake, then Ocelot points out they might just kidnap him and draspher will never see him again.

Contrary to popular belief, Sim and Yurian weren't simply abandoning the party (yet, Yurian was going to hand in her resignation letter, then tell the party what they can do where and with what). No, Yurian had another mission in mind. The thing in Dwain's mouth was the clockwork beetle Ezrisha had sent with my message, and the two were flying over to the water pumps to help me out. As they approach the building they sense something off about it. A quick check as they fly makes Yurian realise it's being covered by some kind of force field, but the field only extends up so high, and it doesn't seem to cover the roof. So, she directs Sim to make Dwain fly onto the roof.

Meanwhile, I was waiting patiently for help to arrive when suddenly part of the ceiling falls down on top of me. I just manage to get out of the way, and both lady Ezrisha look up to see a large beak:
Ezrisha – is that your friends
Jaune – yes, I'm hoping that’s Sim's pet Roc
Ezrisha - that’s not a rock that’s a bird.
Jaune – I never said it was a smart bird.
Yurian quickly asks me if this is the Whitewater I meant. After confirming that, she berates me for disappearing. What followed was a 5 minute argument as we each blame the other for things going wrong. Ezrisha looks on at this, slightly bemused.

Yurian decides to address the lady directly. A quick interrogation reveals that, yes she is the daughter of the Lady Whitewater currently being dragged down to the cells, but she really doesn't care about that, she just wants to get back to business. With her gone she can finally start providing help to the town (not that she's altruistic, it's just better business keeping them alive), but can Yurian guarantee her safety if she drops the force wall? Yurian is scarily serious when she tells her that yes, she would kill her party members to guarantee her safety (rolled a 35 for it too).

Part 3, rushing to the defence

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Just as Ezrisha drops the barrier, two guards storm in from the corridor. Yurian pulls out her lightning wand and blasts the doorway indiscriminately, hitting the first for 22 damage. I ready myself, drawing my weapons and using my kage bunshin no jutsu for three clones. Meanwhile Ocelot hears the familiar thunderclap and charges off down the corridor to help. Vex runs after him, slowed down by her armour while draspher "lackadaisically" follows.

(on a side note, I thought he was making that word up, just more of his usual noises so you can imagine my shock that word had a correct spelling for it)

Unfortunately, the hole Dwain made isn't large enough to fit through, so instead Sim sends him down to where the spot by the doorway and have him start smashing his way through the plaster (side note he still hasn't combat trained the bird, so he needs to roll handle animal checks for everything. He managed to roll a natural 20, getting 31 on that roll). Meanwhile Sim herself jumps down, knocking her head of the side, but manages to land safely on her feet with only 1 damage thanks to her cat boots. Yurian immediately follows after, slips and falls flat on her back in comparison, although she somehow only took 1 damage as well from it. While Yurian picks herself up, Sim casts flame blade on her scimitar and stares the two guards down.

The two guards are none-pulsed about what's going on, not expecting to be blasted by lighting from people falling from the ceiling blasting lighting at them. That’s probably why they hadn’t moved from the doorway, though I am guessing they wish they had. A moment later Dwain finally breaks through the plaster wall, and part of the ceiling falls on their heads. One of the guards, (the one who had been hit by lightning) crawls out of the wreckage. Dwain quickly hops over and starts viciously pecking at him.

It’s at this point Sim finally gets a good look at him and pales. It’s the first guard she was talking with before at the oasis, the one who started the revolution in our favour. A Dwain is about to peck his face off. She screams out a horrified order to stop. Fortunately at this very moment, Ocelot rounds the corner before the two guards following him. Seeing what Sim is shouting at and recognising the guard he wonders over to placate Dwain. Unfortunately, he has no idea anyone else was under the rubble, so he does this while standing on the second guards head. Sim quickly dashes up and tells Dwain to hide while they sort this out, and the birds quickly hops off. Initially, he hides behind a palm tree until Sim yells at him to find a better spot.
Jaune – See, I told you it would all work out in the end
Ezrisha – you have no idea what’s going on, do you?
Jaune – with these guys its best not to ask
Ezrisha – [turn to the destroyed wall] I’m billing you for that
Jaune – I understand, I will include it in the report and all appropriate parties [glares at Sim and Dwain] will be billed for it

Yurian heals the first guards while Ocelot clears the rubble off and picks up the second guard. The first guard groggily turns to Yurian and asks “Who’s side are you on?”. Seeing he’s healed enough, she leaves to discuss matters with Ezrisha, but before they can get past a proper introduction and “why have my guards turned on me”, two more guards come into the room, quickly followed by Vex and draspher. To my infinite surprise, draspher actually diffuses the situation with the guards, talking them down and reassuring them everything is in hand. Yurian convinces the first guard that things can be halted without further bloodshed by listening to Lady Ezrisha, who calls a meeting at the oasis, and we all leave via the new “door” Dwain made.

As we leave, we notice a shape in the water. It’s Fumbles, evidently enjoying himself having a swim. I’m not sure how a raccoon simultaneously does a backstroke and flips off draspher as he tries to call him over, but it is impressive. We also notice a series of bubbles in the water next to him, and Dwain sticks his head up out of his “hiding spot” upon seeing Sim.

Part 4, resolutions to the revolution

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Sure enough, there’s soon a meeting between lady Ezrisha and the guards. She tells them that, now her mother and brother are out of the picture, she is free to make the changes needed to save the town, those who stand by her will be rewarded. The guards begrudgingly accept her help, considering she was the one Whitewater that was helping them this entire time.

Ezrisha – [turns to us] Well that went better than I expected.

The talk then turns to what will happen next. Yurian, well and truly sick of us after that display is quick to work out deal where she stays behind here and researches the disease. We (I) then work on a bargain, where I will broach a deal with the guild where they supply material and resources needed to rebuild the town. A section of the bargain would also include sending us regular shipments of the water to hold the disease off until we can cure it as part of her end of the deal.

We each find something to occupy us while we wait for the transport to arrive:
• I spend the days in Lady Ezrisha’s company, helping to establish the beginnings of the Whitewater empire. By the end of the 5 days, we are firm friends.
• Yurian decided to take over Sayids store, going over his records to discover more about the disease. She discovers that Sayid was one of the “Sentinels of Meraz”, a group dedicated to guarding certain artefacts called “The Oblivion Keys” which are linked the “Jackal Prince” we encountered. The sword was one of these, alongside three others although she hasn’t found their locations yet. She also writes up a letter for the guild member she wants as her replacement, her deaf bother, warning him about us.
• While Yurian studies, Sim decides she’s going to renovate the shop. She spends her time mapping out the store and planning what to do with it. She and Yurian decide to turn the place into “the best book and brothel”
• Draspher starts coming up with bad ideas, until I give him the broken sword I picked up before. He sets about using mending over and over, keeping him occupied just as I planned
• The others spend their time helping the town, mostly by helping the Whitewater guards distribute water to the townsfolk.
After 5 days of this, we see a shape on the horizon. As it gets closer, we recognize it as the guild flyer (a Microlight used to transport members across the country quickly). We part with Yurian, who leaves Ocelot the note to pass on to her brother. Although she was mad at us for not listening, she was still part of the team, and we’ll all miss her as she misses us. Hopefully we will see her again, especially as she intends to follow up the clues to find out the cure to the disease.

We get back to the guild, and the Guild-master wants to talk right away:
Jaune – Now I know what you're going to say, but let me point out this wasn’t my fault
He doesn’t believe me, probably has something to do with the constant updates we’ve been getting on our mission. He has some choice comments for all of us:
• He’s is particularly displeased at how I constantly run when things turn bad (though he does admit I have a point when I ask if he rather I just stayed behind to die as I couldn’t help, but the anger is still there)
• Ocelot is way too twitchy
• draspher is now wanted in three counties, so his reasons go without saying
• Vex didn’t stand down when ordered by her team leader, and that nearly caused a disaster
• He also refuses to listen to my and Ocelots shared confessions that it was all drasphers fault
After his fit of angry/disappointed/absolutely livid ranting, he tells us to hand over our found equipment, he has something in mind for us. It’s at this point draspher discovers he’s expected to hand over that necklace of adaptation as per guild policy (any found weapons/items of worth are given to the guild and the finders paid in recompense. Then that person/party has first dibs on renting/buying the item afterwards)

Lives saved – 13.5 and a town, the Girl being mauled by his commander, the crazy homeless person that almost burnt, the nun we healed (.5), the captain, sayid, the kid, the 5 guards, lady Ezrisha, the 2 guards in the doorway (kind-of), the town (for now)
Lives killed – 11, the one guy we pulled up to stab, the civilian that got shot (she went at him with a knife), the broken armed escapee that got shot, the city guard (he only had 2 days left till retirement) and the other two guards, sayid drowning in the desert, the two guards outside, the two guards attacking lady Ezrisha
Vexes Harem – 2.25, the Girl being mauled by her commander, the nun and a librarian who was really a ghoul
Times Drilled over by Draspher – 4, he convinced me there was a dragon in the desert, got me glued to the ground with a crazy infected woman ready to beat me to death and now refuses to heal me, vex healed him instead of attacking which meant the guy got a critical that nearly killed her
Times Draper got drilled over (both his own and others fault) - 32, his adhesive spittle keep breaking (2), I knocked him out (his own fault), he got assaulted by an air elemental and no-one cared, nearly killed by demon breath, his spider webs did nothing (15), the dog that fell to its death, the earth elementals that did nothing (3), the medium earth elemental critical that did nothing, the fireball, the 15' cone that can't go 20', the dragon roar (got the jackals attention) and the squid, Ocelot ruining his grease spell, getting tentacled before he could do anything, losing the necklace
Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 8, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha
Jaunes business ventures screwed – 6, Sim starting a revolution, Ocelot and draspher trying to steal water, draspher wanting to swim in it, Sim trying to get me to sneak off to find sayid, sayid getting us in trouble, Sim ruining any attempt at diplomacy with the fog spell
Organisations overthrown – 3, southwater crime gang, Whitewater family, then the Whitewater guards revolution

Our session didn’t end there however. The guild master decided now was the time to nip this problem in the bud as it were. While it was fine to send us off to cause problems at first, the mission is getting more delicate, and our usual antics just won’t cut it. First things first, time we met our new team-mates. Introducing:
Telon (formerly Yurian) – Yurians deaf brother (the second this fact came up, ocelot interrupted and gave him Yurians letter), a Metal Oracle. While Yurian chose to go the bookish knowledge-based route, her brother is all combat based, going into battle with plate armour, inflict instead of cure spells and a large nodachi
Yolan (Formerly Sim) – an inquisitor and travelling adventurer. Upon look at the sheet in comparison to his old one, he claims the inquisitor is “so broken”.

Telon is immediately unimpressed, asking if the guild master seriously wants us work with these “amateurs”. The guild master responds by knocking of drasphers hat of disguise, showing he’s the mad bomber. Yolan immediately vanishes from sight, and draspher hears an extremely intimidating “don’t mess this up” whispered into his ear.

The GM explains that this time the level up is going to be treated differently. We will have about 14 days to retrain skills (using the appropriate rules) and learn new ones, all role-played out. The first step, in order that we should get to know our new teammates better, we’re starting off with a basic “kill house scenario”.

Part 5, breaking and entering

Spoiler

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The scenario is simple. We are walked up to a large house, and told to take down the men inside. GM draws the outside, tells us to place our miniatures outside and everything from this moment is in character. We start planning, I’ll be upfront checking the door for traps, Yolan and Telon behind me ready to storm the door, Vex follows after and draspher and Ocelot at back. However, the GM decided to be a jerk about it. While I was checking for traps, he had failed to mention A. that the scenario started immediately, not when we entered, B. that the space he had told us to set up was a tiny edge between the building and off the board, and C. since we were all talking “in character” that meant everyone inside could hear us. Sure enough, about a dozen bullets peal through the door while I’m checking for traps.

While I dodge for half damage, Yolan and Telon end up taking the full force of 78, nearly killing them outright. I only took half and I still took 39 damage, leaving me at a scant 9hp while Telon had 1hp left and Yolan is 4 from absolute death. drasphers first instinct is to bomb the house, recognising there must be around three guys at least behind the door. He decides against the fireball for now, if only for the fact he’d kill his own party at that range, so decides to summon, only to realise he has no line of sight inside the building. He finally decides to check if he can help Yolan and Telon, but his roll of 2 convinces him there dead.

Just then the shutters on the first floor open up, and two more guys start shooting at us, hitting Ocelot for 28 and Vex for 13 respectively. Ocelot runs for the wall, shouting at us to join him as getting flat against it would ruin the gunners line of sight. While drawing my weapon, I try to get the party organised, yelling at vex to heal us, draspher to summon a rhino to charge through the door and SOMEONE to give us cover. Sure enough, vex drops a channel energy on us getting Yolan back to 1hp and Yolan heals himself back to 23hp and activates his healing judgement to get his health back.

Ocelot then starts trying the shutters, as carefully as possible. Finding he can open them and that there’s no-one on the other side, he takes aim and starts shooting the floor where one of the upstairs gunmen must be. He has no idea if it hits him or not, but I like his thought process. Vex meanwhile decides to enter the house through the shutters on the other side. Problem is thanks to her heavy armour, she has an abysmal climb score, so she utterly fails to get through the open window. draspher meanwhile comes up with one of his plans. He runs up to building while using ghost sounds to create the sound of a fireball hitting the side of the building and screaming “desert dragon”. I say again, his plan is not to cast fireball, but instead “trick” the guys currently shooting at us into thinking that a DESERT DRAGON is attacking the building from a completely different angle. Naturally it does nothing, but I think the next plan matches it in terms of success, if not worse.

Ocelot comes up with a plan. First, he convinces Telon to cast silence on him, then passes him one of his spare spider climb potions downing one himself. He then proceeds to scale the wall to where the gunman he shot was. The main reason I call this plan terrible isn’t that he’s splitting the party, isn’t running off without telling us, oh no. I call it terrible as he was dead in the middle of the party when the silence spell activates, meaning that I was rendered mute and completely unable to communicate with any of the party members, thereby preventing any hope the party had of working together coherently.

While this was going on Yolan uses a special ability to dimensional door inside the building. He hears the other gunman on the first floor moving into the building while the rest of us see two of the gunmen downstairs moving back through the wrecked door. It doesn’t do them that much good though, as at that moment draspher finishes his spell and sends a several ton white rhino stampeding through the remains of the door and the surrounding wall, missing one gunman by the skin of his teeth while trampling and burying one in rubble, before it smashes through the next wall. In the distraction I flurry the stand guard for two hits at 18 damage each before turning invisible, letting Vex and Telon move in to attack him. Telon tries asking for healing from vex, but thanks to the silence spell he can’t be heard. The critical he rolls can be felt though, and the downed gunman takes 24 damage from him.

The fallen gunman gets up while the first manages to dodge Vex and Telon’s attacks and his vex for 12 damage. Meanwhile in the next room the other two gunmen both unload everything they have on the rhino, reducing it to bloody Swiss cheese. As Yolan scopes out the room, seeing one by a staircase before crossing to the other side of the destroyed inner doorframe for a better look at the room, draspher steps out from cover, enraged at the loss of his rhino. He launches a fireball into the centre of the house. The blast is devastating, reducing many of the walls to splinters and even destroying the floor where one of the gunmen was waiting in ambush for Ocelot, dropping him into the crater left behind. Then the guard at the middle of this blast gets up, brushing off the dirt left after the 27 damage and takes aim at draspher.

Although unable to hear the explosion, Ocelot still felt it, and noticed the massive hole in the house when he exits the room with the window. He then decides to make the best use of his potion, first walking on the wall then on the ceiling to get an ideal and unexpected angle on the hole/next room. I take similar action (without the Spiderman reference) and sneak into the next room to see what’s going on. It’s at times like these the GM curses me for being able to roll 52 stealth when I need/want to.

Back in the first room Vex flubs a turn with two misses, while Telon hits the gunman for 9. In retaliation, and despite taking a blow from vex for 12, he unloads the rest of his guns into Telon. Despite a misfire damaging one pistol, he manages to gun him stone cold dead for 32 damage. This entire time he was one hit from death but his choice of negative spells and the silence field stopped him getting healing.

It’s now draspher realises the critical mistake he made. By moving into the open he left himself exposed, by blasting the fireball and not killing his target in one blow he made himself a target. He is absolutely riddled with bullets, taking 107 damage, insta-killing him from full.
(side note, just before this point, thanks to poor handling of his figure by the others the head had come off. Looks like that was an omen)

Yolan attempts to cast a spell, but finds his efforts thwarted by the silence field, so is forced to simply draw his sword and end his turn. While it comes in useful when one of the gunmen moves to attack vex, the 13 damage isn’t enough to prevent him plugging Vex for 12, finally dropping her. Still invisible, I sneak into the room to survey the situation. In the GM’s own words, “the situation is F.U.B.A.R”, so I resort to Jaunes all purpose backup plan, and I make for one of the windows. Just as I am getting out of the window, A hand reaches out and grabs me by the scruff of my neck and drags me back in. It’s Ninja-San, who just shakes his head and angrily/disappointedly states “you fail” before activating fireworks signalling the end of the exercise. This doesn’t stop ocelot from continuing to fire, still enveloped in the silence spell. So unable to hear them go off. It took 5 guild members to wrestle him to the floor and rip the gun out of his hand while the guild master himself talked him down before he stopped firing.

Ninja-san gets us together, and asks us where we think it went wrong. I explain how the attack through the doorway threw us off while we were planning. Then any attempt at regrouping and coming up with a plan was shot when Telon used the silence spell. Agreeing with this statement, he still had a few thing to say to us:
• draspher, you can’t keep doing this much collateral damage on every mission. We’re sending you to a city soon and you can’t just keep destroying everything around you left right and centre
• Ocelot, you ran off without telling anyone where you were going, and you did so in such a way that made communication impossible. You very easily could have gotten hit by the fireball simply because no-one knew you were in the blast range
• Telon, you spent the entire fight on one hit till death, you never communicated you needed help or healing considering you were right next to the paladin
• Jaune you ran off again [what were you expecting me to do, stand and fight when I just watched the dedicated fighters get gunned down in a single round?] you could have played support. If you picked up a wand of healing you could have cured the others while you waited. Perhaps you should consider putting some points into use magical device? [I have max ranks in that, I’ve just never had the gold or time to buy a bunch of wands]
His main concern was a complete lack of communication between us. As part of the training, he’s going to teach us sign language so we can communicate with Telon and in a field of silence. We should also consider finding a way to communicate regularly.

After our dressing down, we started planning what we were going to do for our level up/training. draspher decides to get some training in with fumbles. Then he realises fumbles isn’t with him. In fact he hasn’t seen him in a while. OH CRUD, WE FORGOT FUMBLES! Meanwhile, far away in the desert a raccoon is being shaken back and forth by an oversized bird, and he swears revenge. (OOC he wanted a new familiar as blowing two feats on a celestial raccoon he kept consistently not using/using wrongly. He/we decided that that was a far funnier solution, and gives fumbles a chance at a reappearance down the line)

we left it there, while we planned out our level up/retraining/rebuilding.

Timed "died" in training – 4, Yolan at the start before getting healed, draspher, Telon, vex

Times yelled at – 2, at the guild, ninja-san

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 9, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission

Times drilled over – 4, GM at the start of the training mission, ocelots silence spell, Telon not following ocelot, getting told the situation was FUBAR yet still getting told off for running

[Romaru Darkeyes]

I love my group - I genuinely do. It's the greatest feeling watching them overcome a difficult situation, but as you've probably noticed it's how they choose to do so which is usually the most fun things to watch.

This is admittedly one of the longest running campaigns that I have had the pleasure to DM so certain things I am starting to learn and implement as I go down the line. I have the fortune of having started somewhat of a gaming renaissance in my group of family and friends thanks to starting this game - as it has lead to at least 4 concurrent games being run within this particular group.

We have (to date)

This game

Everybody is Johnny Depp - a Skulls and shackles Pathfinder game DM'd by Rebelpyroflame (could also be referred to as "What do you mean the Bard has no ranks in swim???")

"Excuse me. Could I talk to you about the Old Faith?" - A Shadow of the Demon Lord game DM'd by the player of Ocelot. (So far every character we have rolled up with the religion 'Old Faith' has died a horrible death)

and finally

"The barbarian just punched out a mountain..." - A somewhat Monty Haul type affair run by my other younger brother who is getting his feet wet in DM'ing his first game.


Now in each of these games I've seen DM elements that I think are admirable and should be replicated in my own games. That and reading some of these forums. So as times gone on I've tried to include these within my play. So occasionally I'll start dropping in little points to try and tweak the game to take this into account.

That said - now lets add my comments as DM to RPF's

[Romaru Darkeyes]

Spoiler: But why don't you care?

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Yurian and Sayid quickly begin their explanations of what's going on and why they need her help, but the problem is, she just doesn't care. So, what if this disease is ruining the town, she's safe in her compound, she can quite easily wait it out until all the filth outside is dead, then she can get a far better class of people to move back in to replace them.

I think this is the first character (or couple of characters; being mother and son) I've thrown at them that actively don't care about the lower classes. Think proper 1% type thinking.

It was weird yet strangely amusing watching the players just not making head way at all with this woman and getting somewhat frustrated with her attitude.

While I am appealing to the purest of all virtues, human greed,

Good strategy :)

Yurian comes up with another idea. She offers to show the lady the demon that we fought and uses a silent image spell to perfectly replicate (choosing not to embellish it as she didn't trust her bluff score). The image of the Anubis demon actually makes her pail, and she comments "this can't be, it's just like in that book".

Also fairly inspired :)

Yurian has always been somewhat the party face and has had knowledge and charisma skills out the yin-yang. The player for her is a pretty good strategist so as such they kind of got the role of team leader and strategist.

Remember this - it'll be important later...

"this can't be, it's just like in that book"

So will this..

Spoiler: My DM style

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So part of my play style as a DM is to do my best to make every NPC into a truly living entity. 90% of the time it is never even seen or even explored but that is fine - it's not supposed to. No one is going to care that the blacksmith has 2 children and is overdue on his rent unless it becomes their business.

So with this I considered - how do the guards feel about this situation?

While this was going on, Sim decides to do some investigating of her own. She approaches one of the guards and starts asking about the condition of the staff. Turns out about half of the staff have all come down with the disease. Our conversation with the lady turns to the matter of people outside the walls and Sim points out that there no chance she cares about the guard's families at all. Both in and out of character I start cursing sim for ruining my business opportunity by starting a revolution.

And as it turns out Sim's player actually thought to ask one. Nice playing and opportunity for role play.

Now consider Sayid - the NPC who was responsible for the safeguarding of the key. He believes that he alone has the most information regarding the creature they have faced. He's also desperately trying to fix his mistake.

So when he hears "this can't be, it's just like in that book" his first reaction as an NPC is "What book?"

The GM starts rolling dice, then suddenly facepalms. When questioned he only states that anyone can pull a draspher. We soon see why.

All PC's got to take 10 on a passive perception. Sayid has class levels in both rogue and monk and makes his stealth rolls quite handily to sneak away from the group.

Unfortunately he crit botches when he's sneaking around in the Lady Whitewaters chambers looking for 'the book'. Needless to say she wasn't pleased.

Spoiler: Drashper - what the f-?

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What followed left the GM and I completely speechless, as Ocelot starts attempting to figure out how much water he can steal. First, he plans out what containers he has, then he figures out how much storage there is in a bag of holding. Then, after cursing he's the only party member who thought to get one, he realises he has more storage than all the pillars in the room. Then he starts justifying what items in the bag are waterproof or not important if they get wet. He decides to steal two cubic feet from each pillar so they won't notice, but then draspher joins in and points out he could turn the bag invisible so the guard won't notice. He then tops this by saying he could turn Ocelot invisible and send him off to steal from the spring directly. At this point I pipe up with a question of how fast he thinks these taps are, considering there used as over the top water fountains, how he plans to steal 6 15-gallon pillars worth of water while the guard watches before the others arrive. So, he suggests just breaking a hole in the side, with both draspher and Yurian saying they can just use a mending spell on it afterwards. I curse them all for attempting to mess up my business opportunity

Again it's just fun as a DM to sit back and watch the situation unfold before you. Watching the players back and forth about how best to steal enough water so they won't be noticed. It's also the point where I was doing the mental calculations about Sayid and what he was doing.

However it's also this point that I thought - hmmm, they are discussing this plan in full view and earshot of a guard as characters. I'm not going to drop the hammer this time but I need to start making them think about this...

I question if diluting the water over time would give us a longer duration...

I know what he was saying but the idea just made me chuckle.

"So to make it go farther... You want to add water... to the water..."

"Yeah. So will it work?"

"I think you need to stop sitting next to Draspher dude..."

And then to prove that 'nuh uh! I can be dafter than that!'

He starts questioning if BREATHING the water would have a different effect to drinking it.

Me - "You want to wha?"

Draspher - "Well I figure drinking it is good, but filling my lungs with it has got to be even better!"

Me - "And to paraphrase Raiden - how do you avoid drowning?"

Draspher - "My necklace of adaptation! I can survive in the vacuum of space with this thing"

Yurian - "... Hey Mr DM. What's the upward range on a teleport spell? Would it reach orbit? Asking for a friend..."

I whole heartily support the idea of putting him in a giant hamster ball filled with the stuff, that way he's cured and the rest of us never have to put up with his nonsense/antics ever again

You both jest but I know the table would get awfully boring without him :P

Spoiler: Starlord! Who???

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So the Lady believes that this has been an elaborate trick to steal from her and as you might expect confronts the team.

"What is the meaning of this! Now you try to steal from me???"

Draspher – "how dare you accuse lord Dupee of this!"
Jaune – "It's Dupre you ass"

Bear in mind that at no point during the game or even before this has RPF explained his character backstory at the table. Also during conversations with the Lady Whitewater he never introduced himself as Lord Dupre. So this came not only out of left field but Draspers player is desperately trying to justify why it should make a difference.

Drasper - "But he's got royal blood"

Me - "One; how do you know that in character? Two; Why would she care about a dead bloodline that has no political connection to her? Three; If he'd opened with calling himself Lord Dupre then I might allow it but now she is confused and thinking Sayid is Lord Dupre..."

Draspher - "Oh..."

We all immediately pipe up with ideas/actions. Some of us want to fight, some want to discuss things out, it's a mess, so the GM has us roll initiative.

GM - "Roll Initiative. I want to use this for action order. I'm not letting you guys just discuss tactics like some sort of pause button anymore. You've been caught on the hop - so no more planning. What do you do?"

The good news is that I rolled fairly high, so I might be able to sort this out. .

...

The bad news is that Sim had a prepared action and cast obscuring mist over the troops.

I don't think it was a prepared action - I think he literally JUST pipped you in initiative.

Now - to be fair - this genuinely wasn't their fault this time. I put them in a fairly crap situation and was hoping that they would try for diplomacy. I found out later that Ocelots plan would have been to put a bullet in Sayid to show that he acted alone and that he deserved his fate - though I would have had to shift his alignment for that one.

So, I go with Jaune's all-purpose plan A.

Leg it...

Spoiler: Sigh.. Here we go again...

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It's at this point that lady whitewater wanders out of the fog as well, completely soaked and thoroughly enraged. She might be old and greedy, but this in no way makes her a pushover, and she demonstrates this by capturing all of the party except Ocelot inside a black tentacles spell

Ocelot shifted position very early where as the rest bunched up. This lady is pretty strong - she's like a 12th level mage. But for 6 player characters of level 8 she's difficult but beatable, at least according to my encounter calculator.

Yurian then demands that we lay down our arms and surrender, she promices lady Whitewater that this is all a misunderstanding, that we'll go peacefully and we can resolve this.

Literally says that she's willing to put her life on the line. That if they do anything that they can kill her. And she's totally being genuine about it.

draspher fumbles about and tires to escape his bonds enough to cast a spell, but fails so he stops struggling to show his compliance. Sim backs off from Kardag and in turn Kardag lowers his scimitar. Even Ocelot lowers his gun to show his compliance...

Me thinking "Hmm, I can still use this."

The first is that I manage to break the tentacles using escape artist...
...I turn invisible and use light steps to run straight past the guards still in the fog bank....
...but I still manage to make it down the corridor.



The other was vex simply breaking the tentacles hold on her. She then strides over to lady Whitewater, and either she didn't hear or didn't care about what Sim said, as she smashes her in the face with the hilt of her katana.



...Draspher then successfully argues that the surrendering characters should get a turn as a delayed action. Ocelot immediately panics and follows his twitchy nature, and unloads into the lady's face for a Crit...




The combined assault is enough to knock her on her ass unconscious.

Spoiler: Hell hath no fury like an oracle with a lightning rod...

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Yurian is beside herself in silent rage, refusing to act for the rest of combat and already writing her resignation letter to the guildmaster in her head

Honestly I can see why. In character they basically killed her. She'd sworn on her life and half the party ignored her. Had it not gone the way that it had they would have had every right to execute her and they would have. And it would have been public and grisly :p

During this, Juane ran off down the corridor. Deciding against going through the doors directly ahead of him sneaks down the corridor.

Splitting the party... Always a good idea... Especially as you keep telling me - you are a squishy rogue and shouldn't be left alone in combat...

So the next section required a solo campaign that I had to arrange specifically for RPF to play to find out what happened to his character...

[Romaru Darkeyes]

So as RPF said, by the end of the session previously we have had a change up in the lineup.

Yurians player felt that as a character there would be no going back from what happened and that she (the character) would not be able to work with that team anymore. It's also worth noting that in game she and Sim are lovers (they are out of game too but it's not invasive on the story) so Sim would also not be able to stay with the party.

OOC I think that Yurians player was also feeling that they may have made a mistake being the face character and that as far as combat was concerned she was not exactly ideal. She had started with no real combat feats or powers, and while this would have been okay, the last session kind of showed that the party was very combat heavy and she didn't really fit. Especially if they weren't even going to listen when she was doing her talking.

So I wrote them out of the story and introduced their new characters when it was convenient.

Secondly - I had noticed that the players - even after months of gaming together - are still a little bit independent, rather than working as a team. So I had a mean idea - to run the aforementioned kill house scenario.

Spoiler: Learning new skills... like STEALTH!

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GM draws the outside, tells us to place our miniatures outside and everything from this moment is in character.

Hey at least I said it out loud and you obviously heard it

We start planning, I’ll be upfront checking the door for traps, Yolan and Telon behind me ready to storm the door, Vex follows after and draspher and Ocelot at back.

However, the GM decided to be a jerk about it.

You were literally stood by the door, talking in your normal voices about where to stand. At this point I had already had you roll initiative and I was rolling dice while you were discussing - as it happens, perception rolls for the guys inside to hear you. You very helpfully told me exactly where you were standing and in what order

While I dodge for half damage, Yolan and Telon end up taking the full force of 78, nearly killing them outright. I only took half and I still took 39 damage, leaving me at a scant 9hp while Telon had 1hp left and Yolan is 4 from absolute death.

That woke you up didn't it

drasphers first instinct is to bomb the house, recognising there must be around three guys at least behind the door.

Good perception check...

He finally decides to check if he can help Yolan and Telon, but his roll of 2 convinces him there dead.

Terrible heal check...

Ocelot then starts trying the shutters, as carefully as possible. Finding he can open them and that there’s no-one on the other side, he takes aim and starts shooting the floor where one of the upstairs gunmen must be. He has no idea if it hits him or not, but I like his thought process.

...

draspher meanwhile comes up with one of his plans.

This should be good...

He runs up to building while using ghost sounds to create the sound of a fireball hitting the side of the building and screaming “desert dragon”.

As with Ocelots plan - good in theory but essentially blind firing without knowing effect.

From a DM point of view - the first wave of attacks was designed to cause panic and confusion in the team. By the time they had taken these actions the 'enemy' NPC's had already faded back into the building to another ambush point. I was banking on the idea that they would immediately regroup and abandon stealth and charge the building.

Straight into another setup ambush.

As it was it didn't happen quite that way but:

draspher finishes his spell and sends a several ton white rhino stampeding through the remains of the door and the surrounding wall, missing one gunman by the skin of his teeth while trampling and burying one in rubble, before it smashes through the next wall.

Effective - but very heavy on the collateral damage. Still can't deny the effects and...

Meanwhile in the next room the other two gunmen both unload everything they have on the rhino, reducing it to bloody Swiss cheese

Two of the guys had made it to the fallback position and shot the thing to pieces. But it meant that at least it triggered the ambush. Unfortunately they couldn't capitalise on it before they were able to reload their weapons. The NPC's in the house (at least those two) took a full round action to reload

And then:

...draspher steps out from cover,...

To be fair I think he was expecting to OHKO the guy with the fireball. It's been and remains his go to spell for doing damage. What he didn't expect it that the guy made the reflex save so instead of 27 damage he only took half. And the guy very calmly took his pistol and full round attacked back at the mage who even at level 8 still has an AC of 15...

And critted... twice...

In the GM’s own words, “the situation is F.U.B.A.R”, so I resort to Jaunes all purpose backup plan, and I make for one of the windows.

Sigh...

A hand reaches out and grabs me by the scruff of my neck and drags me back in. It’s Ninja-San, who just shakes his head and angrily/disappointedly states “you fail” before activating fireworks signalling the end of the exercise.

Now I had planned that if 3 out of 6 went 'down' that they would fail the exercise. As it was Jaune trying to 'escape' I just took as leaving the area of battle and going AWOL so I treated it as being downed.

I've got to be honest - yes I was being mean - but at no point did I fudge in my favour and I didn't railroad anything. Other than stopping Jaune from making a break for it.

The point was to teach my players a lesson about teamwork, and I hope the lesson sank in a little bit. I read a couple of other source books from other games about SWAT team tactics in order to coordinate them and it worked really well - perhaps too well...

[rebelpyroflame]

This session we continued with our remedial training. We had each spent a few days going through various training:

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• Ocelot had teamed up with his old friend, the guild alchemist and Quartermaster Ollom Hammersong the dwarf. With his help, he took a level of alchemist and retrained a previous level to become a second level alchemist. He even figured out how to grow an extra arm to help him with various tasks. He and Ollom have also decided to start working on various types of special bullets, such as a healing syringe, alchemist bomb launcher, knock out bullets etc
• I meet up with ninja-san for training. When asked what exactly I’m hiding behind my back, I present him with (both in game and irl) my home made riceballs and ask “sempai” to notice me. After a clip around the ear (not irl) he starts teaching me some skills so I am more useful in direct combat (and hopefully less inclined to run). With his help I gain the scout archetype and retrain the deceptive feat to gain the confounding blade rogue talent. I also use the cash from the last mission to purchase (on Ninja-san’s advice) two +1 spring mounted wrist blades so I can throw shuriken without dropping my main weapons, and a large selection of wands
• Yolan, disturbed how easily he was taken down, meditates on his build. It’s almost like he was a completely different person, with different ability point distributions and equipment (he realised a large number of mistakes he had made in making his sheet, such as buying headband and wastebands of perfection, leaving no gold for more immediately useful items, so he re-started them to be more appropriate). He also invested in a bullet ward spell to counter his heavy armours weakness to them, and made sure he had a better healing spell selection.
• Telon went back to the monsetry to re-attune himself on his focus, to be Gods tool of war. This translated as gaining a level of barbarian, with an aim of becoming a rage prophet. (He had a similar rebuild to Yolan, as there dating they conferred with each other and made similar mistakes)
• After spending most of her gold giving her off hand wakizashi keen, Vex decided she needed some more punch, so she consulted fellow big fighter Telon for help. With his teaching, she was able to tap into her latent connection to the gods in a stronger form. The training is hard though, mostly because the teacher is deaf and not very good at teaching others. The breakthrough comes when vex gets annoyed at him enough to start yelling at Telon, only to realise she’s not speaking common but Abyssal. With this success, she gains a level of battle oracle, but her curse is tongues. To put it into context, Vex is a brave, Nobel Paladin who has modelled herself after the honourable samurai. Now whenever she get in battle, she starts screaming in Demonic Tongues. The plus side is now she has more spells to cast as buffs, an alternate source of healing to her lay on hands, and the surprising charge ability helps improve her manoeuvrability in combat
• draspher had been assigned one of the guild mages to assist him. Rayvn Nox is a short, firely woman who introduced herself by walking over to draspher and smacking him around the head repeatedly, loudly berating him and asking what the hell he thinks he’s doing. This is the closest thing to genuine human affection he has ever received in his life, so naturally he implants on her as his motherly figure. Despite her amusement at this, it won’t save him from the beatings. With her tutelage he learned some support spells in the form of resist energy, enlarge person and haste, and his bloodline gave him dimensional door. He even learned to cast spells in silence since he was working with a deaf person and silence spells could be useful now we all knew sign language. He also remembered, from his experience with the Whitewaters, the effectiveness of black tentacles, and managed to recreate the spell. He also bought a second spell ring and has given them mage armour and shields respectively, with the idea of making scrolls of both in his downtime. While examining his finances Rayvn saw just how much he had saved, then proceeded to smack him round the back of the head so hard his head became imbedded into the floor. She then dragged him over to the quartermasters to actually buy some armour. He managed to buy some Darkleaf armour that won’t affect his spellcasting while giving him an AC worth something. (Note the team pyromaniac is now wearing magic leaves)
• Fumbles, having chosen a life as Dwain’s chew toy over more time with draspher, has left an empty spot on drasphers shoulder. Luckily (?) Rayvn happened to be looking after an egg for the guildmaster, which when she left draspher in charge for a few minutes hatched and implanted on him. Turns out it was a Faerie dragon egg, which has named itself “Mee” and insists on talking in the third person. At least having Mee helped draspher learn how to cast dragonbreath.
(His player actually bought a dragon hand puppet to represent Mee, and I don’t think a single person on the table was pleased to see it. Vex lives next to him and had been putting up with the puppet/accent/draspher talking to it/it talking back for a week. Ocelot knew from the moment he saw the puppet, heard its annoying accent and the way it spoke it would annoy him. The GM and I had a more personal reason for being worreied. We both practice Aikido alongside draspher (it’s how most of us first met, everyone on the table practiced at one point or another) and even before he bought the puppet, draspher had been having animated conversations with it. While we would walk back home, we’d turn around and find him falling behind in arguments with “Mee”. He gives us enough to worry about as it is, but do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to watch a man lose a fight for his sanity with his own right hand? It’s like the cat finger from Steven Universe, except instead of a shapeshifted finger it’s his own imagination. At multiple points during the night we keep joking/planning ways of taking out the dragon so we don’t have to deal with it.)

(Also, later on when he takes it off his hand and puts it on his shoulder, we realise that thanks to the realistic eyelids on the puppet it looks suicidally depressed, and we all laugh that even this new born know how its situation is, and how demented the picture we took of it depressed and draspher grinning like a maniac is.)

Alongside this we had all also learned Drow sign language. While this wasn’t enough for massive conversations, we had learned enough for quick battlefield instructions and basic communication (GM basically saying he won’t let us spend hours planning each turn, just quick messages to each other in combat)

With that training done, we were called up for our next training exercise

Session 20, Part 1, scenario and setup

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Instead of a combat scenario, this time we were doing an escort one. We would be bodyguarding an important VIP while he had a public tour of the city. While he would be walking down the street, there would be a barricade between him and the public. Our mission is to escort him, not rush him to his objective or hide him away as he’s a public figure. Also for the purpose of this exercise he is “immune” to spells that would remove him as a target like invisible, dimension door etc, but we can cast other spells such as buffs, cures etc.

After a bit of planning we have our battle plan. Ocelot will play overwatch on the buildings to the right and move down with us, while Mee will fly over the buildings on the left for a simlar. I will disguise myself and infiltrate the crowd along the right hand side as well to cover Ocelot’s blind spot, using my new wand of message to pass on observations. Vex will take the right flank, Telon will take the left and keep eye contact with Ocelot, passing messages on VIA long-ranged sign language. draspher and the VIP will secure in the center while Yolan take the rear. The one problem I have with this arrangement is that of the people in front I can see to message, one is deaf, one talks crazy when a fight breaks out and the last is [shudders] draspher.

We each prepare in our own ways. Telon raps his scarf around the VIP, ready to turn it to metal as an impromptu shield if needed, then casts shield of faith on himself and lead blade on his nodatchi and keen on Ocelots gun. draspher boost the defence higher with mage armour, then casts invisibility on his dragon. Yolan cast Guidance on Telon, Magic Weapon on Ocelots rifle, and see invisibility and bullet ward on himself, and Ocelot after getting buffed by the others uses an oil of silence on his gun and a potion of spider climb to scale the wall.

Part 2, meet and greet

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The mission starts and we start surveying the crowd. It quickly becomes apparent that the GM has partially miss-planned this. The main problem is that each turn goes buy incredibly slowly, as our only option is to slowly go up the street and check the crowds. Since this is a regular town, and most of the people are being played by guild members/random extras many of them happened to be armed. This means we can’t make perception checks to spot targets, we have to make sense motive on every individual member. The GM also admitted he ran out of counters to fill the streets with, so as you can expect the first few turns were a little tedious, but a good learning experience for what to fix later on.

The first thing to happen is a woman jumping the barrier. She doesn’t get far though before Ocelot puts a bullet through her leg, dealing 10 damage to the unarmed civilian. From afar I quickly check her out. She’s still alive, bleeding and in a great deal of pain but alive. I quickly use my wand to tell draspher “targets down but alive, proceed with caution”, then get back to checking the crowd. Vex quickly moves up to her and realises she’s bleeding out so she administers first aid to stabilise her.

The others are suitably spooked and decide to carry on there duties except with the prepared action of bull rushing the VIP in needed. As they start to move up Ocelot feels something overtake him, and a voice in his mind tells him to shoot the VIP. He manages to shake it off and realises that someone tried to use an enchantment spell on him. Shaking it off he manages to warn Telon about the mage being nearby when he spots a shape on the opposite line of roofs. Realising he needs a way to alert the rest of us to his presence he come up with an idea.

While the figure carefully lines up his shot with his musket, he suddenly hit in the side by a ray of searing heat. It takes him but a moment to realise that the tarp he was using as camouflage has also caught fire. Ocelot had decided the best way of both dealing with him and alerting us was to use the scorching ray wand/gun he originally was planning on using as a flare as a direct weapon, which also happened to set him on fire, a nice big target we can all see.

Part 2, the burning man

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I spot the target and immediately leap into action. I quickly tell draspher to summon something on the roof next to the burning man before running through the crowd, drawing my bow. My recent training as a scout kicks in, letting me get a sneak attack for 15 damage on the gunner before I turn invisible. My thought was that since draspher would summon something to attack the guy to distract him, the others would be able to finish him of quickly, meanwhile I could sneak back into the crowd afterwards to continue my surveillance.

Vex looks up at the sounds of screaming and is confused why there’s a burning man on the roof. She immediately turns back and asks draspher “what did you do?”. She then turns back to see one member of the crowds staring in fear and confusion at the space I was just vanished from. Meanwhile Mee flies over to the building to attack the guy on fire. He casts a grease spell on him, but it has no effect. Seeing a blurry invisible shape spewing grease at him, the burning man decides to take a shot at it, and hits Mee for 11 damage. And there was much rejoicing. draspher, enraged at his familiar being attacked like this, summons all his magical might to unleash the greatest horrors he can imagine on him. Yes, that’s right, he summons from the depths of hell for his vengeance 4 tiny vipers on the roof.

A quick explanation for this choice. The GM, sick of his constant summoning decided to put a limit on it, not for it’s game breaking but for his constant spamming of obscure monsters he kept needing to look up (which draspher never kept sheets off, and even when he did kept losing the monster entry in the pile). Frequently turns would get bogged down as the GM would have to keep track of the HP of a dozen spiders, who spend every turn trying to web a monster who is clearly too strong for it. To make it more manageable He had told him that from now on he was only allowed 1 type of monster at each spell level (with exceptions in certain circumstances) and one casting of the spell at any given time, i.e. summon a creature the first time, the second casting would dismiss the first creature. It turns out that draspher had chosen for his level 1 choice vipers, simply because he wanted to cover people in them to scare them.

Said four vipers to attack, quickly surrounding him, but fail to hit him. During this Yolan and Telon are keeping an eye on the crowd near them and the VIP. Yolan notices that one of the guys in particular doesn’t look entirely there, like he has blinkers on. Telon gets the message from Ocelot, and warns the VIP about possible hostiles, using sign language to message Yolan about the possible mage hanging around. At that very moment, the confused guy lunges for the VIP. It’s so sudden that Yolan and Telon had no idea what was happening, even as they both instinctively punched him square in the face, knocking him out cold before he could hit the floor.

Meanwhile I had problems of my own, as I felt a voice in my head telling me to stab the VIP. Luckily, I fought of the influence and looked to see who had cast this spell on me. Turns out, it was the guy standing right next to me. I had managed to run straight through the crowd, sand right next to one of our attackers, shoot his comrade then turn invisible right in front of him. My next turn is going to be fun.

Ocelot has leapt from one building to the other and takes a shot at snake covered burning-man for 7 more damage and then it’s my turn. I drop the bow, spring out my hidden blades and attack. Somehow, I manage to flub it so only one attack out of four hit him, but I still dealt him 19 damage. Vex still can’t tell what’s going on, so seeing me openly battle someone, she decides just to go with her instincts and join me in the attack. Unfortunately, the sight of a huge lumbering orc drawing two swords and stalking towards the barrier sets of one of the civilians, and he tips the barrier over as he runs away, making her miss her attack. He’s not alone though, as the crowds panic at the violence breaking out, and the VIP is uncertain as what to do as he sees the fights breaking out. The bullet filed, snake covered burning man has no such problems, as he aims a shot at the VIP. However, he forgot about the snake covered bit, and two of them get bites in at vital spots as he’s aiming, finishing him off.

(side note, at this point draspher had left the room, so we decied to roll the dice for him. We each took a dice and Yolan and mine rolled hits. He then entered the room just as the guy died, and pointed out the most useful his summons have ever been is when he has nothing to do with them whatsoever)

Part 3, its hammer time

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draspher decides now’s the time to get supportive, and casts haste on me, vex, the VIP, Yolan and Telon, and has his vipers line up on the roof. Mee flies down the street, and spots a suspicious looking man going the opposite way to most of the fleeing crowd, and flies back to draspher to warn him.

Telon, realising that the time for a meet and greet has passed, convinces the VIP its time to go, and they both run 80’ down the street. Unfortunately, the suspicious man saw them approach and ran to meet them, drawing out a Warhammer to smack Telon for 6 damage as thanks for bringing his target to him. Meanwhile the wizard that Vex and I are fighting starts whipping his hands for a spell. Despite hitting him for 13 and 5 damage respectively, he gets it off and turns invisible, fleeing combat. Luckily we hear the sounds of his feet as he runs, so we at least know he’s not there anymore. Ocelot meanwhile decides to help Telon buy pumping Mr Warhammer with lead for 8 damage.

On my turn I remember that Yolan had cast see invisibility on himself, so I turn to him and message him:
Jaune – enemy turned invisible, can you pursue
Yolan – yes
Jaune – proceed, I will scout out ahead
I then turn invisible and run down the street. I actually ended up running straight past him before I turn to check the crowd for more possible threats. Vex, annoyed that her primary punching bag has disappeared, turns around and is pleased that a second one has made it self know by attacking Telon. She casually walks over and crit’s the guy for 17 damage. draspher then decides to be useful, and tries to cast glitterdust on Mr Warhammer, much to our mutual horror. Luckily, he was able to aim it in such a way as to not completely blind the party, in particular the deaf member who relies of sight exclusively, but we still get annoyed at him for nearly blinding us all. He even gets the snakes to come down and join in, biting the guy for 1 damage. In retaliation he swings wildly, actually getting a critical, but the GM doesn’t roll confirmation because he’s been blinded, so Telon only has to take 6 damage from it.

The invisible mage meanwhile is crapping himself about what just happened, and the sensation of someone invisible running straight by him. He’s trying to figure out his next move as he sees his comrade getting whaled on. Luckily, he’s invisible so that gives him some chance to plan out his next move. Yes, no chance any of them could find him. He so distracted he never notices the figure moving behind him until it’s too late, as it brings a Morningstar right on his head. Yolan looks satisfied as the pulped remains of what was once his skull hits the floor, while I leap back in surprise at the body that appears from no-where falling dead next to me.

Part 4, goodness gracious, great balls of fire

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Draspher has Mee hold his turn while Telon gets to work on Mr Warhammer, hitting three times for 51 damage, he hasn’t got much left in him after that. It looks like we’re almost in the clear. Just a shame the ringleader suddenly burst out of the crowd, then flies straight upwards 60’. She pulls something from a necklace and makes to throw it at the group. draspher immediately pipes up that Mee should be able to do something to counter, since he had delayed his turn. The GM gives him once chance to stop her. First he tries to say Mee counterspells it, where we all point out A. he’s not a spellcaster and B. that you’d need the same spell, a spell of the same school at least one level higher or a dispel magic to counter and his spell like ability grease would never count. Finally he argues he makes an illusion of a wall in he path of the projectile, but if fails to stop her throwing it.

Turns out it’s a bead from a necklace of fireballs, and she manages to catch draspher, Mee, Yolan, Telon, Vex and the VIP in the blast, alongside a good deal of civilians either side of the street. It hits for 32 damage, but luckily everyone in our group made there saving throws so they only took 16 damage. Even more fortunately, it managed to take out Mr Warhammer, so much for team spirit.

Ocelot then takes her by surprise with a critical and a hit. Looks like that keen spell paid off in a big way, since now he rolls 5 times for a total of 34 damage. I then consider my options. I was thinking about pulling out the bow to open fire on her, then I remembered I dropped it and never picked it up. I dropped it back on the pavement, right at the section that got fireballed. Truly the loss of innocents has been great this day. So I decide the next best thing is to get up high. I run over to a side street, and make use of my acrobatic skills to leap wall to wall. The GM rules that so long as I can make 4 rolls without a 1 or a 2 I should be able to make it. As I rolled they kept getting lower, my last one being a 3, so I just made it up.

Back in the blast zone the others pick themselves up. Vex uses a channel positive energy to heal the group and some of the civilians for 13 hp. draspher meanwhile is enfuriate that this woman would dare hurt Mee! Oh and the rest of the group. And I suppose the VIP. He decides to give her a taste of her own medicine, and launches a fireball back on her. Despite making her save, she still takes 12 damage, which is enough to knock her out. To our great regret, the necklace made it’s save, so didn’t expload. We were THIS close to another mad bomber story for the guild master.

We spend the rest of our sessions moving up cautiously to the end of the street, Telon quickly casting bears endurance on the VIP for a bit of extra health, but we encounter nothing. (Originally the GM was going to make us run twice the length of the street with twice the amount of enemies, but the ones we did encounter and the length the session he decided to just call it there, we had gotten the point across.)

Part 5, Feedback and Scoring

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We end the session there and get some feedback based on our performance. Overall we didn’t do to badly, GM’s calling it a win, it could have gone much worse. He targeted both Ocelot and myself with those spells as he knew our wills were bad, Ocelot was in the perfect position to snipe the guy and there was nothing we could have done to stop him, while my ninja skills could have walked straight up to him and assassinated him with an invisible sneak attack.

As for specific notes, the woman at the start was a flasher, her intention was to run up to the VIP and get her boobs out, while the guy Yolan and Talon knocked out was just under a suggestion spell. I did cause a panic when I shot the guy on the roof, but it was the natural thing to do in that situation so I won’t get marked down. Also, extra points for Vex healing the civilians after the fireball. Overall we got a B, much improved from the previous task.

Timed "died" in training – 4, Yolan at the start before getting healed, draspher, Telon, vex
Times yelled at – 2, at the guild, ninja-san
Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 9, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission
Times drilled over – 4.5, GM at the start of the training mission, ocelots silence spell, Telon not following ocelot, getting told the situation was FUBAR yet still getting told off for running, losing my bow in the fireball (guildmaster said I’d get a replacement, .5)

[rebelpyroflame]

Session 21

We continued our mandatory training. This time, we were going to try our hand at social situations.

The scenario was a fancy dinner party. Naturally we wouldn’t be “allowed” to have weapons or equipment on us, so if we wanted to take stuff in we would have to smuggle it in. We had the group aim of finding out as much about every guest as we could, in particular their names and occupations, but we would all also have a hidden mission to complete. We couldn’t directly tell the others what our mission was, but we could use them to help us as needed.

Part 1, classy entrances

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We roll initiative and approach the door:

First, Yolan in his guild issued dress shirt, approaches the door. He hands over his sword but not the dagger he has concealed on himself. He gets himself announced as “Sir Yolan”.

Then I (Jaune) follow after him, dressed in a suitably fastionable outfit I had pre-prepared for parties like this. The guard accept my Kurisama, but is completely unable to find the two wrist-mounted spring blades, the two masterwork daggers, the 20 shuriken or the wands of cure light wounds, break, obscuring mist and message I have hidden on myself. I then enter the room as “Lord Dupre” and set off to mingle.

Telon decides the only extras he needs are a scarf and gloves to use his oracle abilities on, and tells the doorman just to introduce him as Telon.

draspher follows after, choosing to go in a outfit generated by his hat (currently in the form of a hairclip) of disguise. He tells the doorman to introduce him as “marques john Vernon the second”. The guard just gives him a stern glare and tells him to introduce himself properly, so he goes for john Vernon.

Ocelot comes in a tuxedo, and decides to take his revolver with him. Unfortunatly the massive bulge in his trousers gives him away. Just as the doorman takes it and puts it to one side, he comes up with a plan. He takes one of the spare bullets and flics it behind him. The doorman goes to investigate while immediately grabs the gun, shoves it back in his pocket then quickly goes into the room, introducing himself by shouting at the top of his lungs “WHATS UP B####ES!

Vex has had to abandon her usual armour, and so has chosen to wear the Chinese silk dress given to her buy the guild. Unwilling to part with her weapons, immediately realises the opportunity Ocelot has given her and charges into the room as fast as her high heels will let her. She then immediately barrels to the closest table and dives underneath the tablecloth to hide her weapons, surprising the hell out of the guest and waiter situated at that table.

We all look around the room. In one corner is the table vex dived under with one guy in military uniform and a waitor. At the other corner is a table where two women are sitting, one in military uniform. To the far side is a buffet table where a goblin is piling a plate high with food. Around the centre of the room, there are a few groups, one man with a woman, two men together and another group of two men but one is in a military outfit.

Part 2, mingling

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We all split off and do our own thing:

Telon immediately goes to talk to the two women. They are hanging off each other, and the one in military uniforms seems to be hen-pecked by the other. Telon introduces himself, talking and signing at the same time to explain he’d deaf. The non-military woman gets excited at this, explaining that she knows some sign language, and despite Telons reassurances that it’s not necessary she insists on signing out a quick greeting of “How are You?” in only mostly correct signs. After reassurance that, as a training exercise, he didn’t need to ask about the event starts to get to know them. He finds out that there General Paula Star and Linda.

Meanwhile, draspher makes his way over to a table and asks what’s going on. The two stare incredulously at him, and ask him what on earth the orc is doing diving under there table. He cheerful responds he has no idea (at this, the GM gets incredibly frustrated he missed an opportunity to fix things with his massive bluff skill). He then starts asking the one in military uniform about his career, making up a story that his farther sent him to the party to learn some things from the people there. At drasphers request, the man mention that Silvester must have sent him, which draspher immediately asks “who do you mean by Silvester”

GM – [angry/irritated] I don’t know, you tell me

(To clarify, Silvester is drasphers adopted father, who faked his death and is one of the people who frequently pops up in the side stories alongside the guild master. This was a part of the epic backstory draspher had written up, but he had neglected to tell anyone it aside from me. So, the GM dropping a bombshell that his dad might still be alive would be fine, if he had any idea what he was talking about in the slightest.)

While he’s asking this, he spots the waiter starting to lift up the tablecloth to look at vex, so he jumps to look himself and says he sees nothing, and manages to roll a draspher on bluff. Although he failed to convince them that they didn’t see a half orc in a dress dive under there table, they are convinced that the man standing in front of them is a compete moron.

Vex finally comes out from under the table (having hid her weapons), turns to the waiter looking incredulously at her and pipes up that she’s looking for her master. (side note, this was a BRILLIANT bluff and took everyone at the table completely by surprise. This was a welcome breath of fresh air considering we had been forced to listen to drasphers horrible attempts up until this point). The waiter then points her towards the man and woman, saying “Steven” is her guy. She quickly signs at draspher to look after her stuff under the table, then saunters over to the pair. draspher continues chatting with the military man:

Guy – you’re a caster aren’t you
draspher – how did you know?
Guy – your all the same, all intellect no common sense.

Vex, meanwhile, makes it to the two she was pointed too. Our jaws all hit the floors as Vex starts seducing the man, making her self out to be a high-class prostitute. Our reactions are mixed, some laughing, some ridiculing her for it, me personally I was crying on the inside that our group had turned the lawful good, brave, noble paladin into a whore, and that we were collectively horrible people. It was like watching superman illicit himself for sex with Lex Luthor. It’s made even worse when it becomes clear that “Krystal” is his slave, hence why Vex was sent his way when asking about her “master”, when he sends her to get some drinks while he talks prices with the captivating half-orc in silk.

While Vex was whoring herself out, Ocelot was attempting a similar course of action. He makes his way to where Telon and the two ladies are talking, playing up the “rich playboy” angle he’s been working and tries to get the group to have a drink with him. No-one seem to be impressed by him, General Star even less so when he puts an arm around her as he offers to be her drinking buddy. It takes every bit of willpower she has not to break ocelots arm. She slowly, but with a great deal of power behind it, removes it and inform him that neither her nor her fiancé wish to be “drinking buddies” with him, so would he kindly leave. He leaves in a huff, saying he’ll find someone else to drink with. Despite appearances though, he did exactly as intend to, and as general stars settles down after that interruption, she never noticed that the holster at her side is no longer empty, nor that the bulge that Ocelot entered the room with is now gone.

Yolan meanwhile starts to make a few friends himself. He goes over to a waiter and a guest and starts to make small talk. They get to talking and he discovers that he’s an arms dealer, so he makes up a story about how he’s an underwear salesman, looking for contacts. He obliges, pointing out Steven talking to Vex, and calling over another man “Drax” over to chat. Drax comes over, a warm smile on his face and ready to chat about his trade as a traveling salesman, with several warehouses. Unfortunately, his target happens to be Yolan, an inquisitor who can detect lies. She wastes now time on calling out Drax to be a liar and a poor business man, and the guy “Flounces” off before he could insulted even more without being able to make a case for himself. Not quite sure how to take that, the arms dealer introduces himself as Conrad.

Yolans treatment of Drax plays right into my hands, as I go over and ask him what happened. When I hear what happened, he declares that Yolan had insulted him by calling him a liar, so I comfort the man with a natural 20. He appreciates my words and we get to talking. We are both delighted to find the other is someone who “appreciates” the art of gaining “contacts”, inviting me for a private chat at a later point. While this was going on, the third member of our group is shaking his head in exasperation as our increasingly transparent talk of black market dealings. It turns out Drax is an underground merchant, and a “Fixer”, while the other is his lawyer, and is not amused at his clients once again getting mixed up in this kind of stuff. This perks my interest, and I mention I could use his services later. This actually unnerves the guy, and he leans in to whisper:

Drax – you do remember this is a test?
Jaune – do you?

Seeing this cue, I turn the conversation to the topic of our other guests, finding out that three people are military types (the general, the arm dealer and the poor guy talking to draspher) and the goblin is actually lord Forethought.

Part 3, advancing goals

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Yolan talks with the general and starts asking about military contacts. He explains that he and his sister are part of an order that specialises in training recruits for combat, and he came to this party with the hope of securing a contract for purchasing new equipment for it. The good general points him to the arms dealer and he excuses himself to talk with him.

draspher continues chatting with the military figure, who is getting increasingly annoyed as he writes notes on a sheet of paper. He suggests that draspher goes find someone else to talk to:

draspher – but I like talking to you
guy – Your really as dumb as HE says you are, aren’t you
draspher – no, I’m not dumb, I’m…
guy – go away draspher

he leaves dejectedly, and I happen to look over and realise that he’s been talking to ninja-san this entire time:

Jaune – hey Vex
Vex – Yeah?
Jaune – you realise that this means that you came into the room, charged and dived under the desk where ninja-san, aka the examiner marking us, hid your weapons right in front of him before you got out and immediately went to go solicit yourself for sex

He makes his way over to where Yolan and Conrad are chatting (Yolan spotting him and warning Conrad not to trust him) and gets to chatting with the arms dealer. Draspher shows remarkable interest in what goods he has for sale. Just then, Ocelot shouts out across the room, asking for a drinking buddy, and I seize my chance to grab him for help with the next part of my plan.

Before I get a chance to go over, Ocelot overhears the doorman asking where “he” went. He quickly goes over and explains that since he ran off, he took the liberty of introducing himself. Waving of the reproaches about why he can’t do that, he asks if his gun was put away safely, he’ll want it back later. Of course, he is “horrified” to discover that it has gone missing, and insists the guests are searched before they leave. He saunters back into the room, quite please with himself before I grab him and start taking him to the other side of the room. I point out the goblin with the plate of food and tell him I need him to get close with him. As in physical close, handsy but not to actually grope him.

Steven lets Vex know that they can go get it on, he just needs to collect “his girl” so she doesn’t try to run off while there busy. Vex quickly sticks her head into Yolan and drasphers group, and quickly signs to them that her weapons are under the table before going back to wait. Just as she’s leaving, Yolan spots something by the buffet table, and quickly moves to it. What Yolan had seen was someone messing with the food on the table. He immediately confronts him, demanding to know what he was doing. When faced with nothing but lies, he decides to show how serious he is, drawing his hidden dagger. The other man panics, pushing Yolan into the goblin Lord Forethought, and dashes to the other side of the table, but Yolan uses an Unbreakable Gaze spell to stop him going too far. The poor goblin is helped back onto his feet and cleaned up by two guests who just so happened to come up at that moments. They try their best to clean him up and ask him what happened, and upon seeing his forlorn look at what remains of his plate of food over the floor, one even helping make a new plate of food. He never notices as I hide the necklace I stole of him into a sleeve while I get another shrimp puff for the plate. Ocelot meanwhile is happy he’s now found a drinking partner and happily downs a drink with him.

Telon meanwhile makes his way to the Arms dealer. They quickly hit it off, Telons interest in weapons for the monastery is just the kind of deal the arms-dealer was hoping to get tonight. With a promise of talking in the future about details of the deal, he leaves briefly to try and get something from the buffet table. draspher follows but a sense motive check makes him realise that Conrad has noticed that draspher doesn’t really care about his trade and is politely tuning him out so he can focus on the person who does, so he wanders off disappointed.

drasphers player admits he has no idea on how to accomplish his mission, in particular he has no idea how to find the person in character. Luckily, he runs into Jaune as he’s leaving Ocelot and Forethought at the buffet table. draspher asks me if I’ve seen anyone “suspicious” at the party. I ask him to confirm what kind of suspicious he’s on about, and he elaborates a con-artist and I point him towards Drax.

Meanwhile Steven has made his way back to Vex, and the two sneak out the back past the buffet table. Vex then sneaks back into the room, or at least attempts to but rolls a 4, fortunately with everything that was going on no-one notices or cares. She quickly finds Krystal, telling her “her master needs her” and brings her round back:

Vex – I have done this for you

She then shows her Stephens unconscious body, and gives her a chance to run for freedom. She leaves, but not before thanking her in a tearful hug. It turns out this was Vex’s mission, and despite all the crap we gave her about her approach, she pulled it off masterfully.

Back with the disaster in progress Yolan shouts out a warning about the food being poisoned. Ocelot feels a wave of nausea overcome him from the drugged champagne he’s been chugging and ends up throwing up all over poor Lord Forethought. He realises that Telon won’t be able to hear his cries for help, so he instead uses dimensional door to jump across the room to him, grab him the jump back.

The commotion has attracted the rest of the room to try and see what’s going on. I, like any good citizen, I run to get the guards bumping into a particular military figure as I try to get through the crowd. Ocelot starts fuming, saying that if I stole his gun back and drilled him over he won’t be happy. draspher meanwhile has finally started chatting with Drax, and has started masterfully interrogating him about his access to poisons, or at least he is in his mind. What actually happens is that he gives a performance so surpisous it’s essentially like looking at an undercover rookie cop ask someone if they know where “them hip and cool drugs be at yo yo my man”. It’s also a bit unnerving this idiot starts asking him about poisons the exact time someone cries out the food has been poisoned, even worse when he responds with regret that he didn’t have anything to do with that.

draspher starts this long winded talk about how he wants poison to kill his dad for power, and anyone who helps him now would be rewarded later, *wink* *wink* ;o. (It’s at this point I suddenly realise that draspher and Talon have an increadably similar way of talking but they take it in opposite directions. They both have this habit of making long rambling sentences, but where talon rambles to a definitive point and its sort of endearing, draspher will go off on odd tangents until the original point is either confused or lost entirely). Drax offers to take him round to his cart to show him some of his wares, but something about a known conman asking if you want to come see inside his van really doesn’t sit well with draspher, so he turns him down (insulting Drax in the process) and offers him his card, produced with prestidigitation. Drax hands it back, asking why he handed him a card with “Fumbles” written on it.

Back at the incident, Ocelot has managed to control his bowls to the point he’s not puking anymore, although Lord Forethought will never look at pea soup the same way again. Vex runs across the room to where she hid her swords. She doesn’t get to them before the guards come in, seeing what all the noise is about. I tell them that someone has poisoned the food and they demand everyone in the room freeze. The poisoner immediately surrenders, things completely out of his control and his original plan, while Ocelot demands everyone is searched for his stolen gun. Everyone is searched and once again, they completely fail to find a single piece of equipment hidden on my person, but a certain revolver and Lord Forethoughts bejewelled amulet of natural armour is found on a certain General Star and she is taken away to the prison.

Part 4, post mission synopsis

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We take the time to reflect on the mission and our jobs:

• Ocelot and I both had the same mission of planting evidence of a theft on the general, although Ocelot had to let the guards know about it as well. I stole an amulet off Lord Forethought and planted it on her when I “accidentally” bumped into her when I was getting the guards, while Ocelot put his pistol in her holster during the first part of the party. What’s more, while I kept a low profile to make my mission more likely to work, Ocelot had gone full Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne to act as a cover and distraction for the rest of the team. We had both accomplished our missions successfully

• Vex had to free a slave from the slave owner. Despite a rocky start with diving under the table, she actually did really well and impressed Ninja-San (along with everyone at the table)

• Telon had to find the arms dealer and positively influence him, and the story of buying weapons for the monastery worked very well

• Yolan had to stop the assassination attempt quietly, but his rash actions in confronting him with force led the mission to spiral out of control. Still, it was mostly the assassins fault that happened, and he still prevented anyone from dying so he got a low passing grade

• draspher didn’t do too well. His mission was to con the conman. Firstly, he took to long wasting time before finding his target. Secondly, he decided to go with “the Spanish prisoner” trick (AKA the Nigerian prince scam, give me something now and I’ll make you rich later) to try and trick him out of a bottle of poison. While it might have worked, the problem was he ran out of time when the guards came in to run it fully. He had been given that mission to use his amazingly high bluff skill, but his lack of IRL ability to bluff or lie held him back. He had failed his mission.

We had managed to find out almost everyone’s names in the process of the mission. The only ones we were missing were the lawyer, ninja-san AKA the spymaster (but that would have been a really hard one to get) and the assassin.

This exercise had a couple of aims to it though. The main aim of this was a trust exercise. We had our own agendas, but we could use the others to help us, as best demonstrated when I got Ocelot to help me pick-pocket the noble. This approach would mean that we’d be more willing to help each other without constantly questioning the other motives.

The other aim was to see how we’d do in a social situation, and we actually did quite well. So much so the Guild master thinks we’re ready for the next mission.

Timed "died" in training – 4, Yolan at the start before getting healed, draspher, Telon, vex

Times yelled at – 3, at the guild, ninja-san, ninja-san to draspher during the party

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 10, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner

Times drilled over – 5.5, GM at the start of the training mission, ocelots silence spell, Telon not following ocelot, getting told the situation was FUBAR yet still getting told off for running, losing my bow in the fireball (guildmaster said I’d get a replacement, .5), draspher getting arguably the hardest/most obscure mission

MVP – Vex, that play was unexpected and ridiculed but she stuck to her guns and pulled it off beautifully

[Draspher]

In regards to the Sylvester,

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Junes and i write the side story's together and we have had fun putting Sylvester in the background of the story working in the guild advising the Guild Master in secret.
At the point in the story i handed the note to the GM there had already been two actors braking character to the PC's Drax to Junes and Linda to Telon.
I had no intention to use this point as story component i just thought that it would be good for world building connecting to the side story's to the game there was one problem with this idea the GM apparently hasn't been reading the side story's.

[rebelpyroflame]

In regards to the Sylvester,

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Junes and i

IT'S JAUNE YOU ASS, THIS IS JUNES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddGMpxVkzBU

[Draspher]

IT'S JAUNE YOU ASS, THIS IS JUNES

It states "Junes brave advances towards future victory" above or is that someone else?

[Romaru Darkeyes]

It states "Junes brave advances towards future victory" above or is that someone else?

He's got you there dude... At least until you edit the post :p

[rebelpyroflame]

He's got you there dude... At least until you edit the post :p

what the, DAMN CHA AUTOCORRECT, CLIPPY! CHA HAVE FAILED ME FOR THE LAST TIME

[rebelpyroflame]

Session 22, Part 1, Done with training, now for the train-ing

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We all get called into the guildmasters office. After our training he’s ready to sends off to our next mission. We are being sent to investigate the possible coup in the capital. How we go about this is entirely our own initiative, the important thing is that we track down the coup and stop it before it succeeds. We will be going down with ninja-san, though we won’t be able to rely on his help for everything (the GM grumpily points out he has a name, we've just never asked). He’s acting as our liaison with the royal family. My eyes light up at this news:

Jaune – [turns to draspher] don’t f### this up for me
(Yolan OOC does not belive that he will not succeed in this task)

The good news on that front is that, thanks to a lot of hard work by the guild, draspher has had his reputation cleaned up, so he won’t be arrested for being the mad bomber on sight anymore. That said this is a one-time thing, if he manages to screw up again then even he won’t be able to help him. I helpfully volunteer to help him go the heisenbug route and shave him, but draspher then hands around the picture of what he’s going to look like with his hat of disguise. He had no idea he was handing round a picture of Rasputin, but considering his reputation and habits it makes sense when you think about it.

(For clarification, my backstory involves being the son of a noble and good family who served a king too stupid to realise he was causing his people to revolt against him, so I have long been looking for a chance to regain my family name/honour. I have know the GM wanted to get us involved with the royal family at some point so I have been biding my time and refusing to let anything happen to Jaune until this happens).

We start discussing details how we are going to approach this. The guild master explains that we could do this a couple of ways. We could try infiltrating the mafia again, we could go as adventurers and stay in an inn, or we could go as officals and get set up in the royal barracs. This last one particually appeals to us (especially after the last time we tried to infiltrate the mafia) and we ask for info on the royal family. This is where my previous plans hit a speed bump.

Turns out that the current royals took over from the tyrant who ruled previously after a successful rebellion, and now are beloved for bringing peace and ruling with kindness and a good grasp on politics, and it comes to light that my family, the Dupree’s, were a part of the old regime. This means that rather than proudly announce my heritage and use that as an in to royal favour, I will possibly have to work hard just to convince them not to kill me on the spot, and most probably have to work even harder to gain their recognition and trust. Infact, there is a slight chance that some of my surviving family members could be either involved or actively running the coup. The GM pre-emptively clamps down on any ideas I might have on joining up with them to help overthrow the kingdom.

The royal family consists of the king and Queen, and their two children prince Mark and Princess Sarah. I immediately tag the princess as an alternate means to royal power, the others tag them both as potential instigators trying to overthrow their parents to the throne, and the guild-master immediately tags all of us as idiots who better have some darn good evidence before we try to accuse members of the royal family of treason. The other person to watch out for is the royal spymaster. He is aware of the coup, but he is only aware of part of the information we've collected. It was agreed by both parties that no-one aside from the should know everything, we can't trust who might be a traitor including the spymaster, and the spymaster is afraid of what would happen if he became compromised, hence the decision to compartmentalise everything.

The only ones who know anything are the guild, the spymaster and the king (he's keeping it a secret from his wife as he doesn't want to worry her), and we are not allowed to tell anyone except those ninja-san authorises. Like professionals we start coming up with codewords or phrases to indicate when we can talk about it:

Jaune – I've got it!
Ocelot – What?
Jaune – the prefect code phrase, something we would never naturally say in our lives
Ocelot – go on
Jaune – any variation on the phrase "draspher, you’re a genius"

We eventually settle on just using the word "angel" to indicate when we should start using sign language instead/alongside false talking. The conversation also turns to the topic of divination spells. We find out that on the whole such magic is going out of fashion. While it is still a useful tool, the fact is that spells have always existed to block such magic and now many devices and inventions have been created to block the spells as well. draspher becomes obsessed with the idea of coming up with an anti diviation flash bang spell, that blinds anyone who attempts to scry the area it's cast. After telling him "No, it doesn't work that way" I assign him and Ocelot to research ways of securing a room so we can chat freely without risk of being overheard or invaded, but preferably more subtly than lining the room with claymores.

It's quickly agreed upon that I (Jaune) will be team leader this time, and Ocelot my second in command in case anything happens (Yolan OOC immediately calls me out on this happening when I've run away) and we set off to take the train there. Telon immediately uses his deafness to score us 1st class tickets, and we settle into our private cars. Telon is at the front, as close to the food carriage as possible, Yolan takes the next one, then Ocelot, Ninja-san and I discuss mission details in the next, Then Vex and finally draspher at the very back.

Part 2 – suffering a short delay

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A few hours into the journey the train suddenly comes to a halt, and loud banging can be heard. Ninja-san immediately runs off to the front of the train to investigate. We roll initiative and investigate.

Yolan leaves his carriage and moves up the train cautiously. As he does so, a loud roar can be heard outside the train. He moves up to the end of the carrage and shouts out a warning to everyone that "there is something out here" as he steps off. Telon, who had previously stuffing his face in the food carrage, fails to hear anything (on account of being deaf) but noticed Yolan stepping off the train. He also feels the vibrations as something moves with thudding steps, full on jurrasic park style. He decides to go down and check the other side to where Yolan went. He did this by taking the most logical action, punching a hole in the side of the train blocked by a barrier, then checking through said hole. He just manages to catch a large, lizard like tail moving outside before it goes out of view.

draspher looks out of his window, just in time to see a large scaled form walk past his window. He quickly runs to next door and bangs on my door. We chat quickly and I get him to clarify that the lizard is the size of a bus, so I get him to tell vex what's going on, I'll do the same for the others. I knock on Ocleots door, find Yolans open and I spot Telon at the end of the hallway. I walk over to him to sign/ask him if he's seen anything. As I walk, I notice that the train is rocking side to side despite being stationary, whatever is out there must be really big. I ask Telon and he says he saw one out of the side, then looks up just in time to see the large claw slash into my back for 9 damage.

Ocelot followed me down the corridor and saw the giant claw, but decides he'd rather fight the creature outside the train than stuck inside and he quickly rolls past the creature, catching the edge of his claws for 5 damage, and gets out of the train. Yolan turns around at this point, spotting the creature and realising it's a wyvern. Vex leaves her room and runs into draspher, who informs her of the lizard situation. Seeing Occelot and I going one way, she decides to go the other way out of the train. Just before she makes it to the end, she spots a third wyvern making its way along that side.

Yolan follows Ocelot off the train entirely, shouting out a warning that these types of Wyverns are poisonous, then casts payer hitting all of us for a boost. Meanwhile Telon slaps a shield of faith on me, and tells me to "pick a target and fight" before charging straight through the wall/barrier on the other side, and straight into the first one he spotted. While he can't fight, he draws his nodachi and readies himself. Unfortunately, he spots a fourth one making its way down that side.

Just then draspher sees it and panics. Fortunately, he manages to stop himself from casting fireball, realising that the glass would bounce the spell back at him. He also realises that a summon spell wouldn't work either. So, he comes up with one of his signature "cunning" plans. He runs up and casts the sound of a dragon, hoping to scare them off. Too bad he forgot that A. they wouldn't necessary recognise it as a dragon attacking them, and might think it's just one of them, but more importantly B. the glass BLOCKS HIS SPELLS. It's just as well we're used to him, as the sound of a massive dragon roaring inside the train doesn't make us run into the woods. I nimbly dodge the claw and roll back in the carriage. I yell at him for messing around and let him know that Telon's probably fighting two by himself, so he'd best summon something big to help him out, while I go get Vex and help out as well as I can. I dash down the corridor to Vex, I check out of the windows for numbers and spot the fourth Wyvern approaching Telon.

Part 3 – that'll do pig, that'll do

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By a stroke of good luck, the second Wyvern had managed to get his claw stuck in the doorway when he tried to attack me. Ocelot decides to go after that one personally. He finally realises his boots massive boost to jumping doesn't mean much jumping vertically, so he uses Yolan as a stepping stone to jump up to the roof of the carriage and draw his gun. Seeing one alone, the third one moves up to attack Yolan. Not one to be intimidated, Yolan decides to be the intimidating one, and casts Blistering Incentive, hitting the Third, Second and Fourth Wyverns for 9 damage, and sets them all on fire. He then draws out his Morningstar while activating his protection inquisition.

Telon meanwhile activates his rage and goes for the second wyvern, hitting it for 18. draspher then comes up with a plan. Rather than summoning something (as I had suggested) he decides to make use of the training he had received, he instead uses his new spell, enlarge person, on Telon. Suddenly it doesn't look like such an uneven fight on his side. Meanwhile, I gracefully roll past Vex, draw my bow and fire an arrow into the back of the third Wyvern for 16 damage. Telon gets rather envious how many dice I roll with a single attack (1d6 bow, 5d6 sneak attack).

The second Wyvern gets his claws unstuck and goes for Ocelot. Being on fire his aim is more than slightly affected, and not only does it miss him, but he trips. Yolan just has time to look up at the dark patch before being completely crushed under the creature and takes 14 damage from the impact. At least he didn't catch fire.

The fourth Wyvern manages to put of his fire and goes for Telon. Too bad for it, Telon can now match him in weight category, and the attack bounces of his armour. Seeing the one who had tried to attack him fall of, Ocelot decides just to swing with it and unloads three bullets into the second Wyvern, dealing 30 damage to it. The first one then moves in to attack, but somehow manages to miss the prone figure half pinned under a Wyvern with 4 attacks. Yolan might have to take this lying down, but he won't take it lightly. He activates his bane and smacks the Wyvern sitting on him for 19 damage.

Back on the other side Telon goes at the fourth Wyvern, and finally gets to show just how different he is from Yurian. He gets two hits, one of them is a crit that confirmed on a roll of 2 thanks to the various boosts he's gotten, and he ends up rolling 6d8+32 for 63 damage, killing it instantly. On the other end of the competency spectrum draspher summons a bison next to him, that fails to do anything. But for once the big screw up wasn't on his shoulders.

Vex moves up and engages the third one, and I prepare a second shot. I then roll a 1:

GM – just as you fire Vex walks into the line of the shot
Jaune – [worried] does she count as flat footed?
GM – [Glares at me] well I suppose she didn't see it coming
(in all honesty part of me just wanted to roll all the dice I had prepared)

I manage to roll a respectible 25 damage, I just wish I had hit the Wyvern rather than my own. teammate:

Jaune – I use a swift action to turn invisible and end my turn
Table – [breaks down in laughter]

The Wyvern was also able to take advantage of this distraction to stab Vex with its stinger for 7 damage. The Second Wyvern, after having taken a large amount of damage last round, finally sucums to the fire damage and collapses. Right on top of Yolan. Now not only is he immobile, he is being suffocated. Not seeing this, Ocelot opens fire on the first Wyvern who is fighting Telon, getting two hits and a Crit as well, getting the highest dice so far with 6d8+36 for 67 damage, killing it. Vex loses it, and goes at the third Wyvern with everything she's got, but she only manages one hit for 7 damage. Yolans luck isn't any better as he fails to get out from under the Wyvern. draspher tries to recapture the Zeitgeist of his previous spell, but quickly realises that enlarging Yolan won't work as there is no part of Yolan visible under the Wyvern. Instead he tries out another new spell, and uses dragonbreath to blast out a 20' cone of acid, dealing 23 damage to the Third Wyvern, and melting a fair few trees due to the angle of missing the train but hitting the creatures. His Bison still did nothing to help except look on a Telon desperately tries to climb over the train to get to Yolan, shouting at the rest of us that one of them is on top of him.

In an attempt to redeem myself, I move around the Third Wyvern and try to attack in flank with Vex, but I fail to hit. I do succeed in ticking it off though, and it lunges at me, just catching me with it's teeth for 7 damage, but I manage to avoid getting caught in a grapple with its mouth. Just then Karma kicks in. Vex's next flurry of attacks results in a fumble and she loses grip on her katana, and it flys in my direction. I just manage to dodge it, and vex goes at it with just her Wakazashi, getting the killing blow.

Part 4, Not over yet

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We pick ourselves up after the fight. Yolan starts casting light on the corpse, so it starts blinking, in an attempt to let us know she's under there. Telon finally climbs over the train, leaving a couple of oversided dents as he clambers over, and drags the Wyvern off Yolan. Finally free, Yolan quickly heals himself while Telon asks him to check up on Vex, worried she might have been poisoned by the stinger wound. draspher meanwhile ends the enlarge person spell and goes back on the train, while I try and find Vex's Katana in the hopes I can use it to talk her down from being mad at me.

While the rest of us are messing around, Ocelot realises that there is still a commotion at the front of the train. He shouts a warning to us and goes running down the top of the train, jumping from carriage to carriage. Telon spots him running and dashes after him. Vex and I quickly make up (her only stipulation is I help pull the arrow out) and she runs after them. Yolan heals me for 14, leaving me only 2HP of damage, then shouts at draspher to cast haste on us before going after the others. I go to the train carrage, grab draspher by his collar and drag him with me, as he casts haste catching everyone except for Ocelot, who's too far down to be in range.

We make it down the length of the train to discover what caused the hold up in the first place. Ninja-san and two others are engaging a large blue dragon. Ocelot moves into range, hitting it with an initial shot for 8 damage, while Vex charges it for 13 damage. Yolan passes his judgement onto Telon before moving up as well. As he gets closer, he realises that the dragon is being held to the ground by a harpoon. Filing that away for later, he fires of a Searing Light spell at it for 19 damage. Telon yells at draspher "get ready to make me big" as he charges the dragon as well, dealing 15 damage. Just then, the dragons skin light up, and arc's of electricity go out and deal 2 and 6 damage to Vex and Telon respectively. draspher runs up and prepares his spells while I approach the dragon, preparing to move in just as Ocelot unloads, dealing 25 damage total.

Part 5, derailed

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Ninja-san calls out for the dragon to just surrender, it's already badly hurt and if it carries on it will likely be killed. After more electricity arcs out, dropping the other two men, it seems to agree with him and takes off. We all give cursory attacks to try and stop him, but it seems clear he's going to escape to fight another day, no doubt becoming a recurring antagonist to the party.

Or at least that seemed to be the GM's plan. What he failed to account for was that said dragon was well within range of one party member. It was also by itself in mid-air, so said party member was free to go all out without any danger of collateral damage. so, DRASPHER FIREBALLS THE SCALY BEAST, knocking him out of the air all together. If the blast hadn't of killed him, the fall certainly did. In typical fashion for us, all thoughts of continuing forward have been completely forgotten as we collectively try to decide what to do with the body, ninja-san looking on disapprovingly as we plan out these crazy ideas. They include:

• How will we take it with us? We have bags of holding
• It won't fit. Ok just cut it up
• Yolans a merchant, can he prepare it for us? No, he knows what's valuable not how to skin it (ninja-san eventually uses a scroll of shrink object to help us fit it in)
• It'll go bad in the bags. ok, we're passing some villages, maybe someone there can cast preserve body? Nope, no one is high enough level
• How about the blood? Get Ocelot to put it in vials. He doesn't have the right stuff, ok we'll use the Wyvern venom as an anti-coagulant (no-one at the table has any idea how to even start rolling for milking the venom from these things)
• I seem to remember a certain spell that turns bodies into treasure maps [GM glares at me] NO!
• Ninja-san points out that that was a juvenile dragon, and his mother will probably want revenge. That’s ok, we'll make draspher an all dragon scale outfit and pin it all on him (despite knowing this is our intention, he still likes this plan)
• How about we find a necromancer in town and get him to raise the body as a bone golem under our control?
• If Ocelot drains the blood from the mini-dragon, is it still small?

This chain of thought went on so long we had to call it there. This was supposed to be just a quick encounter setting up a future villain, a brash overconfident juvenile blue dragon who bullied a wyvern pack to being his stooges. Now, thanks to ninja-san for doing most of the work, we killed it, claimed its bounty for ourselves and probably have incurred the wrath of an adult blue dragon.

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 10, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner
Times draspher did good – 2, The enlarge person spell and taking out a dragon
Times draspher did bad – 1, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick
Team members drilled over – 2, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him
GM plots/plans de-railed – 13 (probably WAAAAAYYY higher), southwater 3(inital incident, robbing the gunpowder, the entire bank heist), the mountain 5(tracking the guys, the landslide, blowing up the camp, falling down the hole and getting speed with an e killed, the dream), the whitewaters 3(started a revolution, drilled yurian over by not surrendering (.5 as it was one of our plans the GM was going with), I ran off (1.5 destroyed his train of thought there and we needed a solo session to resolve that)), the training 2(threw a rhino through the wall, took way to long to go down the street (.5 it was more misplanning than active derailment), sim charged posioner (.5 less derailment entirely, but not expected way for stealth infiltration mission))

[Romaru Darkeyes]

GM plots/plans de-railed – 13 (probably WAAAAAYYY higher)......

Spoiler: Freeform gaming

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We start discussing details how we are going to approach this. The guild master explains that we could do this a couple of ways. We could try infiltrating the mafia again, we could go as adventurers and stay in an inn, or we could go as officals and get set up in the royal barracs. This last one particually appeals to us (especially after the last time we tried to infiltrate the mafia) and we ask for info on the royal family. This is where my previous plans hit a speed bump.

If at all possible I like to try and implement free form gaming so that you guys can go all out with the plans and craziness. It's one of the best tenets of playing something tabletop - that you don't have to follow rigidly to the rules. Admittedly it does kind of fall apart when you guys spend upwards of 20 minutes discussing how you want to proceed, but it gives me some downtime to consider things - which is a god send if there's is a sudden direction shift in party antics.

Spoiler: Divination and tech

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The conversation also turns to the topic of divination spells. We find out that on the whole such magic is going out of fashion. While it is still a useful tool, the fact is that spells have always existed to block such magic and now many devices and inventions have been created to block the spells as well..

With writing the tech level this way I had to consider aspects of the world that would almost certainly come up with the use of magics. For instance to reference to a previous adventure (read debacle); the idea of counterfeiting coinage in a setting where magic, and by extension alchemy, exists with a controlled economy - anyone with that capability would ruin the value of coinage within weeks. So coinage is minted with magical traces.
What's to stop an enterprising mage from wandering into a bank vault under invisibility and simply filling up a bag of holding with coinage. So you introduce magical, or in this case technical countermeasures to prevent this. And in this changing world filled with technology and steampunk, why would dragons stay in the dark ages (some do but they choose to)? Bartholomew (the ancient copper from the same adventure) is now a bank manager. His hoard is effectively the contents of the bank vault, acting both as ideal deterrent and having the ancient knowledge to be able to effectively manage a financial institution.

draspher becomes obsessed with the idea of coming up with an anti diviation flash bang spell, that blinds anyone who attempts to scry the area it's cast. After telling him "No, it doesn't work that way" I assign him and Ocelot to research ways of securing a room so we can chat freely without risk of being overheard or invaded, but preferably more subtly than lining the room with claymores.

I think it's because he had that feat that gave people headaches when they tried to read Drasphers mind, and was trying to replicate something similar for scrying.

Spoiler: Train, train! Take us away!

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If you aren't sure it's a direct reference to the song Selphie sings in FF8 when they ride the train.

It's quickly agreed upon that I (Jaune) will be team leader this time

Interesting choice...

...and Ocelot my second in command in case anything happens (Yolan OOC immediately calls me out on this happening when I've run away)

Well someone had to point it out when you are pulling a Dave Lister who has just met his bride to be...

Telon immediately uses his deafness to score us 1st class tickets, and we settle into our private cars.

Telon's player: "So I'm deaf, so I should qualify as disabled, right?"
Me: "Where are you going with this???"
Telon: "I should be able to score first class accommodation on account of being disabled"



Just then draspher sees it and panics. Fortunately, he manages to stop himself from casting fireball, realising that the glass would bounce the spell back at him.

Reasoning that the spell needs a direct line to cast. Against my better judgement I gave him a Wisdom roll (I had said I was going to stop giving them rolls to try and make them think about their actions) and he passed so the whole thing didn't turn into that rather poor taste Volkswagen advert with the suicide bomber in the VW Polo...

He also realises that a summon spell wouldn't work either.

Again I'm assuming that this needs line of sight to where you intend to cast it... Otherwise I'd personally be teleporting hill giants into unsuspecting peoples bedrooms from a football pitch away.

So, he comes up with one of his signature "cunning" plans. He runs up and casts the sound of a dragon, hoping to scare them off.

……...

Too bad he forgot that A. they wouldn't necessary recognise it as a dragon attacking them

In this instance the party didn't know about the 'boss' dragon who ran this group so it would have made zero difference to them.

more importantly B. the glass BLOCKS HIS SPELLS. It's just as well we're used to him, as the sound of a massive dragon roaring inside the train doesn't make us run into the woods.

Be glad I didn't make everyone inside that car (except Telon obviously) roll for deafness.

By a stroke of good luck, the second Wyvern had managed to get his claw stuck in the doorway when he tried to attack me.
Wyvern rolls a 1...

The second Wyvern gets his claws unstuck and goes for Ocelot. Being on fire his aim is more than slightly affected, and not only does it miss him, but he trips.
Rolled another 1....

Yolan just has time to look up at the dark patch before being completely crushed under the creature and takes 14 damage from the impact. At least he didn't catch fire.
Now to be fair, I said it fell off the train roof, but it was Yolan's character himself that said "oh it's just fallen on me..." I did offer to roll odd's/evens to see which side he fell off but I was shouted down. I think:
1. Because if it had fell off the other side Telon would have been fighting 3 on his own.
2. Because this way the map was drawn, the wyvern was too far on one side to explain it falling off the train on the other side.

Also he got a reflex save, but he's a tank so didn't make it...

Back on the other side Telon goes at the fourth Wyvern, and finally gets to show just how different he is from Yurian. He gets two hits, one of them is a crit that confirmed on a roll of 2 thanks to the various boosts he's gotten, and he ends up rolling 6d8+32 for 63 damage, killing it instantly.

And the party look on in astonishment that they have someone else who can damage deal (aside from Vex). Although when I checked the numbers later it actually should have been 2d8+12 for his damage per hit, so it would have been 6d8 + 36.

And also it's worth noting that this wasn't actually his max output - he's also got the spell lead blades which pushes his weapon size up to the next size category again. Coupled with his critical it would have meant 8d8 + 32 damage...

On the other end of the competency spectrum draspher summons a bison next to him, that fails to do anything.

It failed to hit, it did at least do a job of drawing agro as well.

But for once the big screw up wasn't on his shoulders.

Oh I was waiting to see how you'd write this

Spoiler: Jaune. And how it was totally the half orc's fault...

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Vex moves up and engages the third one, and I prepare a second shot. I then roll a 1:

...

GM – just as you fire Vex walks into the line of the shot
Jaune – [worried] does she count as flat footed?
GM – [Glares at me] well I suppose she didn't see it coming

I can't believe that you didn't even try to get out of that...

GM: "You shoot your friend and party member in the back!"
You: "Did I at least roll max damage?"

Jaune – I use a swift action to turn invisible and end my turn
Table – [breaks down in laughter]

And across the table, Drapher is considering whether to help Vex by using adhesive spittle

Vex's next flurry of attacks results in a fumble and she loses grip on her katana, and it flies in my direction

That would have been karma for that to have hit you square in the teeth

Spoiler: Where's Woodhouse/Yolan?

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So the poor guy has had a wyvern the size of the aforementioned VW Polo fall on him and trap him underneath. His legs are sticking out and the creature is actually on fire. He rolls fine on reflex to avoid catching fire, but then:

The Second Wyvern, after having taken a large amount of damage last round, finally succumbs to the fire damage and collapses. Right on top of Yolan. Now not only is he immobile, he is being suffocated.

The fire damage was the last straw and essentially the creatures sprit leaves the body as it's trying to roll itself off Yolan. As such a lot of dead weight and animal meat come down on the poor guy, and he's essentially being smothered. I have him make a strength roll - no good. Not a single person notices...

draspher tries to recapture the Zeitgeist of his previous spell, but quickly realises that enlarging Yolan won't work as there is no part of Yolan visible under the Wyvern. Instead he tries out another new spell, and uses dragonbreath to blast out a 20' cone of acid, dealing 23 damage to the Third Wyvern, and melting a fair few trees due to the angle of missing the train but hitting the creatures

I'll give him this - I said that he couldn't see Yolan visible so he used my own argument to explain why he wouldn't get his with the acid spray. AND he aimed so as not to cause damage to the train - collateral damage being a significant part of Draphers training recently.

We pick ourselves up after the fight. Yolan starts casting light on the corpse, so it starts blinking, in an attempt to let us know she's under there.

4 rounds and wyvern corpse rave party later and STILL, nobody has made a move to try and remove this corpse from the poor guy...

Telon finally climbs over the train, leaving a couple of oversided dents as he clambers over, and drags the Wyvern off Yolan.

I considered rolling for whether the carriage would tip over but it wouldn't have fitted with the tech, and the fact that the other wyverns were bounding about on it as well.

Spoiler: And the party collectively bricks it...

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While the rest of us are messing around, Ocelot realises that there is still a commotion at the front of the train. He shouts a warning to us and goes running down the top of the train, jumping from carriage to carriage.

And once he finishes his turn I pass him a note to say what is there. He promptly turns white and is intending on his next turn to follow in the grand traditions of his team leader and do a runner..

...then shouts at draspher to cast haste on us before going after the others. I go to the train carrage, grab draspher by his collar and drag him with me, as he casts haste catching everyone except for Ocelot, who's too far down to be in range.

Forgetting to mention that at this point - even though I'm maintaining initiative order - that Draspher has abandoned the party and gone back inside the carriage for a nap..

Ninja-san and two others are engaging a large blue dragon.

It does a DM proud when the party collectively rises an inch off their chairs from bricking it

Telon yells at draspher "get ready to make me big"

Yeah I laughed. I have a crude sense of humour.

draspher runs up and prepares his spells while I approach the dragon, preparing to move in just as Ocelot unloads, dealing 25 damage total.

I could have sworn it was more than that. Cause he rolled a crit and on his weapons it's a x4 multipler. Needless to say he blows a good chunk of it's health off and leaves it with about 10hp.

Ninja-san calls out for the dragon to just surrender, it's already badly hurt and if it carries on it will likely be killed.

Even chromatic dragons aren't unreasonable and they'll surrender when hopelessly outgunned. I was just going to have it run off as it's 'gang' is all dead and it's on the verge of death. It also had a harpoon sticking out of it's flank but the guys holding the rope had just dropped so it took off straight into the sky to flee...

It was also by itself in mid-air, so said party member was free to go all out without any danger of collateral damage. so, DRASPHER FIREBALLS THE SCALY BEAST, knocking him out of the air all together.

It was like he'd been waiting for that one clear shot and as soon as it happened 'BANG'. I'd say he's related to Megumin but she's actually more competent.



In typical fashion for us, all thoughts of continuing forward have been completely forgotten as we collectively try to decide what to do with the body,

Almost half an hour... Of real time...

...ninja-san...

i.e. Me...

looking on disapprovingly as we plan out these crazy ideas.

HALF... AN.... HOUR....


• How will we take it with us? We have bags of holding
• It won't fit. Ok just cut it up
• Yolans a merchant, can he prepare it for us? No, he knows what's valuable not how to skin it (ninja-san eventually uses a scroll of shrink object to help us fit it in)

I was trying to move things along.

• It'll go bad in the bags. ok, we're passing some villages, maybe someone there can cast preserve body? Nope, no one is high enough level

You made me roll to see if there was a cleric who could cast gentle repose.

• How about the blood? Get Ocelot to put it in vials. He doesn't have the right stuff, ok we'll use the Wyvern venom as an anti-coagulant (no-one at the table has any idea how to even start rolling for milking the venom from these things)

Yeah, that was the biggest issue... I had one of you arguing that "it's a venom so of course it's an anticoagulant!"

• I seem to remember a certain spell that turns bodies into treasure maps [GM glares at me] NO!

… and the donkey upon which you rode in...

• Ninja-san points out that that was a juvenile dragon, and his mother will probably want revenge. That’s ok, we'll make draspher an all dragon scale outfit and pin it all on him (despite knowing this is our intention, he still likes this plan)
• How about we find a necromancer in town and get him to raise the body as a bone golem under our control?
• If Ocelot drains the blood from the mini-dragon, is it still small?

And how about the plan one of you came up with of using it as an improvised mace so that when you are on a downswing, you dispel the shrink item and the target gets hit with the full size corpse of a young blue dragon......

[Draspher]

Did i kill steal or was it the ground?

[Romaru Darkeyes]

Did i kill steal or was it the ground?

What do you think Megumin...

[rebelpyroflame]

What do you think Megumin...

oh thank god, that means I can just atribut it to the ground killing it, and I don't have to try and imagine a universe that drasphers compitent. taking away one "did good" point ;p

[Draspher]

oh thank god, that means I can just atribut it to the ground killing it, and I don't have to try and imagine a universe that drasphers compitent. taking away one "did good" point ;p

you say that but...

Spoiler: And the party collectively bricks it...

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draspher runs up and prepares his spells while I approach the dragon, preparing to move in just as Ocelot unloads, dealing 25 damage total.

I could have sworn it was more than that. Cause he rolled a crit and on his weapons it's a x4 multipler. Needless to say he blows a good chunk of it's health off and leaves it with about 10hp.

and i hit it for 30ish.

P.S. Megumin is the best.

[Romaru Darkeyes]

P.S. Megumin is the best.

She is without a doubt the original powergamer

"So if I take this drawback and this drawback, and boost my magic stats like this - I can cast the highest level fire magic at level 1"
GM: "You do realise that you essentially become useless after one cast per day?"
"But then the rest of the team can protect me. It's totally worth it."

[rebelpyroflame]

We start the session off discussing sheets. we find out the gm has been running Telons number. Lead blades and enlarge person on him turns him from 1d10+8 to a whopping 3d8+13 per swing, with a 15-20 crit range. Vex's position as primary damage dealer may just have been deposed.

Session 23, Part 1, monorail, monorail, monorail

Spoiler

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We quickly investigate the tracks after packing up the dragon. a quick investigation shows that the tracks were slightly damaged in the attack. it also shows ocelot that it's not a regular train, but a monorail. Fortunately, draspher was able to use mending to repair the tracks, and we head on our way to the capital. The next day we hear murmers and a commotion as we aproach the city, and we look up to see everyone looking out the window. We look out ourselves and quickly realise why. The City is glorious, all gold gilded white marble and decorative crystal formations as far as the eye can see. Alongside this are clear signs of the city's industrialisation as huge smokestacks belch smoke out forming giant clouds that cover the skyline. This change has not just been limited to the city though, looking out we can see various farms worked by golems, and produce being pulled by steampunk tractors, and massive siege engines line the city walls.

Telon recalls the city's history he had read previously. The whole place has been peaceful for the last 30 years, ever since the new monarchy overthrew the previous regime. The old regime had been incredibly conservative, refusing to accept any kind of change in tech compared to the magic they used, which ultimately lead to their downfall. After the revolution, they city has been through massive changes, with much of the cities industrialisation being led by an influx of gnome tinkerers.

The train arrives at the station and we depart. There are many jokes cracked at the magical stations expense, mostly around platform 9 and ¾. Ninja-san recommends we got announce ourselves to the palace before anything else. During this, the GM gets annoyed that none of us actually refer to him by his name, as none of us have ever actually asked him what it is. We finally pester him for it, but he initially clamps up, claiming we're not important enough to know it yet. He finally caves, and admits his name is "Bernard". Of course, we as a group start making fun of "Burney" to his irritation. After a good ribbing at the GM's expense, the group head outside and we are surprised at just how many "horseless carriages"/"automobiles"/"varrickmobiles" there are everywhere. Ninja-san flags down a cab, then turns to us. He holds out a scroll, our entrance into the palace, and asks who's going to take it. I, as team leader, immediately go to take it (despite reservations about trusting us by ourselves in the city) but Yolan has reservations about trusting me with it (mainly he doesn't trust me to not run way/use if for nefarious purposes). Ninja-san then helpfully offers to give it to the idiot who can't go 5 minutes without blowing up the city. I officially take it of him, and he takes his leave of us, he has other things in the city to do.

Part 2, where the wild things are

Spoiler

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We get in the cab and set off. Our first point of action is to change outfits. I use my sleeve of many garments to dress in a fancy Nobel outfit, draspher uses his hat to disguise himself as well. Telon too wants to change into a noble's outfit, and he has to get the others to help him out of his armour. Ocleot just helps Telon, and Vex is disappointed she doesn't ahve anything to change into, until I point out she's a paladin in armour, she looks shiny and majestic as is. She still gets draspher to clean her armour and casts a light spell on her to make her seem more "paladin-y". To her disappointment, he was not able to magic the Armor in such a way to give her cleavage. Yolan meanwhile goes to talk to the driver, and we come up with what kind of offensive Indian accent to give the cab driver (I went with Dopinder from deadpool). We look out of the window, and see various sights, he gives us a verbal tour of the shopping area, the living quarters section and the slums (although even these are more upscale than most cities luxury districts). We discover that there are three magical schools housed in the city, and at this time of year they host a special magical tournament between the three of them. Of course, we all immediately compare it to Hogwarts and the tri-wizard tournament.

As we go though, I reminisce back to my own childhood. I remember how the city used to be much worse, how the new royalty captured hearts and minds of the people and they decided to take it. The city turned on the nobles, and I recall the sound as they started smashing the gate to my home. While I'm getting lost in roleplay memories, the others get distracted about discussing house prices, and the possibility of getting a place here.

We pass through another wall and Ocelot and Vex notice that while the outside is marble, the rest of the wall seems to be granite or some other type of harder rock, with multiple 6' passages running through it. On the other side we see much clearer signs of military activity everywhere, such as unusual metal vehicles that seem to be troop transports of some sort (tanks without turrets). We eventually approach a military Barracs, and the Cabbie pull over and asks for his 2gp payment. Like the responsible leader I am, I throw draspher under the bus for payment. To his complaints I respond with the fact that I don't have a single GP to my name, I spent it all on equipment. Just as he's handing it over, Yolan pipes up, outraged at this rip off price. He exclaims that we are on a royal misssion, and this is how he treats us, the NERVE! So, the cabbie drops it to 1gp, and draspher hands over two. Yolan takes one coin back and berates him for wasting his bargaining, while draspher argues back that he was trying to tip him. The cabbie gets annoyed at this point and kicks us out.

As we get out we take a quick look at the Barracks. There is a large building with an obvious entrance, to one side some smaller buildings that seem to be troop sleeping quarters, and a large training ground to the other. There are many running drill there, some with rifles, some of which stop and stare at the odd group who just came out of the cab, until the drill sergeants yell at them. Vex notices that she's getting a lot more stares than the others for some reason. The longer we stand round, the bigger the crowd gathers staring at us, so I lead us inside to the reception. I quickly introduce ourselves and present the scroll to the receptionist. He immediately pales and runs off and I worry something has gone wrong already.

While we wait, draspher notices something off about the room. To put it simply, he almost feels magically deaf, like he can't feel the flow of magic properly around him. To experiment he decides to create a small rainbow in his hands with prestidigitation. The rainbow immediately fizzles out, and he feels all his clothes shrink on him. He croaks out that something is affecting his magic, even as his voice gets higher and higher in pitch. Yolan meanwhile has become paranoid and jumps over the table to check the hallway. Unable to open the door, he finds its connected to a switch. He has both myself and Ocelot check it for traps and function before pressing it and checking the hallway. Just as he does so we hear footsteps coming down the hallway, and we get back into place. Yolan decides to be extra cautious, draws his mace out and hide behind the doorway, and as an afterthought casts invisibility on himself. Instead of shaping light in such a way as to render himself unseen, instead his spell makes a 110kg black bear appear from nowhere, looking very confused, right in the reception.

Part 3, the bear necessities of a good introduction

Spoiler

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Everyone (including the bear) stand there dumbstruck for a few moments while they process what just happened. Telon quickly moves up to keep the bear calm (it just as confused how it got here as we are) with Vex quickly joining in. draspher stuides it and realises two things. Firstly, there seems to be an anti-magic barrier in place, but it's not strong enough to disable magic but just disrupt it, almost like wild magic. The second thing he realises is that that’s not a summon, that just a bear, meaning that we now have to figure out how to deal with a live bear.

This is the scene the receptionist walks back to this sight. Ocelot quickly assures him we had a slight magical accident, and we'll handle the bear. He comments he just thought it was one of our animal companions, then pails and confused asks why there is a bear. For all my efforts to convince him we should leave them to it and discuss matters in another room, he's fixated on why there's a bear now. I eventually convince him to leave it to Telon, Vex and draspher to handle taking the bear to the stables, while Myself, Ocelot and Yolan come with him to settle the matter. As we go to leave I turn back and tell Vex and Telon to just "deal with it".

draspher starts coming up with ideas on how to deal with the bear. His first thought is to use Mee to put it to sleep, until he remembers the weird magic field, so he thinks Mee's telepathy might work, until he realises that a Pseudodragon probably doesn't speak bear. Finally, he decides to help by going outside and assuring everyone that there's nothing to fear, they've had a little incident with a bear, so if they'd just keep back while they lead him out (despite me warning him that’s a terrible idea). Vex by this point has grown very fond of this bear and is determined to both tame and ride it. Telon starts leading the bear with jerky from his rations. Between him and Vex they get the bear safely outside.

Outside, all drasphers warning have succeeded in doing is gathering a crowd, made up of recruits trying to see what happening and their instructors yelling at them to get back to training. The crowd fall silent in complete bewilderment as two of the strangers bring out a huge black bear out. At this point all the exercises have stopped as even the drill instructors are staring at this odd sight. Telon turns around and yells at the crowd "what? You've never seen someone lead a bear out of a place before?", "only in the gay district" someone shouts back, "what that, I can't hear you, I'm deaf" Telon replies, before getting back to work. They finally lead the bear to the stables, where the Irish stablemaster starts freaking out about the fact that they randomly brought a bear for him to deal with. The guys accent is so thick, Telon immediately passes the conversation over to Vex, unable to even lip-read the guy accurately. She manages to get reassurances that yes, he can look after the bear for now, but one of them is going to have to claim responsibility for it. Telon immedatly pipes us and takes said responsibility:

Stablemaster – wat are ya, Daft?
Telon – no, deaf
Stablemaster – daft?
Telon – deaf!
That goes on for a while.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group follows the receptionist upstairs and down several corridors until they get to an office. He knocks and we hear a voice calling us in. We walk in and see a man in uniform behind a desk. I quickly recognise the markings on the jacket to indicate he's a major as he stands up, goes to shake my hand, then changes his mind and takes his hand away before I can reach out and take it:

Major – greetings, my name is Major Scott. Just to be clear, I run a tight ship and I won't accept any funny business
All of us (both in and out of character) – [break down in laughter]
Major Scott – I don't see whats so funny
Jaune – [still laughing] you have no idea, you poor sod [sobering up] I am so, so sorry, you poor b#####
Major Scott – [frouning] hmmmm
Jaune – if it helps, I found that while they might not be efficient, but they get the job done

I seem to convince him for the time being at least, although he's still ticked off when he finds out from the receptionist what happened with the bear downstairs. He explains that the royal family will be gone on various duties for the next week. Until then, we are quite welcome to stay in the guild bunkhouse onsite. Like he said before, he runs a tight ship and everyone else is busy training recruits so while we have some liberties we are not allowed to disrupt training. He also warns against using magic while on the compound, the guy in charge is super paranoid about that stuff, so he had anti-magic crystals installed in the walls. While they are not strong enough to cancel out magic, they are strong enough to disrupt any magic or spells cast on site in a chaotic fashion, hence the bear. He sends us of the receptionist, Jenkins, and tells us that if we need anything, just ask Jenkins and he'll get it for us.

As we leave, Yolan starts signing to me that the week would be a good opportunity to sell the dragon. I sign back that the week would be a good opportunity to start investigating the entire city and find out everything we can before the actual meeting. Jenkins looks over curious at our signing, and I quickly explain that we have a deaf teammate, and to help communicate we practice our sign language whenever we can. Jenkins actually seems interested in this, and we meet up with the others outside. We get taken to a separate barracks similar to the other, but smaller and with the guild symbol above the door. We step inside and the place is filthy, everything inside being caked in dust. draspher immediately perks up, declaring he's going to use his spells to clean the place up, until all of us shout out warnings, remembering what happened with the bear. The place consists of a large kitchen, a larger room with a planning table, and four bedrooms for sleep. We start to analyse the magic field problems, and realise a big problem. The field will also mess with our magic equipment, including the handy haversacks/bag of storing we use to keep most of our things. While it probably won't permanently ruin them, the bags only seem to work properly 70% of the time, while our other equipment will be dulled, preventing it from giving us magical assistance while in the field.

I quickly plan out what everyone is going to do tomorrow:

• draspher, you go to the magical academies in town. See if you can find a way around the anti-magic field, and also find out what's going on with them at the moment
• Telon, you go to the magic academies and try and make a connection for your monastery (when he asks why, that was only a small detail from backstory I brought up for the training mission I point out 1. yes, I know, but its relevant here and more importantly 2. I don't trust draspher going to the city by himself without the guy who can cast silence on him to keep him in check)
• Yolan, go to town and sell the dragon. While you're doing that, try to make some connections in the business sector
• Ocelot will "clean" the rooms, and by clean, I mean make an appearance of cleaning while setting up a bunch of traps to protect the place. I don't want any obvious to see traps, nor super lethal ones to bystanders, the last thing we need is to kill a bunch of trainees going by and getting killed with claymore mines
• Vex will stay here and start taming the bear. While she's doing that, I want her to scope out the place, try and find out whatever she can and whom we can trust
• I will go investigate the bounty, as well as find out all I can about the royal family to help with meeting them in a weeks' time

Part 4, the wait day 1, part 1, identity crisis

Spoiler

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We wake up and set out on our missions. Yolan points out that handing in the bounty might be troublesome without having proof, so we team up to hand in the bounty. We ask Jenkins who informs us the best place for any kind of bounty work is the mercenary guild meeting hall in town. We both head to town, but thoroughly mess up the instructions he had given us and we find ourselves in the factory district. We quickly ask for directions that take us to the town centre, then follow the signs to the correct place.

We get to a large hall, with Six guild badges above the door, 5 arranged in a row with our own guilds larger on top. We head inside and see several groups around different tables, with even a few familiar ones from the guild there as well. We head over to reception and ask about handing in a bounty. She goes through proceedings, asking for proof of the kill (and more than a little surprised to be presented a mini dragon corpse), checking for authenticity etc. She then asks what name we are handing it in under, but she won't accept Jaune Dupre she wants our guild name. That’s kind of an issue for us, as our GM hasn't come up with one yet, and refuses to let us just call it "the guild of the white lotus" as a reference to avatar as we had been doing previously. After a few minutes back and forth he allows us to just say the name without acting it out. She then asks for our papers, which has both of us panicking until the GM irritably point out that yes, we would have our guild identification on us, despite never telling us or having it written on our sheets. We discover that the bounty was 10000gp, which we choose to keep in a shared guild account for the time being.

(side note, Yolan really doesn't trust me, and we end up having a theoretical match over whether my bluff could beat his detect lies. Turns out inquisitors have it really high)

After that, we split up. Yolan goes around the merchant's section of the city, and quickly identifies what is sold where and who is the best to go visit for various services. I meanwhile try to find out more info about the royal family, but I can't find out any details aside from there well liked. Hitting a dead end there, I do some research on the Dupre name, and try to find out what the city feels about them after the revolution. All I discover is that they have just been kind of forgotten. Some of the older generation might remember them, but they were a smaller part of the things that happened over 30 years ago, at most people might be a little sympathetic that they were on the wrong side.

Part 2, talking magic shop

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Telon and draspher start of their day talking to Jenkins, asking about both the location of the magic academies in town, and the anti-magic defences in the barracks. They don't get that much out of him, in fact the more they talk about magic, the more uncomfortable he gets. He just points them to town, telling them there the large buildings, they can't miss them, and he has no idea about any of the magic stuff, he just works there.

They go out and quickly find signs leading them to the closest academy right in the heart of the industrial sector. As they get closer, they notice a good deal of people in robes, carrying all sorts of specialised tools. draspher immediately latches on the idea that their magical craftsmen. They go inside and meet a friendly receptionist and explain their situation with the barracs and the anti-magic field. She immediately takes pity on the two of them and Telon suspects she's being condescending as she expresses her sympathies for the poor situation there in, she knows the army types really don't like magic around here, but a quick sense motive reveals that she's just a maternal sort.

draspher does his best to try and find any way of countering the field, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way around it. The guild has tried in the past, having sent multiple research groups in but they never have any luck as they can't get permission to stay long enough to make any real progress. The simple matter is the high number of anti-magic crystals in the walls is just too hard to overcome in any simple manner. draspher tries to follow up on wanting to talk to a researcher himself, but unfortunately everyone is busy with the preparations for the games. Instead draspher asks for more detail why they have something like that in place, they seem to be stabbing themselves in the foot equipment wise with this decision. He discovers that the commander is super paranoid about magic and tried to have it blocked entirely on site, but the installation of the crystals went wrong hence the "wild magic" field. That’s also why they can't research it properly as well as he kicks them off before they can "crack" his security.

Telon follows up asking about what's going on with the guilds right now, any unusual activity or developments? While she's only a receptionist she does hear some things, and she comments that there have been a lot of new faces coming in for the "not tri-wizard tourniment" (side note, we all kept making the comparison every time it came up). We also get some more concreate details about the three collages:

• The first collage is the one there currently in, the collage of IO, which specialises in the creation of magic items
• The second is the collage of Sylvain, specialising in the studies of life and negative energy, with a heavy focus on Clerical and Druidic magics. The Collage takes in a good deal of Druids, Rangers, a few wizards and even a Witch coven. They are also more likely to bring in darker mages, having some necromancers but they are not allowed to practice within city limits
• Finally, there is the Collage of Ryanna, specialising in evocation magic. Apparently, they've had a group come in from a city from the coast, Southwater if she recalls correctly.

At the sounds of Southwater draspher shudders, then offhandedly mentions he "knew some guys who caused trouble over there recently" making the group panic that he's giving away too much. I get annoyed as I sent Telon with only one job, to keep an eye on him and stop him doing anything stupid like say confessing he's the mad bomber opening that old chestnut again.

draspher fortunately quickly changes the topic, hoping that the deans or the collage library's will help him with his magic problem, but is informed that the tournament means the deans will be far too busy, while the libraries are restricted to collage members only. Upon asking about a public library instead Vex points out that he of all people should steer clear of library's after what happened last time. His protests that wasn't his fault are for naught anyway, the only libraries in the city are attached to the collages, with no real access for the rank and file. They leave it there and head back

Part 3, chores

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Ocelot spends his day cleaning and preparing traps. He gets out all the pots and pans and with some rope sets up noise traps that make them clatter if anyone tries to get in through a window or open certain doors. He also spots two large partially frosted windows (to prevent people looking in from outside), but their clear at the top and he can see some edges where a sniper could operate from. With his primary task accomplished, he starts his research into new ammo types, using 15 shots worth of gunpowder from his barrel to experiment.

Vex meanwhile has fun training her bear. She does well in the morning, making a breakthrough just before she makes a big fumble, and he's a little irritable by the end of the day. As shes leaving, a stable hand asks her where it came from:

Vex – a Wizard did it
Table – [breaks down laughing, realising the irony that that is actually true]

The stable hand comments that "ya don't want any wizards around here, there not liked". Vex inquiries into that and he explains that the guy in charge really doesn't like magic, that’s why everyone is taught purely martial means of combat while the wizards stick to the collages. Who is he? Why the general of course.

After that we meet back at the barracks for the night. We discuss what we found and make plans for the next day. I will go with Telon and draspher to the Sylvain collage, so I can keep the two on track for what we want out of the collages. Ocelot will join Yolan shopping, while Vex will keep taming the bear and try to ingratiate herself to the cadets. We called it there for the time being.

Days without incident – 1, I am not expecting this to last, I know us
Embarrassments to the guild – 1, the bear
Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 10, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner
Times draspher did good – 3, The enlarge person spell, taking out a dragon, mending train tracks
Times draspher did bad – 2, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick, nearly giving away the groups connection to southwater to a complete stranger
Team members drilled over – 4, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him, draspher and Yolans spells backfiring
Terms confused – 3.5, the guild name, the fact we had papers (.5), the collages, the tournament name

[Draspher]

For those of you who wonder what fumbles is up to don't worry he is happier than ever without draspher.

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https://i.imgur.com/ojDkEwN.gifv

[Romaru Darkeyes]

I genuinely have no words on this. Yolan pulled a Draspher 2 seconds after Draspher pulled a Draspher.

[Romaru Darkeyes]

Also I'm fully expecting the outcome to be this in coming weeks...

[Draspher]

Also I'm fully expecting the outcome to be this in coming weeks...

That's a coincidence this is what im expecting:

[rebelpyroflame]

We start the session off with the GM explaining what's going on in the session. The idea is that the next few days are just downtime before the royalty arrive. So rather than go through it day by day instead he'll talk through what we're doing during the week person to person

Session 24, Day 2-7, part one, you mean like these?

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Ocelot spends his week researching new kinds of bullets. Due to the nature of his advanced bullets he can't just go to the store and buy magic bullets. He could craft masterwork bullets, then go find a wizard to enchant them, but that’s going to take extra effort to track down, hence why he wants to invest in inventing special bullets for his gun.

(Quick aside, the GM has a system in place where we can research anything. He comes up with a number and we have to keep making craft rolls. We add the total of our craft rolls up until we reach the number he set for us, then we've figured out that item. However, if we roll a one then we end up losing part of our progress in the ensuing damage)

For his first project, he goes down to the various blacksmiths in the city. From them he was able to get his hands on some special metal shavings. He spends the next few days carefully smelting the bullets made out of this metal, experimenting with different densities and shapes until, at the end of the week he proudly presents his creation. Five adamantium bullets, each capable of piercing event the thickest and toughest of armours like they were made of hot butter. Yolan takes one look at this masterful creation, then remembers he has some of those already. He needed them for a spell to protect him from gunfire, so he pulls out the 25 adamantium bullets he had on his person, even offering to share 10 with him so there on an even playing field.

Vex meanwhile has spent her week training her bear. She looked up the handle animal rules and decides to teach it "stay first" if only to sit on draspher. Unfortunately, the first part of training an animal is making it friendly, and while she may have ranks in handle animal, she is by no means an animal training master. She flubs most of her rolls and makes no real progress in training the bear. Fortunately, Yolan was looking over her spell sheet and noticed that she had a couple of paladin spells for such an occasion. These help her out a bit with training the bear, and she will be able to give him one or two tricks with another spell so it's not all bad news for her

Part 2, it’s a hard knock life

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OOG draspher has been fretting constantly about the wild-magic field messing him and his ring of sustenance up. He has been coming up with plan after plan to counter the field. These include:

• Using his necklace of adaptation – no it just creates a bubble of air, it doesn't block the wild magic field
• Spending a 4th level spell slot to recharge it – no, it isn't draining the ring, its disrupting it

While this might not seem like much, he has been CONSTANTLY SENDING MESSAGES AND TALKING ABOUT IT EVERY TIME HE SEES ME OR THE GM AND WE HAVE TO EXPLAIN, OVER AND OVER, WHY THAT WON'T WORK. I have chosen to take this as he's constantly bothering everyone all night with plans and ideas about it.

(the sad thing is that it's all based on mishearing the GM. He said that magic items like the ring or the bags of holding have a 70% chance of working, but two failure days in a row for the ring would mean he has to restart attuning the ring)

Upon waking up, I drag draspher over to the Sylvain school. On the way I explain that I'm going to negotiate with the school and have it so he can stay over there. He immediately charges towards the school at that news, burst through the doors and with a roll of 2 loudly cries out "can I stay here, also are your rooms fireproof?". I follow after and start negotiation with the headmaster, and explain "look, he's a problem. We're staying at the barracks and he's going nuts worrying about the anti-magic field up there. Could you take him off our hands for a few days, We'll owe you a favor. Just give him crapwork – he will do the worst jobs, clean cauldrons toilets etc, and thank you for it so long as he can use prestidigitation to do it (draspher started to object, then realised that was true)". I rolled a 1, and still got a 20 total. The headmaster, though a little annoyed at all this is eventually convinces him, the promise of a favour in particular turning him to our side. He does add that if he causes any trouble he's out and not coming back. I leave him there and spend the next few days getting as much underworld connections as I can. By the end of the week I am fully prepared to get any kind of illegal service for us.

draspher meanwhile starts experimenting with the anti-magic crystals with a sample he was able to get from the school. On his first morning there he royally botches it up, and a large bang can be heard throughout the school. A few minutes later, curious students find draspher failing to exit the room as smoke billows out, on account of the large set of antlers sprouting from his head. He spends most of the rest of the day getting said antlers stuck in doorways, knocking off peoples hats and accidently stealing several familiars as he walks past students carrying them on their shoulders. This earned him the nickname "draspher the horned" from many of said students, whom luckily didn't recognise him as the mad bomber despite his hat of disguise not fitting anymore.

Of course, draspher wasn't so irresponsible as to abandon the rest of the group for a week (no matter how much some of us might have wanted him to) so he decides to visit once every three days to catch up. On his third day, after his antlers have fallen off, he walks back through the city not noticing he's gone off the main roads, or that the street he's on is unusually quiet. Suddenly draspher feels something bounce of the back of his head. At the same time someone charges in front of him and smacks him, only for it to bounce off his armour.

Panicking now, he runs out of there reach to the side of the alleyway and tries to dimensional door to his escape, only to find its not working, so he sends Mee to get help. Two more of them run down to block him off, as a third comes after him from behind, only to find his head immune to his blows. One much bigger than the others tries to push past, only to get knocked on his ass. draspher runs to escape, shrugging off blows from the four, but a fifth one trips him up, then clocks him over the head for 5 non-lethal damage as he tries to stand up. He's quickly surrounded by them and they start attacking. As one goes to attack he's shocked that it has flanking on him, and complains that he should have gotten it before:

Jaune – draspher, you can't flank with yourself! If you could, I'd be the most broken character here

One of them goes to grapple him, another joining in but failing to grab due to his flailing arms. he manages to shake him off and he finally gets a good look on his attackers. There all kids, 16 at the oldest, and the one on the floor seems to be wearing an amulet made of the anti-magic crystals. It seems similar to the anti-magic fields we had previously encountered in southwater.

As a couple more move up to cheer, the one who had fallen over (who seems to be the ringleader) gets up, and yells at him to just give them the money and they'll leave him alone, but draspher insists that he doesn't have any, he spent it all. They either don't belive him (who would have thought the guys robbing him wouldn't belive the guy when he says he has no money *gasp* it's unheard off) or they just don't care, and they continue to swing at him. draspher tries to break through there line but fails to get past them.

draspher gets slightly annoyed at being stuck in this situation where he's useless without magic and the GM quickly explains he had this scenario planned alongside a couple of others as a possible event we could have triggered. These guys make a living by waiting for mages to come out of the school and wonder alone before jumping them as they know their easier targets in a fist fight. It could have triggered in a number of ways and the rest of the party would have been fine, but draspher wondered the city alone and managed to trigger it. draspher then gets annoyed and an argument/discussion breaks out amongst everyone about how he does/doesn't look like a mage and what he actually looks like. In the end It's agreed that the fact he's made himself look like a Rasputin like old man in a large cape coming out of the mage school with a dragon on his shoulder looks enough like a mage to count for an attempted mugging.

Yolan and Ocelot come up with an idea to just rip the necklace off that’s blocking his magic. Too bad draspher is trapped against the wall and surrounded on all sides. The ringleader then angrily repeats his line about giving them the money, which draspher still doesn't have. Finally, he comes up with a plan. He grabs a potion of spider climb, ignoring the rain of blows from the kids giving another 10 damage, and then scales the wall behind him, laughing as they try to stop him. This plan is so out of no-where and so impressive the GM forgot that potions weren't supposed to work in the anti-magic field, but he let him have it.

The kids keep throwing stuff at him, and one or two pieces hit him for another 4 damage but theres no way he's coming down now. He runs up to the roof and starts making for the main street. As he's going, he notices some of the kids following him through the side alleys, and he waves to them. As he approaches the main street, he spots Mee leading a group of guards in his direction. One guard irritably asks him if the dragon is his, mainly because Mee's method of getting help was simply to fly over shout out something about someone needing help, biting him and running away. Things are quickly cleared up and the guard explains they've had multiple cases of this, where the kids follow mages out of the schools and get them when there alone. They ask for a description but draspher fumbles his roll something awful and can't remember a thing. Someone points out he has silent image and he tries to help with that, but thanks to the poor previous roll all he produces is a very crude looking stickman covered in stink lines holding ether a sap or a lollypop.

We then find out from the GM that those kids were 9 level 1 commoners. draspher lost half his health to just about the weakest mooks in the game. Heck we also find out that if he had done just about anything (draw his dagger, fight back etc) then they would have run off. He had been expecting at any point for draspher to stand up for himself and they would have run away.

After clearing that up he manages to make his way back to the barracks and tells us what happened. after we stop laughing we simply suggest keeping to the main streets from now on. He goes back to the School the next day and spends the rest of the week without incident. He does manage to discover that scrolls and wands still function under the wild magic field, but when they use their effects they still generate a random occurrence as well as the regular spell. This also confirms my suspicions that thanks to my obscenely high use magic device skill, I am a better caster than draspher. At the weeks end draspher compiles his findings in a journal, makes a few copies and gives one to the school, earning a bit of respect from them.

Part 3, training the days away

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The last members spend their days a bit more productively than the rest of us. Yolan successfully finds a guy who'll prepare and sell the dragon for us, while leaving a little aside for us. He gives us the option of having 1 piece of the dragon each. Vex wants a dragon tooth necklace, draspher wants a dagger made out of either a dragon fang or claw (whatever's better), Yolan wants a sowrd made out of dragon bone while I want a full set of fancy nobleman's cloths made out of dragon scale. Telon also comes up with the idea of using the dragonscales as a basis for a magical communication device of some kind, like a message spell attached to bangles or something similar. The GM approves and a sample is kept to send to Yurian to experiment with. He manages to get 2200GP for the boy in total, which he adds to the reward and keeps as the team kitty. He has also taken to guarding it himself as he does not trust me to look after it one bit.

Speaking of Yurian, Telon receives a delivery from her. It's several barrels, along with a letter and three vials of black liquid addressed to me (Jaune) personally. While he ponders over them he gets on with his chosen activity, training with the guards on the barracks. He does this by helping with the training exercises and quickly makes friends with a good number of the trainees and even some of the veterans take a shine to him as the week goes on. Training with them he discovers many things about them. None of the soldier use magical gear of any kind, the general in charge believing that such things are crutches that should never be used to replace skill, discipline and tactics. Every soldier is trained in tactics to support each other and trained to fight without magic. While there are some members who can and do use magic, everyone has the skills and training to do without.

There are also various groups trained with different tactics in mind. Some use tower shields and longswords, others use basic muskets (not as advanced as ocelots rifle), and many carry multiple swords for different targets (Witcher style). He saw many training with lighter mithril swords, monster killing silver swords and even some with adamantine swords. It seems that they train to prepare for any opponent. It's this rigorous discipline that made us stand out, as we were all in different armours, no conformity or discipline in our appearance or actions. Now of course, they know who we are, and our connection to the guild so there a bit more respect there.

He also hears hints about the barracks secondary purpose. The previous regime focused heavily on spellcasters and magical power, and there has always been the fear that they may try to attack the city. That why the general attempted to install anti-magic crystals in the walls, and though they didn't work as intended, the wild magic field is still invaluable to him in the art of magic disruption. This means the barracks can work as a secondary base and fall-back position should the city come under attack.

Part 4, A royal welcome

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We all meet up at the safehouse and read over the letter from Yurian. The barrels are more of the spring water to keep us going, and the vials are poison Simm milked from herself while wild-shaped. On our behalf she has also been investigating several topics. So far:

• She has found nothing new on the royals, but she did hear a few rumours that part of their army that attacked the city were made up of undead
• She's making headway on the magical com devises, buts she'll need some magic materials (we'll send the dragon bits to her)
• She also keeps seeing the dark figure in her dreams (the one from the mountain) but has had no luck in finding out anything about him
• She's still trying to get all the info about the feast of dust from the Whitewaters
• She's also started developing new magic bullets for Ocelots revolver

It's also the end of the week, so time to get ready for the royal family. Jenkins comes by and explains that we are to be part of the royal welcoming committee. The family will return to the city at noon and then make their tour of the city before returning to the palace. After all other immediate business is done we will meet with the royals directly to discuss things. Throughout this WE WILL NOT BE ALLOWED WEAPONS AND ARMOUR OF ANY KIND. With that he leaves us to plan.

Ocelot and I both decide that, with this mission's importance and the high level of security, my massive sleight of hand skills will not be used to take in weapons, nether will anyone else take armour or weapons. It has also been decided that said sleight of hand skill will now be referred to as "my prison wallet".

We go there the next day, all dressed in our finest, either provided by ourselves or the guards. It's quite the procession, and the security is top notch. Looking out Ocelot can see a variety of counter snipers out keeping an eye on every angle, and Yolan can see all the guards hidden in plain sight thanks to his see invisibility spell. We are all directed to a point just outside the castle and told to bow when the carriage arrives (The GM is worried that at least one of us will Dab).

After much waiting (it was a big tour of the city) we finally hear the cheering of the crowds signalling the approach of the royal carriage. Telon can tell that their reactions aren't forced, they really love these royals, while Yolan can see dozens of guards surrounding the carriage under the cover of invisibility spells and decides to wave at them. The carriage comes through the gates and they slam shut behind them. One of the invisible guys comes over to where we are (probably has to do with Yolan waving condescendingly at them) and we get warned to bow when everyone else does. Problem is Vex is a very heavily combat focused character and has had nothing to sink her teeth/sword into for two sessions. Heck the only combat anyone has seen was draspher, DRASPHER! So, upon getting the order to respectfully bow, she responds "I bow to no-one!". Fortunately for us none of the royals take offence, although the guards seem standoffish but the princess is the one to take notice of her.

Yolan thinks about casting detect good, then realises that everyone around is keeping an eye out for spellcasters and the somatic component will set them off. The royals enter the building, and Yolan laments that it would be so easy for him to jump over there with a dimension door and assassinate them if they were low levelled. Our heroes everyone! He happens to mention this out loud and one guard starts really examining him closely.

After the royals enter, the rest of the guards back off from the crowd and continue their regular duties. One of them goes over to us and takes us to a side entrance. We enter an antechamber and are immediately searched for weapons with some kind of wand/device that draspher realises detects them. It's a really good thing that I, family member of part of the old regime, was not fond with weapons and armour while attempting to meet the royal family, or it could have ended really badly.

Ocelot quickly signs to the rest of the group to not mention the coup. One guy starts panicking, but luckily it wasn’t that he could read the sign language, he just thought he was a wizard casting a spell. We then get taken to a room with food and drink and told to wait. We're kept for 2-3 hours in there. Ocelot sets up a cup and starts playing dunk shot with grapes from across the room. Yolan bothers the guards every 5 minutes asking "are they here yet?" And draspher gets frustrated they keep us waiting like this. The rest of us explain that we must not be there immediate concern, and there must be other things they have to deal with first. Yolan casts see invisibility again, and he sees invisible guards all over the place.

After ages of waiting we finally see a guard come up to us and take us to the meeting room. Yolan stealthily warns us that there are invisible guards everywhere. We finally get told to wait in an office. From a door we see ninja-san and the King himself enter. We are introduced to the king and he idly mentions that I look familiar. I deflect for the time being just mentioning my family has history with the city.

draspher immediately pipes up to get things started and gets shot down. This is enough to get the king to remember his face from all those posters, he's that mad bomber person, right? Ocelot takes over and explains what happened in our investigation, which is just going around the city making connections. The kings not impressed, asking "is that it?". draspher proudly adds that he got attacked by nine kids! The king confused asks if he thinks there involved.

Yolan then realises that there are still a bunch of invisible guards in the room and asks if they are allowed to hear all this. Both the king and ninja-san are shocked at this news. They are quickly sent to another room and told they'll be updated and drafted to the cause.

The king then tries to get down to business and asks us about Southwater. He shoots down drasphers attempts to talk about what happened, he's more interested in what we found out. The GM finds out that no-one remembers anything we found. Telon (who in character wasn't there) is the closest to remembering:

Telon – I remember there was that one guy in charge, he had a name like a bird. I remember because it was a cool one

Jaune – I think it was Penguin

Telon – No, it was cooler

[about 5-10 minutes later]

Jaune – QUINN! It was Mr Quinn!

[GM/The king looks at all of us with disappointment/irritation we once again forgot the important details]

The king isn't too happy to hear this. Mr Quinn happens to be the biggest and most profitable businessman in the city. either A. He's involved, or B. someons is setting him up. Either way doesn't look good for the situation. draspher also then pops up with the idea the kids are involved, and volunteers to go after them personally. I come up with a plan:

• Telon and draspher will go after the kids. They probably have connections to the city underworld, they might know something, and could be of use as agents later on
• Telon and Vex are new to the group, so they will approach Mr Quinn from the legal side, finding out as much about his business as possible
• Ocelot and I will approach this from the Underworld angle, find out about the criminals in the city and try to see what we can find out

Ocelot is curious about one thing though. Why is our guild so prominent in the city. We find out the king used to be an adventurer, and our guildmaster was one of his companions. That’s why the Arkenstone guild (the GM finally came up with a name for it, which is to say I came up with the name and he liked it) is so prominent. Also, yes, he is aware he is a dragon, something that Ninja-san has a double take at. I swear since we found out his names is Bernard he's become so much less badass, Yolan spotted the invisible guards and we found out his bosses' secret before him.

With that out of the way, the King says that we'll be assigned to the security detail, so we will be allowed armour and weapons in the palace. With that happy news, we end it there

Days without incident – 7, I am not counting draspher getting muged, but the fact he and Telon (who is becoming increasingly chaotic since we betrayed Yolan) I am expecting this to come to an end soon

Embarrassments to the guild – 5, the bear, draspher getting mugged, draspher growing antlers in a magic school, meeting the king (2)

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 10, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner

Times draspher did good – 3, The enlarge person spell, taking out a dragon, mending train tracks

Times draspher did bad – 6, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick, nearly giving away the groups connection to southwater to a complete stranger, the antlers, getting mugged, announcing he was mugged by kids, announcing he was going after kids to beat the crap out of them

Team members drilled over – 6, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him, draspher and Yolans spells backfiring, draspher getting mugged

Terms confused/forgotten – 4.5, the guild name, the fact we had papers (.5), the collages, the tournament name, mr Quinn link